The world of social media feels chaotic right now. The incidences of young people feeling suicidal or suffering from anxiety/depression has risen to an almost scary precedence. As I’m writing this only a few days ago a young successful (and looked to have it all) celebrity, Caroline Flack committed suicide. The shock of her death rocked many to the core. And quite rightly should. We’re in unchartered territory right now. If you’re like me, you never grew up with social media till your 20s.
At that time it was a new and shiny object for many of us. I remember Bebo and being able to go into social chat rooms and chat with random strangers across the world (this, of course, was dangerous in itself). But we were young, innocent. We had no idea how this would turn out. Now our children are on it. And that is all they know. We’re only just seeing the long term effects this world is having on them. And it is just the tip of the iceberg. So how can we ourselves find peace with the world of social media? How can we use and change it for the power of good? Is that even possible?
Are You Addicted?
Do you need to be on social media? Does it feel like it’s controlling you? When you put your phone down do you automatically want to pick it up again in case you’ve missed an important message or post? This is an addiction and something many of us have (me included). So, first of all, you need to check-in and see if there is a problem there. If there is then you need to be the one to fix it. The first suggestion would be to filter what you see. Do you follow groups that aren’t really inspiring you or can feel negative? Do certain people you follow or friends make you feel drained as soon as you read their posts?
Time block an hour this week to go through your social media feed and remove/filter anything that genuinely is not in alignment with your highest self. I don’t mean that you should block your mom or anything but even just filter what comes up in your feed. You can then also track how much time you spent using the many apps available on your phone. Once you become more mindful of your usage you might find your spending less and less time on it.
Build Meaningful Connections
Wasn’t this the whole point of social media in the first place? To build meaningful connections with each other. To keep in touch with long lost friends and family that may have moved away. To make new friends and create loving and supportive groups. Now it kind of feels…cheap. I don’t know if that’s the right word. Or maybe fake is a better word. People just put what they think is perfection in their stories and posts. They try and focus on getting more followers and likes. Now we actually have influencers getting paid because they’re experts at this.
But is this making us happier? Absolutely not. It has in fact done the complete opposite. Because now we’re comparing ourselves to each other, and then what we don’t or do like, we make sure everyone knows about our opinion. It’s toxic. People can tear each other down for the smallest thing and celebrities get torn down and belittled for everything and anything. And even worse for them it ends up splashed across the news for the whole world to see.
Why don’t we go back to the basics of what social media was created for and focus on loving meaningful connections? You are the light of this world and every day we have a choice to expand this light to others. So why don’t you reach out to that friend you hardly see, or post something meaningful and loving on your page. Join groups that link in with this message. If you see someone posting something hurtful ignore. Sometimes people post an idiotic comment just to get people to respond. Filter out the negative and work only on bringing in the loving and positive.
What Is Your Why?
Why are you on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter? What is the purpose for you personally? How does it fit into your life? How does it make you happier? Maybe like me, you need social media to run your business? So many of us do now. Or maybe there are certain people you follow that inspire you? Which is why it’s important to question your reason for being on it. Maybe after some soul searching you might be thinking, “actually I don’t feel this is adding any value to my life”.
So many people have been on social media detoxes and reported being much happier in so many ways. Their anxiety and depression lowered, they felt calmer and more at peace with themselves and the world around them. So maybe when you realize your ‘why’ is not very clear it’s time to cut it out your life. Or reduce your time on it massively and see if this makes a difference to your wellbeing. Your mental health is so important and if you ever feel drained, down or more anxious the more time you spend on it, it’s definitely time to control your usage.
As I write this I want to tell you I’m not perfect. My child watches youtube ( I swear Blippi taught him the alphabet before the school did). But for his sake, I need to work out a way to make this world safe for him. Things have definitely been improving but we still have a long way to go. Maybe we can’t change this world to make it safe but if we each took responsibility for the energy we put out into the world and focus on making it loving and safe.
If enough of us did that then I truly believe change will happen. By finding and focusing on the good we can help teach our children to do the same. Because it doesn’t look like the social media world is going away anytime soon. I could be wrong of course but the world of technology is only evolving. Maybe we need to not evolve with it but become better versions of ourselves so it no longer has any hold over us.
