*Disclaimer: This is based on my experience, so take everything a grain of salt. You know yourself the best, so do what makes you comfortable ❤.
Social media was the first thing I checked when I woke up and the last thing I checked when I went to bed. Whenever I had free time, I would check social media. It wasn’t even a conscious decision; suddenly, I would be aimlessly scrolling. A five-minute break would turn into hours of mindless scrolling.
There would be some days when my screen time would be close to ten hours and the majority would be spent on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. My screen time was always high, but it especially increased during the pandemic. During the pandemic, I slept for, hopefully, six to eight hours; virtually went to work and school, and did homework, which totaled eight hours, leaving eight to ten hours for everything else. So you are telling me, I spent all ten hours of my free time scrolling on social media? Where was the time for journaling, exercising, or mindfulness?
Not taking care of my mental health, physical health, and spiritual health, took a toll on my overall being during the pandemic. I was constantly comparing myself and my life to people’s picture-perfect lives. I know now that social media connect is faked, posed, and staged, but it was so hard to recognize this when I was stuck in the social media black hole. At some points, I wouldn’t even want to scroll, but it is so easily accessible; with one click, I could access whatever, whenever. With just time on my hands and nothing to do, it led me to scroll and compare. It truly took over my life and I was so emotionally exhausted. I wasn’t able to appreciate my life with constant comparison. I decided I needed to change. These are the steps I took:
Setting Personal Boundaries
The main reason I felt so emotionally exhausted when overusing social media was that I was overstepping a boundary I didn’t realize I had nor needed to set. To understand this boundary, I needed to better understand myself and my emotions.
What feelings are you having?
For me, an indication of a boundary being overstepped is by experiencing increased negative emotions. Recognizing that I was experiencing negative emotions helped me understand that something I was doing wasn’t serving me. Overall, I was emotionally exhausted.
What is contributing to these feelings?
Now that I could identify my feelings, I could reflect on what could be causing them. I felt emotionally exhausted because I was constantly putting myself down because of social media. Because these emotions were constantly negative, my social media consumption wasn’t serving me.
What do boundaries look like to you?
Boundaries look and feel different for every person, but to me, my boundaries are expectations and rules that I set, to protect my emotional wellbeing. Boundaries can simply be: not going out when my social battery feels low, not continuing a conversation when the other party is yelling, or not answering work emails on the weekend.
My boundaries steam from my values. A great way to figure out what your values are is by using this website. Once I could understand what was important to me, I could see if the choices that I was making aligned with these values. One of my core values is respect. When I was scrolling on social media and, consciously or subconsciously comparing myself, I wasn’t showing myself respect. I wasn’t respecting my need for a break nor my right to individuality.
How can I respect these boundaries?
Boundaries aren’t just expectations or rules set for other people; it is important to set and follow personal boundaries. Setting personal boundaries lays the groundwork for friendship, professional, and relationship boundaries.
The boundaries I set for myself were limiting my social media time and challenging my negative self-talk. To respect my social media limits, I made sure to use screen times, delete social media apps and/or my social media accounts. Additionally, whenever I felt myself having thoughts that criticized my body or my appearance, I tried to challenge these thoughts.
I would ask myself:
- Am I falling into a thinking trap? Being able to take a step back and critically think about my thought process allowed me to recognize that my negative thoughts were not reality. Thoughts are not facts.
- Do society’s beauty standards and expectations align with my values? I was so focused on trying to fit into society’s standards of beauty and success that I didn't evaluate if I agreed with it. Realizing that I didn’t agree with society’s ideals allowed me to spend more energy on understanding what I valued and how I could embody them.
- What are aspects of myself that I appreciate? I was so focused on who I wasn’t that I didn't appreciate who I am. Every single person has good qualities about them, and it is important to celebrate your own.
And reminding myself that:
- Just because someone else is beautiful, doesn’t mean I am not. Reminding myself that beauty is not relative helped me not compare myself to other people. Beauty and validity do not go in the presence of other beauty and validity.
- Social media is not reality. People might seem perfect on social media, but that doesn’t mean in life they are. Frankly, no one is perfect, and putting someone on a pedestal is unfair to them and yourself.
- I am that b*tch. Owning my individuality has empowered me to accept myself and be more confident. To me, true confidence is being comfortable being myself and being proud of that person. I didn’t need to put other people down to build myself up. Comparing became obsolete.
Using Screen Time Settings
Being that my daily screen time average was about ten hours, I knew it wasn’t feasible to have a screen time average of an hour. I wanted to make small steps towards lowering my screen time. I started by aiming to make my screen time under eight hours. Even though eight hours still seemed like a long time, it was a challenge, because social media is readily accessible. I had to work for this goal because it protected my boundaries. Even though it was hard at first, eventually it became easier. I started to feel less attached to social media. I still, of course, used my phone, but I was using it when I genuinely wanted to.
