Social media can be a great way to stay in contact with old friends and to make new friends! Despite all the benefits that social media has to offer, there are plenty of bad habits that you can develop when using it. In this tutorial, I will guide you through 5 good habits you should use with social media to make the best of your social media experience.
Habit 1: Take breaks!
With the advent of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and explore pages, it can be tempting (and sometimes inadvertent) to spend hours and hours on social media.
It’s extremely easy to just keep scrolling past posts. It takes minimal brain use and minimal effort. It can be almost addicive to keep scrolling and to double-tap the posts you want to like.
Breaking this pattern is a good habit to get into. Spending all day on social media can have many negative side effects. Set the phone or tablet down every once in a while and go for a walk or have a mindful cup of coffee!
Habit 2: Monitor Screen Time
Sometimes social media can be the first thing we check when we wake up and the last thing we check before we go to bed. This may not always be a bad thing, especially when you’re connecting with friends in different time zones, but that time can add up and take away from your time in the morning or at night.
Many phones now have settings that allow you to put time limits on certain apps. That can be especially helpful with social media when you may not always know how much time you’re spending on each app.
Many phones also have a screen report at the end of the week. Set goals for yourself! Watch yourself make progress in real time every week.
Habit 3: Connect With Friends Off Social Media
While social media can be a great way to connect with friends who live half-way across the country or in another part of the world, it is important to make time for your friends who live around you as well!
Have some coffee with friends at the corner coffee shop or invite your friend group out to dinner! Make time to spend with friends in-person rather than just over FaceTime or messenger.
Habit 4: Use Social Media For Inspiration
It can be very easy to get into the habit of comparing ourselves to others through social media.
With social media, we see the best parts of everyone’s lives, the parts they want to share with the world. We need to keep this in mind when we’re on social media and try not to compare ourselves to what we see online.
It can be difficult to not compare ourselves to others, but it can be helpful to reframe any comparative thoughts we make into thoughts of inspiration.
Habit 5: Use Social Media With a Purpose
Sometimes we just pull up social media platforms when we’re bored. This isn’t inherently a bad thing when it happens occasionally, but it can easily become a bad habit.
Try adding other things to the list of things that you do when you’re bored! Try to make sure that when you are using social media it has a purpose, like to connect with a specific friend or to share something that you just experienced, instead of just using it because you’re bored.