Overcoming Our Struggle with Social Media

Freedom from the algorithm is possible and here’s how.

Photo by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash

Being on social media can feel like riding a rollercoaster of content and you don’t always feel in control. You tend to feel gross afterwards and yet you find yourself going back for more. If we’re not mindlessly scrolling the apps, we’re posting for likes, stalking our crushes and exes, or thinking how this cute moment would make a great post. Our mind is constantly hijacked and pulled away from the present moment, which makes it difficult to fully experience the joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment that comes from being in the moment and with people IRL.

Social media use can feel like an addiction because we don’t always feel in control, we physically and mentally jones for our next social media fix, we need more and more of it each time to get the same level of pleasure and enjoyment out of it, and in some cases, it can really get in the way of living our lives.

Grabbing our phone to open an app, closing the app, and reopening it immediately after is what our minds have been reduced to do. Some view this as their own failure at being a responsible adult or lacking in willpower, but it’s important to get the facts gay — social media is designed to hook your attention, by any means necessary, and to keep you coming back for more. The algorithms, app features, and app interface are informed and constantly refined based on their knowledge of our brain functions. They find ways to exploit that to their end goals and monetary benefit. After a certain amount of social media use, our mind is no longer fully ours.

In the fight between you and the social media algorithms, you’ll almost always come out feeling defeated. One reason is that most of us don’t have clear intentions as to why we’re on social media in the first place. Another is that algorithms are engineered with mounds of research that inform everything you see and interact with for the sole purpose of keeping you scrolling, liking, commenting, sharing, posting, clicking, and spending. The goals of social media companies are to gain users and keep us engaged to click ads. Their focus is not your mental health or wellbeing, which is why it absolutely has to be yours.

The effects of an unhealthy habit

Constant, mindless, and habitual use of social media apps can have a very real effect on how we feel emotionally, our energy levels, our motivation, and how we see others, the world, and ourselves.

As a therapist, I often talk to my clients who struggle with low motivation, sleep disturbance, anxiety, low self-esteem, and depression about their social media use. Most say that they use it to scroll mindlessly, late at night, and gain nothing helpful from it when it comes to their mental health. Quite the opposite, they say that social media contributes to their mental health challenges, is the cause of some of them, or makes them worse.

My first recommendation to anyone who wants to start gaining more control of their mind and wellbeing from social media is to identify how you feel during and after using it. Below are some common negative effects social media can have on us:

• Increased anxiety
• Loneliness
• Negative self-perception
• Increased comparison to others
• Misuse or loss of time
• Feelings of guilt over our use
• Lack of motivation
• Procrastination
• Difficulty focusing
• Racing mind/thoughts
• Lethargy, feeling constantly tired
• Negative perception of our body, financial status, career, life, etc.
• Anger, frustration, fear
• Negative outlook on the world and life in general
• Feelings of obsession
• Interrupted or loss of sleep
• A source of conflict in our relationships
• and more

Take some time to reflect on how being on social media makes you feel and the effects it has on your functioning. Be as specific and thorough as you can. Have that list clear in your mind or write it down. If your intention is to gain control over your social media use, review this list right before you go to open the app and ask yourself, “Do I want to feel this way right now?” If the answer is no, then allow yourself time to consider other ways to either pass the time, feel connected, get a laugh, or simply get distracted.

The main goal is to begin creating awareness and intention around social media in order to reclaim your power to choose rather than allowing the highly engineered algorithms to decide for you.

Strategies for gaining control over your social media use

Alternatives to scrolling

When trying to curb a craving and shift a habit, it’s important to have a list of alternative actions and activities. To come up with an effective list, think of the reasons why you turn to social media apps in the first place. Most people hop on social media because they

• are bored
• want a distraction
• need a break from the thoughts circling their mind
• want to check in on what their friends/the people they follow are doing
• have a brand, project, or business they need to manage
• want to chat or flirt
• want to look at hot people
• etc.

Sometimes people simply open the apps out of mindless habit.

Photo by Creative Christians on Unsplash

Once you identify the reasons that you turn to social media, think of alternative activities to do that meet those needs. Below are some examples.

Boredom and distraction:

• Get your body moving
• Play a game or with your pet
• Listen and dance to music
• Organize/clean your space
• Cook
• Do something creative
• Admire something beautiful (art, your plants, or yourself in the mirror!)

Managing uncomfortable thoughts and feelings:

• Write them out in a journal
• Talk to someone whom you trust and cares about you
• Meditate
• Do a mindful activity such as going on a walk, doing a simple chore, or focusing your mind on your breathing

Social connection:

• Text a few friends to see how their day is going
• Call a loved one
• Look back at old photos and videos on your phone of past fun times
• Go to a coffee shop or social gathering place to people watch or strike up a conversation with someone

Sexual desire:

• Pleasure yourself
• Reach out to a fun buddy
• Flirt with your partner
• Channel that energy into getting your body moving or a project

For those who use social media for business or brand purposes, most likely you have a strategic way you approach your account(s). Lean on your focus and motivation to run your business as a guide on how and when you engage with social media intentionally.

