Surviving Social Media: Beat Your Social Media Addiction

Social media addiction is a behavioral addiction that is defined by being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas. – “Addiction Center”

Whether you’re connecting with friends and relatives on social media, watching videos and or just scrolling. Over the past decade, the popularity of social media has dramatically risen.

Although the majority of individuals use social media without problems, there is a tiny proportion of those who are dependent upon social networking sites as their only source of enjoyment. 

Let’s look at some of the signs of social media addiction to better understand how to deal with the issue.

Signs Of A Social Media Addiction

• If being without your phone or internet, and the idea of not being able to use social media for an extended period makes you feel uncomfortable, you may have a social media addiction.

• In the morning, the first thing you do is check social media. Not only in the morning but when you get home from work/school or at any other moment during the day when you have spare time. If reaching for your phone is your first reaction, you probably have an unhealthy relationship with social media.

• You monitor the performance of your postings on a regular basis. It’s a different story whether you’re a company owner experimenting with social media techniques or an influencer for whom social media is only a means to an end.

• You begin to ignore your obligations or skip your hobbies because you no longer enjoy them. When significant physical activities become less important, it’s a definite indicator that our social media addictions have taken over our lives.

Interesting Read: A Social Media Essay on its Pros and Cons

Before we go into how to overcome social media addiction, let’s take a look at some important social media addiction statistics that highlight how severe this problem is.

Social Media Addiction Statistics 

According to “mediakix,” 210 million individuals worldwide suffer from some sort of internet and social media addiction. According to these studies, the issue is only going to grow worse.

While children all around the globe are known for their excessive use of social media, “famemass” studies show that American teenagers hold the record, spending an average of 9 hours per day on various social media platforms.

Teens who spend more than 5 hours a day on their cellphones are twice as likely to develop depressive symptoms. A study was undertaken by “mediakix”.

In terms of the negative effects and risks of social media, studies show that when cellphones initially became popular, there was an immediate increase in depressive symptoms, suicide risk factors, and rates among teenagers. 

A new social media addiction research by “NPR” found that 71 % of teenagers who spend more than 5 hours a day on social media are more likely to commit suicide than their peers who ‘socialize’ for an hour or less.

Because social media addiction is not something to be taken lightly, we’ve put together a list of tips that you must follow yourself if you’re facing this issue or share it with someone who is a victim of social media addiction. 

Food for thought: Snapchat streaks are just a multi-million dollar corporation’s way of making a user go back to its app every day to maintain a number against their friends’ name. Ask yourself, does a number define the intensity of your friendship with someone? Or is it just a blank screen snap with no context was sent just to keep the streak going? Is this just helping pile on to my social media addiction?

How To Beat Social Media Addiction?

With so many individuals suffering from social media addiction, we thought we’d take the initiative to compile a list of a few things people may do to assist themselves overcome their addiction.

First of all, the most important thing is limiting our time spent on social media. Inculcating some sort of self-discipline in terms of how much time you’re spending on Facebook and Twitter can really help.

And, because we know how tough it is to get rid of social media addiction once it has taken hold of you, let’s have a look at some of the methods you may take to assist limit your level of addiction.

Top 8 Effective Ways To Beat Social Media Addiction

1. At least once or twice a week, have a “Social Media Free” day. It might be a Saturday/Sunday when you have the most leisure time or a Monday when you have the most work. 

2. If blocking out a whole day seems too tough, set aside at least three hours each day when you don’t access any social media platforms. It may be difficult at first, but trust me when I say you’ll love it.

3. However, if you find it difficult to look away from your phone screen, there are a few apps and websites that may be of assistance.

4. Apps like Offtime, Space, and AppDetox (available exclusively on Android) keep track of your device usage and allow you to establish limitations on certain apps, such as social media and gaming. Some of their tactics are so aggressive that even turning off your phone will not stop them.

5. Disable all alerts on your social media platforms. You might be wondering how that would help. It’s actually rather easy. The fundamental objective of all social media sites is to keep you interested for as long as possible.

If you don’t check your social media accounts for a few hours, you’ll receive notifications about your friend’s newest posts or story updates. This is the app’s technique of luring you in.

6. There are also more traditional techniques for kicking your social media addiction to the curb. For example, when it’s time to sleep, put your phone away from you or turn it off when you’re chatting with friends and family.

7. Follow educational accounts and by that, we don’t mean accounts that will teach you math equations (unless you’re into that, good for you). Accounts like NowThis or Times Of India won’t spam your feed, but what they post will definitely teach you something new.

8. You can try to make your time on social media more effective by following the steps outlined above. You may share inspirational quotes, statistics, or anything you’ve recently learned with your friends.

Here are some additional Do’s and Don’ts to keep in mind while using social media:

• DON’T Follow Useless Trends
• DO Follow Accounts That Inspire You
• DON’T Measure How Much People Notice You Based On Likes And Comments
• DO Check In With Friends Once In A While
• DON’T follow people who don’t promote productivity

While there’s no denying that social media has had a beneficial influence on our lives, nothing is without its drawbacks. We must learn to use the technology at our disposal in a responsible manner.

We realize this isn’t our typical blog, but we wanted to bring attention to this issue because we’re all aware of how social media addiction has impacted many people’s lives.

We hope our methods above will help you beat social media addiction and enjoy the activities and hobbies you once did. 

We appreciate you taking the time to read, and we wish you a pleasant day.