Ways to minimize your social media use - And its productivity benefits.
Social media addiction is one of the most common disorders in the world, yet it's one disorder that people hardly pay attention to, or even recognize as a problem, especially here in Nigeria.
Research has shown that people spend on average 147min each day on social media and about 210 million people suffer from social media addiction worldwide, without even realizing it.
It has also been confirmed that youths and teenagers have the highest rate of social media addiction in the world. So how can you reduce the use and tame the excess use of social media and its negative effect n our well-being and on the nation as a whole?
5 Ways to minimize /control your social media use
- Set a reminder to take a break
- Develop other hobbies of interest to you
- Learn to take a break once in a while
- Hide apps that are not important addition to your phone
- Change your display to a gray pixel/ greyscale
1. Set a reminder to take a break
To break the habit of excessive social media use, you have to be intentional about it, setting timely reminders and agreeing to the specific time set that you will follow strictly is a good way to start.
You can do this with your phone, tablet, laptop, or smartwatch, not only will this make you disciplined, the sense of fulfillment you would feel would be next to none. How can you set a reminder you might ask?
2. Develop other hobbies of interest to you
Always having our phones has made us forget what life is like outside our phones, the joy of doing things we love with the people we care about. Finding new things to do that peaks our interest is a way of getting back into the redeem, examples being
- Going to the gym
- Reading books/ comics
- Shearing meals with family
- Going on dates with friends
and just having fun, reminds us of what we are missing out on.
3. Taking a break once in a while
Taking breaks once in a while can help decompress and relieve the stress of the world on your body, once in a while, just take a break, turn off your data, keep your phone and just relax for a day or 2, the relieve and calmness you would experience would be out of this world.
When your friends ask why they haven’t seen you online or why your social media presence has been inactive and you tell them you just took a couple of days off to slow down and cool off, they will be blown away by your restraint and you would feel like the undisputed boss that you are, trust me, I know
4. Hide apps that are not important additions to your daily life
Our phones can rapidly become a closet filled with junk, in form of apps that we no longer have use for, so take your time and go through your phone to delete unused apps, effectively reducing the number of notifications you get daily and reducing the urge for you to scroll, or you can just straight up hide the apps if you know there is a possibility of them being used in the future.
5. Change your display to a grey pixel/greyscale
Research has shown that just like how colors attract insects, birds, and moths, humans are also attracted to the colors we see, meaning, if you make your devices display black and white, the attraction subsidies. This is a tried and tested technique that works.
Conclusion
All the methods stated here have been tested and they work, if you are being serious about controlling your screen time issues, and I know you are, because why else would you be here if not, apply all these techniques and see the improvements
Cheers!!