5 healthy ways to engage with social media

Like food, social media is healthy if it resonates with your needs and is consumed in moderation. Here are 5 suggestions to help you to engage with social media in a healthy way.

Following a one year hiatus, I recently returned to Instagram.

This time last year, I put a halt to social media altogether, all too aware of the anxiety I was feeling as a result. Like many, I’ve been prone to using social media in my search for validation, and any perceived messages of rejection as a result of too few ‘thumbs up!’ had me crawling under the doona with my hands over my eyes. I felt humiliated and low all too often, and I do not regret giving it the flick; it was the right thing for me at the time.

Returning to social media has been a very careful choice, and a decision that I have not made lightly. I deliberated over the pros and cons, and eventually decided that it’d do me good to re-engage, for social anxiety does not simply dissipate by using a technique of avoidance. I decided to confront my social anxiety, and I aim to do so with self-love and discipline. I can already see the contrast in the way I am using social media now as opposed to a year ago, and that has lead me to see that social media doesn’t have to be detrimental to my mental health. I just have to decide how I’m going to use it.

Here are five things I suggest considering when looking to engage in social media in a healthy way:

1. Ask why

Why use social media? Is it to connect with family and friends who live in a different city to you? Is it to stay connected with family and friends who live in the same city? Is it to market your business, or brand, or yourself? Are you an artist? Do you love to cook and want to share your home cooking ideas? The reasons could be endless …

Ask anyone, however, and you’ll get a positively-stated reply. Not many people would admit, for instance, that they feel lonely and use social media for those little dopamine hits that feed them with perceptions of popularity. Herein lies the power of the mind: It works as a duality. We think we mean one thing, but we actually mean another.

‘I just want to stay connected with my friends’, says your conscious mind, ignoring the scoff of that other voice in the darkness.
‘Nah you don’t’, says the subconscious mind, ‘you fear you’ll miss out if you’re not online. We’re insecure, remember? Will your friends really value you if you don’t post that selfie of you and your cat? Do it! You need the likes and comments. I promise it’ll make you feel better …’

Most people have some ulterior motive going on in terms of the reason they use social media, whether they are aware of it or not. It’s important to consider what it might be for you. This isn’t to make you feel bad or guilty, or whatever … It’s to ensure you’re not encouraging negative habits of thought. By engaging in social media to ensure you feel better, or more loved, valued, etc., you only strengthen the opposing thoughts underneath.

If you want to connect, or market yourself, then great, but ensure you’re not doing so to satisfy those niggling thoughts that say you’re not enough.

2. Define your purpose

I had to step away from Instagram for some time before I felt sure that I could engage in a way that didn’t tend to my negative self beliefs. The first thing I did (after identifying why social media was making me feel bad, of course) was re-define my approach. The thing that brought it together for me was the concept that social media could be a means of service to others. All these years, I had been making it about me. I was using it to gauge my worthiness, a measuring stick to prove whether I was, in fact, as insignificant as I believed deep down that I was.

I came to realise (with a little help from a friend) that this didn’t have to be about me. Just because I wanted to share my ideas, didn’t mean that I had to make it so personal. ‘Take validation out of the equation’, she said. And I realised that she was right.

I decided that it could be about sharing, about truly connecting to others. It could be about spreading positivity and hope and joy. None of these things have anything to do with my worthiness as an individual, for how I feel about myself is actually a very personal thing. That relationship should stay between me, and me. I don’t need to share a selfie to feel lovable. I should be able to look in the mirror and just see it for myself.

Take your power back. Nobody else has the right to determine who you are and what you are about; that is for you to decide.

3. Don’t spread yourself thin

Quality over quantity, my friend. Imagine a spoonful of peanut butter. Would it be better if it were spread over one slice of bread or 5? Using one spoonful of peanut butter to cover 5 slice’s of bread is what I’d call spreading yourself thin. Respect your time and energy by setting yourself boundaries. I mean this in reference to:

a) The social media outlet(s) that you choose to use:

Personally, I find it overwhelming to think I should be on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter AND LinkedIn … Not to mention Snapchat and TikTok and God knows what else. I decided, therefore, to invest my time and energy in just one for the time-being. I released any pressures of expectation, or social pressures as to ‘what is the next big thing?’ If I learned anything from my hiatus from social media, it’s that FOMO wasn’t actually a thing. My life wasn’t compromised because I wasn’t engaging in the latest on TikTok. If anything, I appreciated just how much more time I had to focus on other things, many of which bought be greater joy and satisfaction.

If you believe in quality over quantity, then sometimes it can be better to put all of your eggs in the one basket. I decided to simply start with Instagram, for it was the one that inspired me the most. If you care about utilising your energy, then I’d recommend being selective. Not all of them are worth your time.

b) The amount of time you spend on social media:

It’s all too easy to pick up your phone and have a cheeky scroll. Our phones are basically an extension of our arm in this day and age, so checking your notifications can come as naturally as scratching your nose. It didn’t take me long to re-engage with this old habit when I returned to the world of Instagram. I found myself making up for lost stalking time, which subsequently invited negative thought patterns back into town. Once I realised this, I got disciplined. I was determined not to let myself re-engage with old habits. I decided to set myself a couple of rules, the first of which was to dedicate a specific time of the day to social media usage. In that way, I can ensure I am engaging with social media more purposefully, whilst respecting the healthy habits I adopted for my idle time whilst in my hiatus.

4. Filter

And no, I don’t just mean your pics.

One thing that has massively helped for me is being selective with who I follow. I didn’t want my news feed to trigger anxiety or depression anymore. I want my news feed to inspire me, and encourage me in positive ways. The great thing about most social media platforms is that we have that choice: we can decide what we do and don’t want to see. If that means you don’t follow some of your friends, then so be it. Or perhaps you can consider unfollowing the likes of Kim Kardashin? We all love a bit of celebrity gossip, but at the end of the day, does it make you feel good or bad?

5. Get real

Make sure social media isn’t the only means you have for engaging with people. To build meaningful relationships, it is important to be able to connect in real life.

One of my main concerns when I decided to leave social media was that I’d lose touch with friends. But then I realised: What kind of friends would my friends be if they stopped talking to me just because I’m not on Facebook? I decided to trust that the true friends in my life would pick up the phone and call, or send me a text, or find some other way to reach out. This ended up being the case.

As I have already mentioned, FOMO didn’t end up being a thing. Anything that was of value to me, I found out about. I maintained a social life and I was still involved in the things that mattered. Anything or anyone that didn’t make it to me mustn’t have been necessary, for I trust that they would have found a way.

Authenticity is the key here. We all know that social media can be fake.

In summary, have awareness and be true to yourself. Like food, social media is healthy if it resonates with your needs and is consumed in moderation.