The rise of social media has meant that we as a global population are more connected than we have ever been in the history of time. In this article we gonna start by reassessing how you view social media? 🤳🏿 bad habits on social media are too easy to pick up. 👀 But dwelling on some of these bad habits can not only be damaging to how we view social media.. but it can be damaging on our mental health. Life isn’t perfect! Likes don’t mean everything! Your ex is not that big of a deal!
Here is the list of things we feel to let go of.
1) Stalking your Ex
To our own detriment, we’ve all stalked our exes from time to time. It’s fine to be curious about his life occasionally because you were a big part of it for a while, but checking up on him/her becomes problematic if it’s making you feel bad or you can’t seem to stop yourself form doing it. Just Delete your social media account or deactivate it for a while, do a digital detox.
Important step is to understand your triggers. Every time you get the urge to check your ex’s social media, ask yourself what just happened that made you want to do that? This will be easiest to do if you don’t check often.
2) The Perfect Life style
Social media has become an increasingly dramatic environment for the perfect life style of people and it has a huge influence on this shift—for better or worse. Pressure to project a ‘perfect’ life online is affecting the well-being of many. Think of it No one in this have a perfect life. By this time in this pandemic situation you might be aware of it.
There is always an unspoken feeling that you need to be better than other people and that creates a negative environment. So don’t show your perfect life on social media and don’t possess by those posts of perfect life style because it’s not true.
3) Accounts who make you feel bad about yourself
The daily social media we consume has become a core part of our communication and how we express ourselves. Social media has become part of the fabric of our story, our connection to others who live in lands far away.
Social Media is cool, except when we find ourselves comparing our latest status to someone else’s. Do we question our life’s progression in accordance with another’s latest achievements? Do we measure our happiness against someone’s vacation photos? Do we evaluate our success in accordance with the number of followers we have? Do we allow our mental health to be shaken by a ten minute catch-up scroll?
This kind of comparison is the thief of happiness, and I couldn’t agree more. So, instead of complaining about how bad social media makes you feel about yourself, I implore you embark on your own empowering journey of unfollow-ment. Rule of thumb: if they are chronic boasters or over-posters, then they gotta go.
4) How many likes you get
When people make a post on social media that receives countless likes, a little excitement is felt by that person. During this state of bliss, dopamine is released from the brain.
Although they are happy when seeing the number of likes on a post, how do they feel when they do not receive that same feedback on their next post? Envy clouds up their judgment, causing them to dive into depression and comparison with others. If the number of engagments or likes you’re getting on social media is starting to take over your life, it’s time to take a step back.
Naturally, we seek the approval of those around us. We want to be likedm to feel part of a pack, because going it alone is risky business. It even explains why we dress the way we do. It’s not bad to be concerned about what others think of us – it’s natural and it’s what makes us human – but equally, it’s important to be comfortable in our own thoughts and feelings. To know that what we like and think and believe is enough and that we don’t need a mouse click to validate that.
5) Quick Fix Diet Products
Some celebrities with large followings are promoting products such as diet pills and detox teas on social media. “The risks of quick-fix weight loss outweigh the benefits, and advertising these products without a health warning is damaging.
“Highly influential celebrities are letting down the very people who look up to them, by peddling products which are at best ineffective and at worst harmful.
Be aware “Taking any substance which impacts the body, without proper medical advice and support, is a risk”. “Cosmetic treatments and get-thin-quick products which are readily and increasingly available and promoted, can be harmful if not used correctly.”
6) Fake News on Social Media
We come across such social media posts every day. However, in few cases, the news is spread with malicious intentions such as political gains, instigating or spreading violence or hatred between communities, and in some cases, manipulation of stock prices by purposefully spreading fake news around a specific company. In these instances, the fake news is not only harmful, but it can be fatal. Interesting fact about fake news is, the damage is not done by the fake news itself but by the users who interpret it as real and act on it in panic. Often, proliferators use fake accounts, and bots to broadcast the news story to millions of users across various social media platforms.
When a user comes across a news story, his reaction is based on certain characteristics of the news story. For instance, the user might enjoy reading about his favorite sport, like a post of from his friends, share a news story which he thinks is interesting, sign up for an event or a service which interests him. Subconsciously, the user may ponder about its authenticity and then either believe or ignore it. On the other hand, if the user is stressed or the same information is repeated on his or her social media feed or sees his or her connection(s) reacting to it, the user perceives that the news is probably right and acts on it in anxiety.
So, next time when you come across a story don’t believe it blindly.
Story Idea and Image Credit: The Fabstory. Fabulous is a science-based app, incubated in Duke’s Behavioral Economics Lab, that will help you build healthy rituals into your life, just like an elite athlete.
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