Do you have accounts at every social media website that has been created? Do you spend all your free time reading the latest news or telling people what you are doing at a certain minute? Many people spend more time on social media websites then they do with their own families. If your constantly seeking out information and interacting on social media websites you may be addicted. While there is no “cure” for an internet or social media addiction, you can manage your social media addiction.
Many people find that if they do not manage their addiction to social media, they often end up sleep deprived or with mental and marital problems. Once you find yourself spending more time with your computer and social media sites than you spend on your job or with your family, you need to start managing your addiction. It is hard to control yourself, after all most social media websites allow you to create the media yourself and what is better than seeing materials you create published?
The first step to managing your social media addiction, is to pay attention to what you do online and what you enjoy. There are hundreds of different types of social media websites but which ones do you enjoy using and participating in the most? You may want to make a list of the sites that you spend the most amount of time on and list the reasons your enjoy those sites. Once you have the list of where you spend all your time, start removing websites and social media activities that you do not enjoy. Many sites take content from other sites and repurpose it on their websites, think about it, do you really need to spend your valuable time on these websites? There is no reason for you to be spending time on websites or activities you have no interest in. Stop wasting your internet time on activities that have no value directly to yourself.
As you begin to narrow your social media focus down to the websites and activities you truly enjoy, your probably found that you spent a lot of time in social media activities you did not care for. However, you can not simply replace the activities your no longer taking part in with more time on your favorite sites. The next step in managing your social media addiction is to set a time limit for your activities every day and schedule the time on your calendar. The key to this step is sticking to your plan. The time can not be flexible or you may discover you start to fall back into your old habits.
It is vital when trying to manage a social media addiction that you stop paying attention to how many “friends” you have. Stop following people that you do not care about. There is no need to have thousands of virtual friends. One of the most addictive part of social media websites is finding friends but do you really need to get updates from thousands of different people? Stop becoming friends with everyone who requests you as a friend or everyone who posts. Limit your “friendship” to a small set of people who highlight and create content that really interests you. Once you limit the number of people you are interacting with, you will discover that you are able to do more with your social media sites during the time you allot each day.
One great aspect of social media is that new tools and websites are constantly being created. If you hear others talking about a new website or new tool and you have to stop what you are doing to check the tools out for yourself, you have an addiction. In order to manage your social media addiction, you need to control your desire to stop everything your doing and flock to a new social media website. When you hear about a new tool, stop and think about whether or not this new tool fits with the websites you spend your social media time on. If you think it will make sure you include the tool in the scheduled time you have set aside for social media websites. Keep in mind that many of these tools are very popular for a week or two then disappear, do not waste your time on sites that do not add to your experience or take away from the key sites you have allocated your time to.
Finally, in order to manage your social media addiction, you need to disconnect social media from your cell phone. There is no need to have constant access to your favorite social media. If your in a business meeting or at a family event, keep your cell phone in your pocket and do not access social media websites. Stop posting your life on a webpage and start to share directly with the people around you. Stop this madness and start spending time with the people you care about. Social media is actually not very social, it’s nothing but a website.