Another way to limit time on social media is by using screen time limits. It’s really hard to go cold turkey, so setting screen time limits can be helpful to stay mindful. There’s no good or bad amount of time; it is just important to gauge how you feel. If you start to have negative feelings, reflect on how many hours you spent on social media. Try to determine a reasonable maximum time limit that won’t exceed your emotional availability. This can help protect your energy and prevent emotional exhaustion.
(iPhone users can check their screen time settings here. Android users can check their screen time settings here. Samsung users can check their screen time settings here).
Deleting Accounts and Social Apps
Depending on my overall mental health and boredom, my ability to respect my boundary of limiting social media screen time would vary. Sometimes, I just couldn’t help myself. To combat this, I would delete social media apps entirely. I would be less tempted to randomly scroll when the app was deleted. Eventually, I became less dependent on social media to fill the boredom and deleted certain social media accounts because I realized they were not serving me.
How to Fill the Time
Having free time but no way to fill it can lead to increased social media use. I spent so much time on social media that I realized that I didn't know who I was or who I wanted to be. I wasn’t taking care of my mental health and didn’t appreciate what was around me.
Get to Know Yourself
I was so busy focusing on who I wasn’t that I didn’t value myself. I tried to “better” myself in superficial ways. I never took the time to critically think about my interests, hobbies, or passions. This extra free time allowed me to explore who I was and who I wanted to grow into.
I spent all my time judging myself and other people which perpetuated a system of oppression. Social media values whiteness, skinniness, and hyper-consumption, all of which don’t represent my values. First, I had to understand what I valued before I could acknowledge that there was a disconnect. Then, I determined which of my choices aligned with my values and which did not. Living more aligned with my values provided an overall sense of peace and decreased the cognitive dissonance that I previously felt.
When I wasn’t focused on what other people were wearing or doing, I could explore my style and interests. I never felt comfortable in my own skin until I started dressing for myself. Obsessively keeping up with trends and buying fast fashion made me feel like I was someone else. For the first time, in a long time, I dressed and expressed myself how I wanted to. It truly was liberating.
After I stopped using social media, I could explore podcasts and obscure YouTube videos. I realized that I loved to cook, write, and be mindful. If it wasn’t for taking a step back from social media, to understand and explore myself, I would not be writing this.
Taking Care of Your Mental Health
I never took the time to reflect, journal, or be mindful, because I spent all my free time doing something that was so easy and took no effort. I’m not going to lie; reflecting, journaling, and mindfulness takes effort. I found, though, that the work was worth it and served me better than scrolling on social media did.
Journaling has allowed me to have an outlet when I need to rant, think out a situation, or challenge my negative self-talk. Always comparing myself has had me adopt unrealistic standards of beauty and success. Comparing myself to people that seemed perfect, made me feel inadequate. Journaling allowed me to affirm myself and increase my positive self-talk, which helped build confidence. I also used confidence-building workbooks. While workbooks and journaling might seem corny, they have been beneficial because it requires me to take time for myself and appreciate myself.
With a clearer and more positive headspace, I could recognize that I needed to go to therapy to work on my overall mental health. Unfortunately, in our society, it is a privilege to be able to go to therapy. While I believe everyone should go, I recognize that it is not always possible and there are many barriers. If you have the privilege of being able to go to therapy, it can be extremely helpful with understanding your feelings, setting boundaries, and building confidence.
Enjoy the Little Things
Just because I didn’t want to be on my phone for social media use, that didn’t mean I didn’t have to be on it at all. I started to figure out ways to be more present and I realized that I love taking photos of just the little pops of color around me. Life can feel dull and mundane, so taking photos of my surroundings, helped me be more present at the moment, switch my perspective, and find beauty in the mundaneness.
I spent more time with friends and participating in conversations. Many times when I would be hanging out with people, I would be half participating in the conversation and half scrolling on social media. Even though I was participating in the conversation, I wasn’t really present. Being able to focus just on the moment has made me feel more invested in conversations and appreciate the person I was conversing with.
Before I would go places with the sole purpose of taking photos for social media. Being able to enjoy going places without the pressure to document it for other people, has allowed me to do things for myself and have more autonomy over my decisions.
Remember to be Gentle with Yourself
It is a hard process, to confront a habit that is not serving you, so remember to be gentle with yourself. This process might not be linear. Some days you might spend a lot of time on social media, not feeling good about yourself, even though you have been trying not to. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but as long as you give yourself grace, appreciate yourself for trying, and stay dedicated, change will come.
Thank you for reading. I hope you come by again! Stay well and live authentically.
with love,
Emma ❤
