How to Waste Less Time on Social Media

Sure they can be fun but they are also a lot like junk food, too much can make you sick.  Sometimes when you spend too much time looking at what everyone else is posting, it can leave you feeling like a worthless bump on a log or make you feel down because it looks like everyone else you know is doing all this really cool stuff and having so much fun.  You can also easily waste entire days and weeks of your life just scrolling through the Facebook or Instagram feed looking at pictures and statuses you have already seen. 

Here are a few quick tips to reduce your social media overload:

• Delete the apps from your phone (I’m not saying you will never look, but if you don’t have it on your phone you will be forced to do something more productive while you wait in line at the grocery store or wait for a bus, for example, clean out your email, call someone you love, read a book on iBooks. 

• Get a tracker on your computer.  There are tons of them out there.  Do a quick Google search or ask a friend.  I don’t have this problem and therefore don’t have any to personally recommend.  Then track and add up how much time you really spend on social media apps each day.  I’m sure you will be shocked, and that alone might help you cut back.  If not, some of these trackers allow you to set daily limits for how long you can stay on a particular app. 

•  Make the sites less easy to access.  I recently got a new browser and instead of setting all the basic social media sites on my bookmarks tab, I just set up my email, now I’m not being reminded that Facebook is there every time I open a new browser tab, and thus I end up checking it less.

If you are one of those people who always feels like there is never enough time to do all the things you need and want to do in life, cut back on stalking what everyone else is doing.  That will certainly free up some time in your day for you to do more.