TOP 5: Ways to Take Control of Your Social Media
Social media has taken control of our lives and that’s no simple exaggeration. For many, myself included, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have contributed to an endless cycle of checking the news feed, notifications and messages. Slowly and without even realising, developing a strong dependency on trying to stay ‘informed’. However, being ‘informed’ is really just a mess of confusing and often conflicting ideas from the numerous platforms that we need to remain up-to-date with.
Luckily, there is a way out! By planning and becoming a little tech savvy with your use of social media platforms, you can take control of your usage, instead of having it control you. Here are my top 5 easy steps to stay on top of your social media accounts:
1. SPRING CLEANING
Scrolling through your news feed, you might feel bombarded with irrelevant information and suggestions. This indicates a need for a need for a social media “cleanse”. By un-following and un-friending people and sites that are no longer relevant to you, you will be able to free up the room and save time for more meaningful connections and information.
2. BE SPECIFIC
Once you’ve finished cleaning up, it’s time to start searching for appropriate pages and people that spark your interests. View this process similar to navigating Google . By keeping your search simple and choosing words carefully, you tailor your findings closer and closer to your hub and thus creating your own virtual utopia.
3. STAY CONNECTED
Rather than limiting ourselves to just one or two social media accounts, the average internet user is active across five different platforms. When controlling our accounts individually, it can easily be seen as a struggle or simply a waste of time. However, by managing accounts laterally, you will be able to stay in control and use time more productively. This can be achieved by consolidating your email accounts into one, allowing for all notifications and messages to be retrieved in one convenient location.
4. SWITCH OFF
Attention implies singularity. As in, if you’re not focusing your attention on one thing, you’re not truely paying attention. By simply hearing your phone ring or vibrate you can destroy your focus (Peck 2015), thus making it very easy to turn “checking” your notification into “checking” every meme on the internet. The solution is a no-brainer, turn off your notifications! However, this is no easy feat considering our need to be informed, who knows “it might be important”. For this, there are two solutions; silencing notifications completely or being selective about which platforms are allowed to send notifications.
5. SET A LIMIT
As useful as social media is, it can also be quite addictive. It might be time to consider a break, or if that’s too much maybe some boundaries. By allocating a set period each day for social media use, you will begin to find time for more important things, like sleeping or talking to people in person.
References