How to Use Social Media Intentionally: Seven Ways You Can Reevaluate and Change How You Use Social Media
If you’re here reading this, you’re likely feeling a bit overwhelmed with social media, and finding it hard to use social media intentionally. And who wouldn’t be? There are more platforms than ever—with most people using an average of six or seven platforms in a month—and an estimated 4.9 billion users across these platforms.
Think about it for a minute: how many platforms do you use in a month? In a day? Then think of how much information is entering your mind—how many pictures you’re looking at, how many captions you’re reading. Even if you’re only using one or two platforms, that’s still a lot of information coming in.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or if you’re not content with how you’re using social media or how you feel afterward, there is something you can try: using social media intentionally. Through this, you can reduce both the overload of information entering your mind, be present during use, and feel more content about how you’re engaging with social media.
Check in with yourself (be mindful)
Above all else, we need to be mindful and check in with ourselves that we’re spending our time on social media in a way that feels right to us and know how to use social media intentionally. A lot of the time, we reach for our phones automatically, without giving much thought to what we’re doing.
I know I’ve zoned back in and found myself on Instagram with the feeling that I arrived there out of a dream. A lot of the time, this automatic action happens because our brains are looking for a distraction: we’re bored at work, or we’re avoiding feelings we don’t want to feel, or it’s simply a habit we’ve built and the actions to open the app happen without us having to think about it.
To work around this and be more present—and to determine both why you’re on a given app and whether you want to be there—you can ask yourself the following questions:
- What prompted me to open the app I’m on?
- How do I feel while I’m using this social media platform?
- Am I actually paying attention to what I’m consuming, or am I just scrolling?
- How do I feel after using social media?
If any of the answers surprised you, or weren’t answers you were hoping to find (read: all you feel is jealousy scrolling through your feed, or you feel upset or drained after closing an app) then it’s time to use the following points to change how you use social media.
Follow accounts that make you feel good
I’m a firm believer that what we consume on social media should make us feel good. And this might sound like a no-brainer, but only following accounts that you like and that make you feel good while you look at them is a game changer. If you’re following an account, and you find you feel anything you don’t want to feel when you look at their story or feed—say, jealousy or that you’re comparing yourself to them—then it’s time to unfollow.
I personally only follow accounts that bring me joy, or benefit me in some way (for example, they inspire me or make me laugh). If I find I’m following someone and what they’re posting isn’t making me feel good, or if what they’re posting isn’t in alignment with what I want to see—in my case, they were a book account and they now exclusively post something radically different—I don’t usually stick around.
Since I usually try to limit my time on social media, I want the time I do spend online to be a positive experience.
Turn off notifications
When you’re starting to think about using social media intentionally, one of the easiest things you can do for yourself is to turn off notifications for your social media accounts.
When we turn our notifications off, we don’t have the constant ping to let us know that things are happening on social media, and that we need to see them right now! Even though that’s not true, our brains think it is—we’ve been trained to hear the ping and reach for our phones to make sure we’re not missing out on anything.
If you’re not ready to fully turn off notifications, you can always turn them off at set times of the day. Alternately, you can personalise the “do not disturb” settings on your phone and manually choose who—and which apps—can reach you at any given time.
Leave your phone elsewhere
If turning notifications off isn’t something you’re ready to try, you can also leave your phone in a different room during specific times of the day. Some people may leave their phone elsewhere during dinner, while others may block out chunks of time in the morning or the afternoon.
Since I have an analog alarm clock, I leave my phone in the living room when I go to bed. Without my phone nearby, I don’t have the urge to check messages or mindlessly scroll, two things that happen when I’m tired or looking for something to distract myself with (or am not quite ready to fall asleep yet).
If you’re just starting with this, I’d suggest having something nearby as a stand-in. I like to keep a book nearby so that, during times when I’d reach for my phone and scroll, I end up reading a few pages instead. But it’s up to you what you swap in!
Use platforms you enjoy
This one too sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many of us (myself included) have used social media platforms we don’t even want to be using. We join because we think we have to, or because all our friends use it, or because a new app is rolled out and we get swept up in the hype.
But guess what: you don’t have to use all the social media platforms out there! You can decide what best fits your goals—or which ones you enjoy the most—and leave the rest behind. And choosing just one, two, or three social media platforms to spend time on means we have more bandwidth to really take in what we’re seeing.
How do you find out which social media platforms are right for you? By using tip number one: checking in with yourself!
Take breaks
If you know me in real life, you’re likely not surprised in the slightest that I slid this in here. But breaks are important, regardless of what we’re doing with our time!
When it comes to social media breaks, I advocate for smaller breaks (one day a week free of social media) and for bigger breaks (a whole week or month off!). Both will serve as a reset, will give you time to process all the information you’re taking in, and will make social media more exciting once you get back to it.
Add your own beauty to the world
One of the biggest things people seem to struggle with is scrolling aimlessly through social media. You open up the explore page, click on a video that looks fun, and suddenly you’ve watched fifty reels without actually taking anything in.
One way of changing this is to change how you interact with social media: go from consuming to creating. For example, instead of spending twenty minutes scrolling, use that time to make your own reel or photo set. And this works for everyone! As an art therapist (and insufferable optimist) I’m a firm believer that everyone is creative. You may not be an incredibly skilled painter or be able to crochet intricate granny squares, but you are able to create in other ways. Find what you like to create, even if that’s just aesthetic pictures of flowers, and get to posting. You’ll feel better and will add beauty to the world.
One final point: you don’t have to be on social media
If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this post, I think it’s safe to say you’re serious about being more intentional with your social media use.
And so once again we circle back to point number one: checking in. But, instead of being mindful of how social media makes us feel and thinking about what we want to consume, we need to really dig deep and decide: is social media even something I want to be on?
I know a number of people who don’t use it at all. They don’t have an Instagram or Tiktok account; they’ve never even opened Twitter. And for them, it’s perfect—they have no desire to keep up with friends, acquaintances, and people they don’t actually know online.
This isn’t the right choice for everyone, but it is the right choice for some. If you’re considering deleting social media for good, you may want to ask yourself what benefits you’re currently receiving from your social media accounts (connection, entertainment) and whether you can receive the same benefits in some other way. Sometimes, the best way to be intentional with social media is to not use it at all.
How are you planning to use social media intentionally? Comment below!
xoxo
Catherine
Thank you for reading! There’s no new printable this week, but you can see all the printables I’ve made previously in my shop, Toad in the Attic.
Some more posts you may like:
Intentional living (at this moment) and how I’m celebrating Mabon in 2023
This bright, glittering thing: Notes on wonder and life, here and now
My twenties taught me exactly who I don’t want to be
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