Scrolling is ruining your life
I like social media. It offers an outlet for a creative itch that I have. I enjoy seeing photos of aesthetic things and seeing the world through different people’s perspectives. It gives me glimpses of things God has created that I might have missed if I was only looking through my eyes.
At the same time, I think social media is ruining our lives in ways. You have a limited amount of time in your day. If you spend an hour on TikTok, that’s an hour you can’t get back.
The comparison that social media feeds and the discontentment are infectious. We become consumed with living on a screen and become passive participants in our own lives. We miss out on life because of our apathetic attitude towards the time we are losing daily.
If we want to get freedom from the grip of social media we need to be active in our approach to it.
The following are tips and tricks that I use to have control over my own social media.
Saying out-loud that I am about to go on _____. Acknowledging and owning it helps me to be more conscious of what I’m doing, and causes the actually activity to be less attractive.
Telling friends my plan for my social media breaks. Having that accountability keeps me from going back on when I’m not supposed to be.
Physically moving my phone. If I stick it in another room then I am less likely to start scrolling because it would require more effort to do.
Picking healthy hobbies to substitute for it. Reading is my natural go-to, but there are other wonderful alternatives I focus on at times such as cleaning, writing, exercising, etc.
Pick a person you would have enjoyed seeing if they had posted on social media and, instead, directly texting them. If there is something cool going on in their life, you probably won’t miss out on hearing about it that way, and, more importantly, you will always get a better glimpse into their life from direct communication than social media would have offered.
