By Rania Dawud

How often do you go on social media and realize that, hours later, you have not retained a single thing? In fact, you’re now annoyed! 

The comment section is frustrating, the news is bothersome and you’re now probably even feeling a bit behind than your seemingly-more-successful peers. It’s an awful feeling and one that you might put yourself through several times of week, all because you wanted to unwind and check your phone. 

Cutting social media out from our lives may not be the most practical solution for us, since for many people it is used for work and communicating with family and friends. But we can learn to make the most of it by using it more mindfully and intentionally. 

This is how to do it:

Make use of the “mute” and “block” buttons

Two very wonderful and very underused tools. If someone’s posts are bothering you, either they are too negative or harmful, so instead of reading through them, block them. Out of sight and out of mind.

And the “mute” button is a favourite feature of social networks for many users. Sometimes you might be following someone you know, but their posts don’t really add value to your day. It could be far too many photos or upsetting news, but you’d like to keep them as a contact. Simply mute their posts.  

Use it to interact

Frankly, mindlessly scrolling is depressing. Make use of the connective aspect of social media to reach out to others instead of just looking at their posts. Reach out to old friends and make new ones through pages and group chats. Keep up with events and workshops you could attend. 

Unfollow useless pages and blogs

Every six months or so I like to go through my “following” list and clean it out. Don’t doubt that your social media feeds need spring cleaning as well; unfollowing the many pages and people that only add clutter to your feed is incredibly freeing. 

A good way to know if it’s time to unfollow a page or a person is to think which posts you often find yourself skipping. If there’s a certain Instagram story you skip or a YouTube subscription you ignore, then it’s time to let go of them. This also extends to Facebook friends that you haven’t spoken to in years (think of a distant acquaintance who you only added through two mutual friends, for example).

Set a screen time limit

Smart phones now have a setting where they let you know how long you’ve been using your phone, even telling you how much time you’ve spent on each app. There’s also a setting that lets you limit your app use by giving you a notification after you’ve been on a particular app for a certain amount of time.

Even if you ignore the notification, it helps give you an idea of the time you are spending online. 

Be intentional

Know what you want out of your experience on social media and work towards it. This could be to share, to learn, to interact... whatever it is, use it to guide your time spent online and use it to direct you away from what you want to avoid doing.

The Internet is endlessly crowded with all different kinds of content, however, there’s no time, and no need, to go through it all. With that being said, it is an excellent resource and a powerful tool when used properly.