Tips To Reduce Time On Social Media
For some, it may sound exaggerated, but addiction to social networks is a reality that many people, especially with the estrangement brought about by quarantine, experience daily.
Being a quick way to deal with the anxiety that many experience, 87.8% of Mexicans are frequent users of at least one social network and may realize that the time spent on them is excessive once they begin to interfere with their daily activities, stopping doing tasks, failing with their work obligations or attending to their basic needs, such as eating or resting.
The psychological implications that this has must be treated by a professional in this field before they seriously affect our lives, capable of increasing feelings of decay, negative emotions, and health effects. However, before reaching that point, if you think your time connected to social networks is only increasing, we will share some tips that will help reduce the use of platforms.
Designed To Grab Your Attention
Something central that we must consider when thinking about social networks is that their most significant purpose is to keep us within them for as long as possible. Although they have been credited with informative and emotionally connecting functions, they are addictive by design, so we shouldn’t underestimate their ability to hold us captive.
Luckily there are ways to disconnect, some partial, others total, but the best solution depends on the use we give to the networks. If our work revolves around these, for example, we will not be able to disconnect, but we can learn to regulate the time we dedicate to them daily. We list our tips for all types of users:
- Limit Notifications: The main way networks grab our attention is through constant notifications that distract us from their platforms. Deactivating them or reducing their appearance to only the most essential can significantly help regain control of our time.
- Limiting the use of networks to a specific time: modulating our use of networks by establishing an interval in the day in which we can use them is an excellent strategy, limiting our use manually without having to eliminate them from our device.
- Detoxify: A temporary solution that we can alternate is to completely turn off our devices or delete network applications temporarily to “detox.” This is also a way to detect if we have an addiction since we can see difficulties sleeping, irritability, or a constant feeling of apprehension in its absence.
- Digital education: especially for younger users, but not excluding adults, digital education for the correct use of platforms is the most important step to prevent excessive and dangerous use of platforms. More people need to learn how to edit the notifications that come to them, where their privacy settings are, how to identify fake news, etc.
It is imperative to remember that these solutions are good for preventing addiction; however, if this problem persists in our lives and no solution allows us to get away from the networks, it is necessary to seek professional help.
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