In the good old days of ‘90s we had only one distraction, which continuous to be fondly called by our parents as ‘Idiot box’. Back to the present they are numerous and omnipresent, ranging in size and cost. Hands-down most appealing distraction of our adulthood came in cellular phone, in the form of social media. Giving hours of pleasure in simple act of endless scrolling. As saying goes ‘when life gives lemons….’, check out these little tips about how I make lemonade out of the sour tasting addiction.

Use social media but mindfully. Content consumed from social media affects us, sometimes without us knowing. Be it a picture of a friend on a vacation, celebrities showing off flawless skin/ body, a hate comment, they trigger negative emotions and are capable of ruining your day. A simple way to overcome, is to identify actions that hurt you and keep away. which action is very similar to step 3 of The Konmari method ’ keep only those things which spark joy’ otherwise block them. A Rule I like to use is that content consumed should be one of these types:

Pleasant content: After a long day of work, I appreciate some time to wind down. I avoid unkind content at all costs, it makes me agitated. Instead, I watch content which makes me smile and go ‘aww…’, All the adorable puppies’ videos out there, come to mama. 

Fun way of learning: It does not have to be a long video imparting knowledge. There are some content creators who use info graphics to put the point forward. Its easy to assimilate and very much engaging. Such small titbits every day can go a long way. This is one of the ways to have a healthy relationship with social media.

Vision board: A win-win situation is when you stumble across a picture similar to your dream house and it makes you immediately get off the phone and go get it. How would you like that? Some times for me it takes more than one post. Hence, I make sure there are many such posts readily seen. If social media has pictures from your vision board, there goes two birds with one stone. A simple way of doing this is by following pages which fulfil this specific requirement. As in page which helps students to apply for universities abroad, another which helps to develop a skill that has been long awaited, emotional support groups. A motivational quote here and there also doesn’t hurt. Sky is the limit.

Other stuff I like: I can’t make it look like I don’t use social media other than for what’s it made for. Catching up with friends, pictures and videos are definitely a part of social media routine.

These are some precepts I use not to give away too much control over life to social media.

Limit the number of people I follow: People I follow are the ones who make me push myself and give me a feeling of healthy competition rather than making me feel bad about myself with impractical comparisons. I limit communications with people only on one app. This greatly reduces chances of opening multiple apps and hence temptation of scrolling.

Another addiction: Replacing an unhealthy addiction with a useful addiction is most effective way to get rid of the it. For me its music. When I catch myself staring at my phone for too long. I get up to play music out loud and start tidying up. The addiction part is when the music takes me so far away that I forget the present.

Schedule screen sessions: This mantra makes me look forward to screen time, scheduled during lunch break or after work. If you are someone who keeps note of screen time every day, scheduling curbs screen time. For example, whenever a notification pops up, I end up spending a whole lot of time doing this and that. After scheduling, I know I will look at the notification at scheduled time and hence push it out of my mind.

PS: Or just do not use social media at all. On any given day, my social media usage is minimum to nil, which is a conversation for another time and I am looking forward to have it.