Now that many of us have spent the majority of 2020 inside, spending hours engaging with our devices feels like less of a distraction from our everyday lives, and more of a way of holding on to some sense that everyday life. In a time when we are unable to see as many people or do as many things as we’d like, we’re seeking solace in the most ubiquitous connection we have - the internet. It has everything, doesn’t it? A way to chat with friends, a means of working from home, inspirational videos to get us motivated to learn a new skill while we’re stuck at home, and silly videos to laugh at while we wallow in depression when we fail to make any progress with that new skill.
While we’re currently spending around 4 hours per day using various apps on our phones, for the purposes of this article, we’re just going to be looking at the social media side of things, which apparently amounts to an impressive average of 2.5 hours of usage every day.
Why do we use social media?
Back in 2009, a large-scale study showed social media users’ reasons for wanting to be on social networking sites. The most-cited reason for usage was making new contacts (31%), and interestingly, only 21% of the responses claimed that keeping in touch with existing friends was the most important reason for using social media. If you were a member of social network in 2009, you may well remember that the landscape was very different; Facebook had only just introduced the Like button, Twitter users had barely even heard of a hashtag, and Instagram hadn’t even been invented yet. A lot has changed.
These days, we’re all well aware of the newly-realised dangers that social media can have on our mental health, and, despite the pandemic, Facebook has seen a decrease in users, but all the other major networks are currently holding strong as serious holders of our attention.
The rise of doom-scrolling
The primary source of our mindlessness when using social media is the scroll feature. The newly-coined term ‘doom-scrolling’ perfectly encapsulates the use of a technology that web developers call ‘continuous scroll’. In a time where, let’s be honest, most of us are thoroughly glued to our technology, continuous scroll is what allows us to get that next little hit, that thing we’re craving - more content. A simple pull down with a thumb on a phone; a gentle drag with a fingertip on a trackpad. That’s all it takes to reveal more. More conversation, more tweets, more images, more links, more videos, more things to look at. The internet is one giant, self-filling bowl of M&Ms that tells us “go on, just one more. You’ll like it, it’s sweet.” And with every morsel, the sugar hits our brains and our brains say back “oh yes, that’s the good stuff.”
We’re no longer in control of our feed.
Perhaps back when all these sites first came about and there weren’t many users, the only people we were following online actually were just people we knew in real life. But the average Facebook user now has 338 Facebook friends, even though roughly 39% of those are people they’ve never met in real life. Active Twitter users follow an average of 457 accounts (and even mostly inactive users follow an average of 74 accounts). Results from a sampling of Instagram users showed that the average user follows over 800 other accounts.
But you choose who you follow, right? All the things you see on your social media are things you choose to see, right?! Nope! When we’re having fun following funny accounts and chatting with friends on these free apps, it’s easy to forget that there are huge companies behind the scenes pulling the strings, sneaking in promoting posts that look like something you already follow. And even though we’re not paying with money to use these apps, we’re paying with something else: our attention. And now that many of the big social networks have incorporated a method of showing things on your feed about what your friends are Liking or commenting on, it’s adding to your feed things that you didn’t ask to see. It’s just another way that they’re adding more noise to your mix. You didn’t ask for it, but it keeps you scrolling.
We’re fighting a battle for our own attention… and we’re losing.
Ever found yourself losing track of time while you scroll and scroll and scroll? Or picked up your phone to do something, but automatically opened Facebook or Instagram and totally forgot what you had initially meant to do? Yep, it happens a lot. And maybe you’re feeling completely fine about your relationship to social media. If you are, then feel free to stop reading here, I won’t be offended! But if you are one of the people who feels as though your social networks are a drain on your motivation or your positivity, then hopefully the rest of this article will give you some ideas to mull over.
Reclaim your mental space
Consider deleting the apps from your phone. Reclaiming mental space from social media starts with reclaiming some phone space. We’re not talking about de-activating accounts, just making it a little less easy to open apps at any moment you’re not occupied. Many people have this way of app-cycling - when one app doesn’t provide us with the immediate hit we were looking for (a message, a comment on our post, a new follow, etc), we close that app and switch to another and we do some Likes and updates there, and then move to the next app. By the time we’ve made it through the cycle, it’s time to start again and see if there have been any comments or reactions to the updates we just made, and the cycle repeats. By removing apps from your phone and making a point to only use the networks while you’re at a computer, it could help break the feeling of needing to constantly check the device that you always have with you.
