Social media is literally the fastest way to communicate any message, opinion, lies, or facts that you want to anyone or about anyone in the world. You don’t have to be on social media to avoid being directly affected People have the power to post anything positive or negative and some of these things can directly affect your mental health. Friendships sometimes fail from social media when you see realize that friends had a fun girl’s night out and you weren’t invited. Businesses sometimes suffer from a loss of patronage because of negative reviews from a non-paying or hateful customer. Marriages suffer because one spouse didn’t receive as nice of a gift that their social media friend posted on their page on Valentine’s Day. While these examples may not directly affect you, it affects many people daily. Forbes Magazine reveals that there are in fact very significant effects on our mental health because of social media, so how does a person avoid their mental health from being affected by social media? Here are tips that I believe just may help them or you.
Limit your scroll time to 15 minutes or less. Yes, the longer that you scroll through your friends’ posts it is more likely that you will see something sad, depressing, racist or contrary to what you believe they should be posting.
Use your block button with pride. This may sound funny and to me it is, but it’s okay to use your block button when things just mentally exhaust you. Ads, videos, and other posts can also be blocked on your timeline.
Take social media hiatus often. Taking social media fasts or hiatus is good for your mental health because it allows you to take time to focus only on your life, family, and close friends. There is no need to announce to your social media friends that you are about to take a hiatus. There is freedom in actually disappearing for a short period of time.
Un-friend people who that you truly don’t know or want to get to know.
Sometimes people will send us friend requests and we accept them because they are from our hometown. Don’t feel obliged any longer to follow the pages of these people.It’s easy to separate from them on social media if they are always negative and you don’t have anything in common.
Don’t allow people to post on your timeline without your consent. What you see on your timeline daily is your right. People can and will tag you in videos and posts that sometimes go against everything that you believe in. One feature that I totally despise on Facebook is the ability for people to add others to private groups. Maybe it was a close friend or family member that posted, tagged, or added you. Don’t be pressured to entertain their gestures. It is your social platform. Enjoy it!
