Social media is both the best and worst creation in the history of mankind.
Okay, that sounds extreme, but it’s kind of true. It’s amazing because you can connect with like-minded people from all over the world and form lifelong friendships. It’s terrible because there’s a lot of toxicity out there and there are so many issues with social media that can make it awful for your mental health.
If you find that scrolling through social media is bad for you and can affect you mentally, here are three ways you can make things a bit better:
How to make social media better
Rethink your perspective
The biggest problem with social media is that it tricks us into thinking that life should be going a certain way. If you’re a young girl and you follow someone like Jules LeBlanc, you see a 17-year-old living her best life with fancy clothes, a nice house, and so on. It makes you think that you should also have this, or that your life is worse because you don’t.
The same goes for lots of other influencers – their success gives you a slightly warped view of your own life. You should rethink your perspective when you scroll through social media and set realistic expectations. Understand that what you see here is not an accurate reflection of life – especially from influencers. They only show the best parts of life because it’s what other people want to see. So, stop comparing your life to theirs and view social media from a pure entertainment perspective. It’s like watching a TV show or reading a book – you know what you see isn’t true, which makes it easier on your mental health.
Unfollow ‘bad’ social media personalities
There are plenty of people on social media with excellent intentions and great content. But, there are loads that are the complete opposite. Cleanse your feed of any influencers who constantly promote different things to you every day. If every post is a sponsored post, you shouldn’t follow them.
Try to follow people that spend time spreading positive messages and generating positive energy, rather than constantly using their platform to make money. You should also try to unfollow anyone that posts really unrealistic expectations on their profile – such as heavily edited photos of them at the beach.
Mute and block at your leisure
Muting people or terms is a great way to cleanse your social feeds of unwanted content. Likewise, blocking people can ensure you don’t see accounts that annoy you or could cause harm to your mental well-being.
This is perhaps best used on Twitter, which can often show you things you don’t want to see or direct you down a rabbit hole of toxicity. Use the mute and block buttons at your leisure, getting rid of negative things on social media. It helps you create your own little bubble where you only engage with things you want to see.
Navigating through social media can be a struggle, but there are ways to ensure you see more of the good side and less of the bad. It starts with changing your perspective and how you view social channels. Then, you have to gradually cleanse your feed of negative personalities and things that you don’t want to see every day. In time, this makes social media much better for your mental health.