Purge your follows. It’s so easy to go on a following spree every now and again. But if it’s been a while since you evaluated all the accounts you follow, it’s worth checking out. If you’re following a few hundred accounts, it’s very likely that you barely even see updates from many of them (and you have the algorithms to thank/blame for that. Basically, the more accounts you follow, the lower the likelihood that you’ll see posts from all of them). So go through and see who you’re actually following. Here are some questions to consider while you do this:
Is this a person whose updates you’re actually interested in?
Is this a person you followed as a courtesy because they followed you (ie a rediscovered high school connection, someone you used to work with)? Are they still following you? If they already unfollowed you, maybe you feel ok about unfollowing them too.
For celebrity accounts - does this celebrity post content relevant to why you like them? For example, maybe it’s a musician that you like, but most of what they post on their Instagram is recipes that you may not want to make. If that doesn’t interest you, you could unfollow their Instagram and instead connect with them in a way that’s more about the music, ie following them on Spotify, or signing up for their mailing list.
For brand accounts - do you remember following this account? Did you follow them with intention, or were you just entering a contest and one of the requirements was that you had to be following five affiliated accounts. It might seem like brands are just giving you pretty pictures to look at, but remember that they are only ever trying to sell you stuff. If you don’t want to buy what they’re selling, you can probably unfollow. Following strangers is also a tactic that influencers use: they follow you to get you to follow them back, and then they unfollow you and hope you won’t notice.
Ask yourself how the content you’re seeing makes you feel. Maybe you have a great-aunt who’s always posting questionable memes on Facebook, or you have a colleague who ‘grams sixty pictures of their kids a day, and you’re worried that unfriending them will cause friction. Don’t be afraid to use the mute feature. That way, you’ll still have the connection there, but you won’t have to constantly see the things they post.
Think before you air your grievances on the internet. It might seem like angry-tweeting or facebook-ranting is just a way to get something off your chest, but we all know that writing something on your social media isn’t a one-and-done type of thing. Every time someone interacts with that post, you might be more likely to more deeply entrench yourself in the associated emotions:
About to share something that made you angry? Ask yourself why. Why do your followers need to know that you’re angry right now? Will it help you feel less angry? Will it undo the thing that made you angry? What do you hope will come from sharing this - do you want other people to feel angry too?
Following someone you don’t like/don’t agree with, and you can’t help but post disapproving comments in response? Are you following a politician you don’t care for, and all you do is respond to their tweets with insults? Ask yourself why you’re following that person in the first place. If they have hundreds of thousands of followers, they’re not even seeing your response. And even if they are somehow going to notice yours, is a short insulting tweet or offensive meme going to change their viewpoint or actions? Is this a productive or beneficial use of your time, your energy, or your emotion?
Do you feel bad about your social media usage, and wish you were doing something else? Firstly, please remember that social media addiction is very real. If your addiction is at a point where it’s negatively affecting your offline life, or you feel an unshakeable, constant urge to use social media, or if you already have a mental health issue such as depressive or anxiety that is made worse by your social media usage, you could consider speaking to a therapist. Even if your usage doesn’t feel like a full-on addiction but is still a bad habit, you can try a few methods to wean yourself off it.
Make it easy to do something else. Want to read more books? Keep a book with you! Every time you feel the urge to check your phone, take a breath, put the phone down, and pick up the book.
Leave your phone out of arm’s reach. We’re at a point where we tend to carry our phones everywhere. Do you take your phone with you to the kitchen while you’re making tea? Leave it in the living room. Watching a film but keep getting the urge to pick up your phone? Put it in another room for the duration of the movie. By setting up these small ways to distance ourselves from the phone, we can start to interrupt the urge/response cycle.
Mindfulness and social media may not seem like something that go together, but by applying the principles of mindfulness to the way we use our social networks, we can start to look at them in a way that benefits us, and use them as a tool for genuine connection and entertainment rather than a habitual distraction from the present.