Like many of you, I sat glued to all forms of media yesterday. I found that I couldnt get awayeven when Id try to wander off and do something else online, the underlying anxiety created by the once-in-a-lifetime storming of the U.S. Capitol kept bringing me back to the news. I spent more time on Twitter in one night than I have in the past three months.
However, today feels a little different (I didnt say better, as nothing has really happened yet in response to yesterdays catastrophic breakdown of societal norms). Were entering the doomscrolling and snark portion of our collective response, which is fine if it helps you cope; but if youre like me, though, you get frustrated or anxious when we continue to spin our gears.
To counteract this, consider scheduling a digital break. And you have plenty of options, each with varying degrees of severity.
Move your devices somewhere else
This sounds simple, because it is. Take the phone, tablet, smartwatch, or other notification-delivering device off your desk for the day (or week) and place it somewhere else. If it needs to take a temporary vacation from your home office to your bedroom, great. If you find yourself getting worked up in the late-night hours with what youre seeing online, maybe move it out of your room and into the kitchen (and switch to a different alarm setup temporarily).
Whatever your decision, removing one of the main sources of ding, ding, ding news updates and far-too-tempting idle scrolling is a great way to reduce how tightly wound you can get by the days eventsand everyone elses constant reactions to them.
Turn off device notifications
I noticed a week or so ago that even the great Marc Rebillet, an incredible musician who basically fuels his career on social media, decided to take a brief digital detox by turning off notifications for Facebook and Snapchat. At first I was like, Dude, thats your audience, but after a few minutes, I started to wonder if it was the right move for me, too.
Ive often said that its pretty amazing that we all have little news-reporting machines right in our pocketsdevices that are connected 24/7, which can give us instant, immediate access to a vast marketplace of ideas and, when necessary, up-to-the-minute tidbits about whats happening in the world. However, this whenever-we-want-it access can also be bad for us. Whether its our devices screaming at us, or were frantically tapping through six social media apps to get the latest opinions, reacting to real-time events can quickly spin your day out of control.
Once were past the day-of reporting and into the analysis and retrospection portion of a nightmare, its a great time to turn off notifications for your various social media apps. That wont stop you from looking up this information yourself, but itll keep you from being prompted to engage at random points throughout the day. In other words, when you feel ready to jump back into the fray, youll be able to. You just wont have it interrupting your day and keeping your anxiety at a constant simmer.
Curate your social media feeds
If you want to stay plugged-in to social media, thats great. However, I also suggest that you use whatever tools you have availablewhich vary by platformto curate what you see in your feed. Maybe youre tired of reading about anything related to a cable news channel, or youre sick of hearing about other social media platforms responses to this weeks events. Or maybe youre just tired of having to read anything from anyone with a particular political point of view. There are ways to curate your feed to mitigate your stressors.
Twitter users can easily block certain words and phrases from appearing in your timelinetemporarily or permanently. While youre there, consider turning off your DMs (if youre getting blasted by annoying people), or consider muting notifications in various ways so you arent triggered by people you dont even know.
On Facebook, consider being a bit more judicious with the Snooze feature for people or pages you dont want to see for the next month. Install a browser extension to sanitize your feed of content you dont want to deal with right now.
Every social platform has some degree of curation, even if thats something as basic as muting comments that contain certain words. Odds are good you can find a third-party app or extension that lets you do a bit more; I recommend exploring this route so you can still use social media without feeling too overwhelmed by content you dont need right this second.
Limit your time on social media
Chances are that your smartphone now has some kind of digital detox feature that you can use to limit the amount of time youre allowed to interact with an app. Consider using it if you still want to be able to access social media, but want to keep yourself from unexpectedly wasting four hours endlessly scrolling.
If youre on your computer, itll be a little trickier to curb your social media instincts. Youll probably want to install a browserextension to help you fight temptation, because I dont think youll need (or want) to use parental controls to limit access to your web browser. Thats the nuclear approach; a browser extension that you can use to keep you from wasting the day away on social media is a better idea.
Delete your apps or accounts
Its fine if youve reached your breaking point with all things social media. As Ive previously talked about, deleting your account and removing yourself from the daily back-and-forth will do wonders for your mental health. Make sure youve backed up any information you care aboutor signed up for a data dump of everything youve upload to a service, if its availableand then deactivate or delete your account depending on whether you want a temporary or permanent fix.
However, before you say goodbye forever, I do want to note that social media can be useful. It feels like a complete cesspool nowadays, but it is a great way to get firsthand knowledge of events. Its one thing to read about assholes breaking into the U.S. Capitol, but its another to watch them scaling walls, setting off fire extinguishers, and posting their own pictures and videosand the sweet karma that hits when theyre identifiedwith your own eyes.
This can also be overwhelming, thoughsuch is the double-edged sword of being able to see the thoughts, photos, videos, and live feeds of anyone in the world. Some things you really want (or need) to see. Some things you dont. If youre on the fence, consider doing everything just shy of deleting your account. Remove all your friends and followers, lock down your account, and prevent anyone from befriending you, following you, or adding you to a list. Remove information that ties back to you, and install adblockers if youre especially pissed at how a social media company tolerates white nationalism on its service. If you must, only follow other accounts or people that you actually want or need to read. Treat your account like an RSS feed, not a way to actually connect with others. And if that means youre only following, say, five news organizations you care about, thats fine too.
Approaching social media that way can cut down the noise in your accounts to the absolute minimum youre comfortable tolerating. Instead of getting updates, snark, and punditry, updates are more spaced out, and any other information you want to find, youll have to do yourself. In doing so, youll be able to better control how much you ingest at any given time, and that can keep you happier. I hope.read more
5 Ways to Take a Digital Break