Self-compassion is fundamental

Self-compassion is key in this process, and in general for everything you do in life, because you’re actively tackling an issue that social media has an upper hand in. Focus on your progress along the way rather than your shortcomings.

For example, if you stop to reflect on whether you should open the apps or not, when before you would not have given it a single thought, and you still open them, that’s a win! This means that you are actively practicing the skills of mindfulness and intention around your behavior. Every time you stop and think, it’s an opportunity you give yourself to not engage in social media use when you don’t actually want to.

If you do the alternative activity and a few hours later you are back to scrolling, that’s a win! In this instance, you had the urge to scroll but chose to flex your mental and willpower muscle to overcome your impulsions. The more you do it, the better you’ll get at it.

As much as possible, be kind and self-empowering in your self-talk.

Adjust your app settings and take breaks

I frequently delete social media apps from my phone to remove the reminder that they’re there just waiting for me to slip back into them. I’ve noticed that deleting the app right before I go to sleep gives me more freedom to make intentional choices in the morning and the rest of the day, rather than putting a bright screen in front of my face and scrolling through all the news and posts as soon as I wake up. I’ll sometimes go days without downloading the apps again and just check my accounts on my phone’s internet browser. It’s easier to break away from them there because the mechanisms that are meant to keep me hooked aren’t as sophisticated as they are on the apps.

I recently chatted with a friend about the grip and effects social media has on us. He shared that it’s helpful to check his use on Screen Time, a built-in function in iOS that tracks and shows usage data for screen time on apps. When he saw his previous week’s stats that said that he clocked 23.5 hours on TikTok, his mind was blown. That’s almost a whole day of scrolling on one social media app out of 7 days. This felt uncomfortable for him, but after sitting with the discomfort and taking in the reality without shame or self-blame, he began to imagine a new way of engaging with the app and living his life.

I’ve been off social media since January 1, 2023 with the intention to be off it for a while. I have logged on to manage my account for this blog, check messages from friends so they don’t feel like I’m ignoring them, and to accept requests from new people I’ve met in real life that I want to stay connected to in the future. Sure, I’ve scrolled through some posts and gotten some laughs for a few minutes while I was logged on, but I practice self-compassion and keep focus on my commitment to reconnect with life outside the algorithm. This makes logging off easier and something I want to do rather than something I feel I have to do.

Below are some things I’ve done and invite you to try to reclaim your time and yourself from social media.

1. Turn off all notifications from the apps.
2. Unfollow or mute accounts that have a negative impact on your mental health and wellbeing, or that you simply want to see less of.
3. Delete the apps from your phone and only log on using your phone’s internet browser.
4. Change your phone’s screen color setting to black and white. The lack of color reduces the addictive aspect of the content.
5. Set time limits for app use in your phone settings.
6. Use apps like ScreenZen that help you pause when you click on an app by showing a message with phrases like “Is this a good time?,” “Why am I checking?,” and “How long will I check?”
7. Take a day or weekend break from social media, or longer. Make it intentional, not just because you don’t want to be on social media, but because you want to experience and enjoy your life outside of it.
8. Delete accounts you use infrequently or have been meaning to get rid of. It’s been my experience that once you delete them, you won’t think twice about them. I deleted the Facebook account I had since 2004 a few years ago and I haven’t looked back. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Photo by Yingchou Han on Unsplash

Set intentions and commit to them

It is easier to navigate life once you decide how you want to live it, how you want it to look, and what you want to accomplish. Consider the following questions to help you determine some of this for yourself.

• Do you want to feel happier, more fulfilled?
• Do you want to achieve better mental health?
• Do you want to feel more motivated to work out, work on projects, school, career, etc.?
• Do you want to feel less lonely and more connected?
• Do you want more fulfilling relationships and connections with others?

You may not see it, but social media can have a negative effect on all of these areas of your life and more. Meanwhile, you might be internalizing all of this struggle and lack of success as your personal failings. The truth is that we’ve simply succumbed to the manufactured functions of social media that are meant to be addicting and are suffering the effects of that addiction.

Once you determine how you want your life to look and feel, decide how much you’re willing to let social media interrupt or slow that down. You can choose to still use it but shift how you engage with it. You may decide that you want to use it way less than you’re using it now. You may even plan to eventually get off social media altogether.

My hope for us as a global society of social media users is to become more aware of what’s at play and at stake every time we expose ourselves to these apps. I especially want adults to properly inform children and teens about the effects social media can have on them and how they can mindfully be on the apps, if at all.

With high amounts of social media use over a prolonged period of time, we become less productive, more distant, lose our sense of self, and we see strangers with lots of followers as beacons of truth and guides for living. Social media companies don’t intend to stop how they function and most governments have yet to do enough to challenge these companies and protect consumers from the harm their product inflicts. It’s on us to help ourselves and spread the word to others.