by Tara Walls, a Doxa counselor
Are you finding yourself numbing out through social media? Do you feel overwhelmed by all the information you are taking in while on it? Maybe you even feel the pressure to keep up an aesthetic for a certain amount of interaction on your posts? If you can relate to any of these questions, then you may be experiencing social media fatigue.
What is Social Media Fatigue?
Social media fatigue is defined as being a time when users feel so exhausted from viewing and interacting through social media that they decide to take a break from it.
Many people view social media as a way to connect with others. With a plethora of apps available, you can stay connected on different platforms, all from a few clicks of your fingers. Social media provides a way to see and celebrate your different communities. It allows you to like, comment and subscribe to lifestyles you admire and even aspire to have on your own. Through these outlets, we are able to share our lives – or the life we choose to show others.
Providing many opportunities and benefits, social media has helped ensure sustainability for countless people and businesses. However, we know that too much of a good thing, won’t be good for long. Due to such accessibility and a constant search of ‘the next big thing’, trends, fads and challenges begin to take over and control our worlds. The need to ‘be in the know’ becomes draining.
Ways to Combat Social Media Fatigue
How many times have you opened an app to view or even check on a few things, only to look up and realize that much time has passed? Don’t get me wrong, there are some posts that are set to encourage you and if you are viewing your feed in that mindset, then go ahead. But to those that are mindlessly scrolling, comparing and knit-picking your own life to what another has posted, here are some ways to combat that fatigue.
Limit Your Time on Social Media Apps
his is a way to ease into taking a break from the connections we have. There are ways to set limits to your apps so that you are not on them for hours on end. Limiting time on your apps will allow you more time to be productive and present for the people and things around you.
Get Active and Involved
Take it back to childhood and get outside. Go serve. Go workout. Go do something productive! Rather than watching these amazing things around you happen, get out there and be a part of it. Guess what, you don’t have to post about it, either! Soak in the moment and relish in the thought that you are creating memories.
Take a Social Media Break
his is a wild one, I know but if you can, delete that app! Seriously ask yourself, is this outlet a tool of motivation or is it a tool of destruction? To have some control in this, you can set a day or time that you would like to re-download the app. I recommend at least 21 days for habit building, but you choose what you think is best for you. During this ‘off’ time, allow yourself to refocus.
Seek Counsel
I’m sure you are wondering, what does counseling have to do with this? As stated above, social media allows people into our worlds, or the world we allow them to see. Comparison is a dangerous thing and if we are not careful, this slippery slope can lead to serious things like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and so much more. Numbing out via social media is not the best thing either. I can be a coping mechanism, but isn’t it just keeping you in a cycle rather than truly helping you? You may need help dealing with the problems around you so instead of zoning out on social media, come see me or any of the counselors at Doxa, we’d love to help you!