So the long -awaited New Year holidays have come. The time that you have been waiting for so long to relax, take a walk, spend time with your family, meet friends. But instead, barely waking up, you are drawn to the phone to check the Instagram tape (an extremist organization banned in Russia), Facebook (extremist organization banned in Russia) and other social networks). In the evening, instead of a book in your hand, you have a tablet, and instead of happiness and joy you feel irritability and fatigue. Is social networks really evil you need to fight? But then what to do with the useful that they give?
In the work of a psychotherapist, I use social networks as a way to talk with subscribers about what is important for me to tell how, to whom and when psychotherapy can help, to share their personal successful experience of seeking professional help. I rejoice when my articles find a response.
On the other hand, customers often complain that they spend too much time, leafing through the strip of social networks, watching one video after another, watching someone else’s life. Often this does not bring them joy, but rather enhances dissatisfaction and depression.
So harmful or useful social networks are? I think such a question can be asked regarding everything. Take walks in the fresh air. They are evil or good?
It would seem that the answer is obvious: even the child knows about the benefits of air. But what if on the street is -30 and we are talking about a newborn? Walk with him for two hours, it will hardly come to anyone.
It turns out that the point is not in the social networks themselves, but how and how much time we spend there and how this pastime is reflected in us.
I propose to answer a few questions to understand how dependent on social networks.
- How much time per day do you spend on social networks?
- What happens to your mood: it improves or worsens?
- Thanks to social networks, you feel inspiration, move forward?
- Does it happen to you after watching the tape to feel insignificant and “freeze”?
- Shame, fear and wine intensify?
If you understand that your mood does not depend on social networks or even improves after watching the tape, you are usually inspired and start to do something-congratulations, you can safely stop reading this article, it will not come in handy for you.
But if you notice that dissatisfaction, depression and depressive states are intensifying and directly depend on
what you see in the tape, we have something to talk about. First of all, about how to optimize your relationship with social networks.
Strictly by the clock
The first effective way is to reduce the time you spend on social networks. To do this, you can use a regular watch or special application for smartphones. Moreover: the same Facebook (an extremist organization banned in Russia) and Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia) recently presented a function that shows how much time the user spent in the mobile application over the past week. In the first case, the schedule is in the section “Your time on Facebook” (an extremist organization banned in Russia), in the second – “Your actions”.
There is even a tool that allows us to indicate how much time we would like to spend in the application. When the limit specified in the settings will be exhausted, we will receive a notification (access to the applications will not be blocked).
A good idea is to arrange information detoxes from time to time. For example, one day a week can do without viewing social networks.
Analyze this
The second way is to analyze how and what you spend time. Try to understand:
- What are you watching and reading?
- What feelings does it cause?
- Why did you subscribe to the people who envy?
- Why are you doing this – leaf through the Stories, read these bloggers?
- What prevents you from making another choice?
- What could help?
After analyzing your own behavior on social networks, you can take the following steps:
- Conduct an audit of their subscriptions, content.
- Reduce the number of profiles to which you are signed.
- Unsubscribe from people uninteresting to you.
- Subscribe to new, interesting.
- Regain a choice and will.
Yes, changing habits, much less refusing to add dependencies is always not easy. Yes, you will need determination and determination. But what you get at the exit will cost all the efforts spent and will allow you to enjoy every day – not only on holidays, but also on weekdays.
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