Imagine this, you log onto your favorite social media site to create a post. You're in a good mood, and you begin scrolling the site to see what's new in the world. All of a sudden you start to feel stressed out with every passing post you read. You want to stop looking, but you can't because now you're starting to feel angry with every post you read. You forgot what you wanted to post in the first place, and now all you want to do is react to what you just witnessed on the internet, sounds familiar; welcome to social media!
Don't get me wrong, in the proper environment, social media can be a powerful and useful internet tool that can change the world, but unfortunately, it is changing the world around us into a toilet due to the ownership of these intellectual properties. So, what can we do to fight back without logging off altogether? Here are a few helpful tips to fight the internet devil that is social media to feel a little less stressed.
STEP 1.
Remove all your socials from your permanent phone and place them on the phone or tablet that you no longer use. Ensure to reset this social media device completely, wiping out all the old information. This will prevent your socials from reading your personal data and using it to manipulate you and yes, the companies are doing that.
STEP 2.
Create a separate email just for social media. This will also stop the data-selling in its tracks.
STEP 3.
This one is important, REVIEW YOUR REAL-LIFE FRIENDSHIPS! Beware of anyone who "friends" you on social media but never calls or texts you in real life. This person is just digging for dirt, and they are probably trashing you all over the internet, and you are feeding this monster via your socials. Don't help your haters.
Still Feeling Stressed Out
Here Are A Few Tips For Each
Social Platform
Instagram:
To prevent the negative post from showing up on your feed, simply unfollow and/or block people that you have conflicts with in real-time. Even if these people are not posting about you online, they might be doing so in chats, and this negative feedback about you reflects in post recommendations because Instagram is a known snitch. Remember, how people feel about you is none of your business and you never asked this platform for its feedback. Those subliminal post recommendations about you eating less food can just go... you know where!
Twitter:
Once again, delete negative people, or simply delete ALL your follows and keep a spreadsheet of all the people you like reading tweets from and read from there. Every year, purge all of your former tweets. This will prevent the platform from using tweets you posted previously to trigger you later.
Facebook:
BURN IT! SIMPLY BURN IT ALL DOWN! There is nothing you can do about this problematic platform. Only trashy people are on it, and no one is your friend on Facebook. Don't even try to delete it, just RUN!
Pinterest:
Don't FOLLOW anyone on this platform; it's not necessary to do so. Pinterest is one of the least problematic platforms out there. I believe you can just save boards on this platform, and there is no need to follow people, but don't quote me on this.
Tiktok:
Are the Chinese spying on us? Due to some of my affiliations, I am NOT ALLOWED TO SAY! I will say that I don't have a Tiktok or an eating disorder, so you do the math.
I hope this article helps someone out of the mental stress that is social media. If all else fails, just log off. Your REAL FRIENDS will simply call you to see how you're doing today. If no one calls, perhaps it's a sign to go outside and play.
The Kelly Street Bronx Agriculture is a community-based group in NYC providing information on healthy living and lifestyle improvement.
