As fully immersed and loyal subjects of the social media kingdom we spend hours on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and various blogs and websites. But is this getting out of hand a bit? I started to wonder…
Am I a digital information hoarder?
I began following various yogis and food/wellness experts on these platforms to gain inspiration and knowledge to further enhance my own journey to improve my health and happiness. But what started out with good intentions, has turned into a type of obsession.
Can you relate?
Every free second I have, my brain is craving constant input. At any given moment I’ll have 10 tabs open in my browser.
Do you spend hours “window shopping” the internet without actually investing in much quality content?
So I came to a conclusion: The ways in which we communicate and connect these days are boiled down to a single picture, status update or 140 characters. This has conditioned out brains to not only accept this but crave it. When we spend 1-3 seconds looking at something do our brains begin to only respond to small quick bits of input?
Are we unknowingly deprogramming our brains from attending to something for longer than a minute? And in turn, are we craving bits of things without actually getting to something real and substantial?
I also wonder what it’s doing to our happiness because whether we realize it or not we are bombarded with opportunities to compare ourselves with others and it’s wreaking havoc on our ideas of reality and positive self worth.
We’re constantly evaluating our lives in comparison to others. Every time I see a cool yoga posture on instagram I think “I wish I could do that.” Or when a blog shows someone’s gorgeously decorated living room I think “I want my living room to look like that.” And food is the worst! Food pictures evoke thoughts such as “I should be eating more of that superfood” or “yeah right Pinterest, my reindeer cookies will never look like that!”
So, how can we reclaim a grounded outlook on the world, when the world we live in is dominated by social media?
- Remember that someone’s Instagram feed is their highlight reel. They don’t always prance around flower meadows in an expensive dress and heels with a full face of makeup. We’d all love to, but remember that girl also got out of bed that morning looking just like you, and she probably has her own insecurities too because, hey, were all human.
- Set healthy boundaries for yourself. I deleted the Facebook app on my phone. It was getting out of hand in a major way. Now I’m still connected, but I check it from my laptop every couple of days and spend no more than 10-15 minutes each time. I realized that I was missing out on absolutely nothing by scaling back. My big Aha moment: Facebook didn’t provide that much value for me in my daily life, aside from cute puppy videos.
- Pick one platform that’s your thing, and focus on that. It can get overwhelming with everything that’s out there. Personally, I love Instagram so I kept that on my phone and try to post regularly to that one. And the good thing is since it connects to your other social media outlets anyway I can still post to Facebook and twitter without actually logging on to either one.
- When you’re with your friends and family, be with them. I can’t tell you how much time I spent on my phone and laptop when I would get home from work. It put a wedge of disconnection between me and my loved ones with all of our faces buried in screens. Make family time truly family time.
I think that you’ll find that with these simple adjustments, your happiness and presence in your life will skyrocket.
