I love social media. I also hate social media.
What I mean is I love when I connect with people on social media. My family is spread out, my friends are super busy so I love staying updated with people in easy ways. I don’t mean that I don’t like in person things or think we should stop connecting in person. In fact I think the exact opposite is true. We must force ourselves to connect with people in person. I believe we are in need more and more of real human interaction. I believe God designed us to be in community and not looking at screens.
I’ve been thinking a lot about social media in terms of raising kids. My kids will soon be the age where I really need to deal with the cell phone conversation, the social media conversation and every single thing this entails. As a result, this has made me do some soul searching on my own habits. I also read this article about some of the effects of social media and how taking a break or making changes can improve mental health.
Recently I found myself just overwhelmed by my social media feed. I found that the conversations I was having in my personal life often times reflected the things I was seeing in my social feed – things that weren’t really edifying. So I started thinking, what if I changed what I saw so that it would eliminate the things dragging me down and elevate the things that build me up?
I know it’s not rocket science but have you actually put this into practice? I did about a year ago. Here is the outcome.
Here is what I did.
#1 – I eliminated all the news from my feed. All news sources I was following I just unfollowed. (Don’t stress. You can always follow them again later if you want.)
Why? I found that the news is designed to make me feel angsty and frustrated and I would get sucked into negative comment threads or a story designed to make me feel angry. I can search out the news I need to feel informed. I don’t need it to show up in my social media feed. I took back control of the news I see on a daily basis.
#2 – I unfollowed all the pages that didn’t fill me up. This will be different for everyone. Yes, I kept the Pie shop on my feed and the cookie dough food truck. Those things fill me up in more ways than one.
Why? If it isn’t a page that is serving the mission I have for my life, I don’t need to take the information in. I don’t have to consume negative information. Now I will say that sometimes the social media algorithms are designed to show us things that it thinks we want or what it wants us to see. Know that. Social media thrives on reactions and it will give you more of the things you react to.
#3 – I hid or unfollowed people that bring me down. You don’t have to enter into political discussions. Sometimes it’s just better not knowing how people feel about certain issues. Just snooze em’ You don’t have totally cut someone off, but you can shape what you see in your feed and check in on those you snooze when you want to.
Why? People say a lot of things on social media. Many times they say things they would not say to your face. No need to have extra negativity in your life. If it isn’t building you up then snooze it.
Here is what happened.
I started seeing a lot of new things in my feed that I’d forgotten existed. That’s how the algorithm works, right? All the stuff I had found myself engaging in on social media (things maybe I needed to snooze!) were now gone and so all the ‘good stuff’ came to the surface. Now I find myself engaging in some of the groups that I had forgotten about, seeing people and brands posting things in the feed that are encouraging! It’s been a shift. Now I find myself bringing these things into my daily conversations. I’m filling myself up with encouraging things and that is going into my daily conversations as well. What a shift!
My anxiety levels have gone down. I don’t find my mind spinning as much. I’m in control of what my brain is taking in.
I like how it feels when I am in control of what I’m taking into my life. I know being up on the news is important and I plan to set up a system that I can easily read to catch up on important news, but I’m going to keep it out of my social media feed.
I like how it feels when I take back time that I was spending on social media and should be spending in my Bible or with my family. We all get sucked into the feed. There is no reason it has to control our thoughts and time.
I read a meme the other day that says “Lord, let my heart be so filled with your Word that Satan’s lies have no space.” That’s how I want to live my life.
There may be areas of your life that you need to consider changing. Maybe social media isn’t a struggle for you, but maybe it’s something else. Ask God to shine a light for you on the areas of your life that you may need to reprioritize. It’s never too late to make a change!
We don’t have control over everything in our lives, but there are some things we can adjust – our social media feeds are one of them. A year later and I’m very glad for the few things that I did to tweak what I’m seeing and taking in. Try it. I’d love to hear what happens for you!
PIN THIS!
