Personally, I’ve always been a huge social media user.
I was a young high school student at the golden age of MySpace and MSN Messenger, and I greeted Facebook and Twitter with open arms as they were invented.
I went through an intense, emotionally-charged affair with Tumblr during its heyday (if you know, you know), and I jumped onboard with Instagram and Snapchat as well, soon after their invention.
I was part of that first generation of “If my social activities aren’t documented on social media, then did they really happen?”
At university I studied media, and revelled in the power growing social media had to spread information and positive news around the world.
I jumped straight from university into a career in journalism, where social media not only helped me find stories to write about, but to share the news pieces I produced.
After a few years of journalism, I was promoted to Digital Producer of the newspaper I worked for, and started handling the social media handles and website. Being on social media was now my JOB.
I had also begun my own hobby blog, along with a YouTube channel and social media accounts for it, at some point along the way.
When I moved to the UK from Australia, while I stepped away from journalism, social media was still prominent as ever in my life.
It became my connection with my friends and family back in my home country – My way of sharing my new life with them, and my way of feeling like I was still a part of theirs.
In the current landscape, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been more attached to social media than ever during the Coronavirus Lockdown.
It’s safe to say, since it’s invention, I’ve used social media A LOT.
I’ve always been a huge supporter of it too, relaying the positive ways social media can be used whenever conversation is turned to how social media was simply “negative”.
It’s not that I denied the negative, I definitely always agreed that there were some aspects of social media which weren’t ideal, and, used in certain ways, could be damaging to users.
I just also strongly believed that social media, used right, can be a fantastic tool for the world. I still do. I don’t believe that social media is, at its core, only a bad thing.
The Problem
However, in most recent years I have definitely come to analyse social media and my own wholehearted embracing of it.
Things came to a head recently regarding my relationship with social media.
Following the birth of my daughter, I have spent a lot of time couch bound while breastfeeding, or trapped under her while she napped on me (“nap trapped”), as she didn’t like to sleep in her bassinet (still doesn’t).
That meant there has been a LOT of time I’ve found myself mindlessly scrolling through social media, as my phone was in reach while I was stuck in this position.
On the other hand though, when my daughter was awake (and demanding my full attention whenever she was, as babies do) , I found myself insanely frustrated when messages would pop up from contacts who seemed (in my jumbled head) to have no understanding that I was also trying to take care of a baby.
For some, if I didn’t respond right away, I could see they’d send another message, despite the app showing that I had not yet read the first.
They, of course, didn’t mean anything bad by it – simply wanting to check in on me, and were used to my quick replies in previous times or from those occasions when I did have my daughter asleep on me.
But when you’ve got a screaming baby in one arm and you’re still trying to respond to messages – that don’t seem particularly important at that very minute (with a similar feel to chatting about the weather with strangers in an elevator) – because you don’t want to upset anyone by not replying, it’s tough.
I was getting increasingly frustrated and, yes, irrationally angry at well-meaning contacts because I had no desire to be constantly “available” online anymore.
I wanted to be able to use social media still, but I didn’t want to be at it’s mercy.
My relationship with social media at this point was obviously very hot and cold from my end.
Basically: when my daughter was asleep it was all systems go with social media. When she was awake, every social media notification would give me the urge to through my phone at the wall.
Hot and Cold
This intense yo-yoing of emotions for me was no doubt made worse by my mental health state – I’m currently receiving help for Postnatal Depression and Anxiety, as many of you already know if you’ve been reading my blog – but what to do about it, was the question.
When I checked on my iPhone’s Screen Time feature, I found I was spending what equaled up to hours each day on Facebook and Instagram, though I hadn’t even realised it – but thinking about all that time scrolling whilst nap trapped, it made sense.
I felt spectacularly uneasy about that and straight away found other ways to spend my time whilst in this position: Reading, mainly – I’d already made a different resolution to not have the TV on during the daytime apart from the morning news.
However I still noticed I was spending a lot of time on social media, despite this change.
I’ve heard of so many people doing a social media detox, but I knew that wasn’t for me – living in a different country to my family and so many good friends from the first 26 years of my life, social media is the only way I stay in contact with them.
I wouldn’t be able to simply cut it out of my day completely.
However, I decided to give myself social media limits, to see how that turned out.
Limiting My Usage
For the last few weeks, I gave myself an hour limit each day on social media: usually 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening.
That’s for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, as well as the social media accounts for this blog.
The first day, I felt anxious a while after logging off for the morning, like I was going to miss something. I felt my fingers gravitate towards the Facebook icon on my iPhone.
I had to work hard to stubbornly ignore the notifications that popped up on my phone (in the end, I turned them all off apart from direct messages on Facebook).
But somewhere over the few days after that, it became so much easier. I realised I wasn’t missing out on anything at all.
I felt more free, not weighed down with all the information from posts I didn’t actually care to know about, but only saw before because I was scrolling for so long.
Now, in my short amount of time on social media each day, I really only see posts from the people I most interact with, therefore the posts I most care about seeing.
I’m not bogged down by useless and most likely negative news and posts from far off people and places that don’t enrich my knowledge, but I still get the chance to soak in the news and current affairs that do interest me.
For those few people that messaged me directly often and usually got a quick response before, I let them know I was taking a small step away from social media in an effort to stop them getting angry at me when I didn’t respond to their messages straight away.
I still struggle with feeling guilty over that, as this stance is so different for them from me, after having been so “available” online for so long.
But I’m trying to remember that if they’re unhappy about that, its not my problem to take onboard, and that this is what is best for my wellbeing.
The Result
While it’s hard to judge, since I’m still not in the best place mentally anyway, I do think this social media limitation has indeed had a positive benefit on my mental health.
Not just for keeping me limited on the sometimes non-enriching, or outright negative information social media can bring to the metaphorical doorstep of ones brain, but because I’m using that time that I would otherwise have been mindlessly scrolling in other ways.
Mostly reading, but also brainstorming and writing (or attempting to) blog posts for this website in my Notes app, among other activities.
I’m more present for my baby daughter, most importantly, not feeling the need to try to respond to messages from others ASAP anymore.
These days, I don’t even use the full hour I’ve allowed myself each day sometimes. And sometimes I’m right on the line, but either way: I’m glad to have made this change.
I feel like it’s a positive step for me towards a more healthy and productive mindset.
And while I’ll never give up social media completely, for reasons I’m sure you can understand from above, I feel like backing away this little inch will do wonders for me in the long run.
I feel more productive already, and feeling more productive means I feel more accomplished, which means I feel a bit less bad about myself, and therefore a little bit better mentally.
Have you ever given up social media or put in place limits for yourself? Let me know in the comments below.