Does social media cause stress?  Without any official case studies or further ado, I will wholeheartedly answer in the affirmative. YES, social media can cause stress. I’ll speak for myself.

There’s enough stress in my life and don’t need more.  I can’t control most stressors, but I can empower myself to be in control over this one.  I can change the settings to manage how I interface with the media.

Positive benefits of social media: keeping in touch with friends and family, knowing what’s happening locally, and learning and sharing information in special interest groups.  If there were only positives then this article would end here and we live happily ever after.

However…there’s the downside.

Negative: the temptation to compare yourself to others, exposure to toxic people, trigger topics, negativity, time wasted, etc.

Here are some tips I’ve used to slash social media stress, specifically in the jurisdiction of Facebook.  I practice these tips and it helped me set boundaries and reduce negativity while scrolling the feed.

Snooze, Unfollow, Unfriend, Block

If certain people continually post things that trigger you, annoy you, or otherwise ruffle your feathers you can get them out of your newsfeed.

• Snooze means you get to take a break from them for 30 days and not see their posts.
• Unfollow-similar to snooze but for a longer duration than snooze.
• Unfriend-remove them from your friend list.
• Block-if you feel harassed, unsafe, or threatened use this one.  Also, use for spammy or annoying people.  Let’s say you’re on a group and certain individuals continually post things that bug you and you’ve reached a point that just seeing their name triggers you, you can stop seeing their posts.

Edit privacy settings on your posts

You can determine who sees your posts.

•  Public -everyone can see what you write
• Friends or friends of friends
• Only you
• Friends Except (select names of people you don’t want to see the post)

Changing the post privacy is a step that takes half a second and it will save you lots of grief.  This is a great option to use for hot topics like politics or vaccines. Swaying someone to your way of thinking will never happen and if you have a contact who will argue tooth and nail over their point of view then best avoid the confrontation before it happens.

Leave group

Sometime during Marchaprilmay I joined lots of groups: job search groups, Corona parenting groups, and whatever ‘you may be interested in’ that seemed interesting.

Just because you joined a group doesn’t mean you have to stay.  If the group brings no joy or value to your life then click ‘leave group’. If you find that you made a mistake and want to rejoin then click ‘join group’ but most likely you won’t miss it.  I did a huge declutter the other day and it was very freeing to remove all excess.

Also during Marchaprilmay I wrote a poem called I Try.  The first stanza is related to how social media can make your self-worth go down.  I thought I would only share that part, but then I changed my mind and am sharing the poem in its entirety.

I Try

My self-worth isn’t based on how many people

Like me

Follow me

Friend me

Thumbs up me

Or share me

My value isn’t based on

My job

My looks

The size of my home

What’s in my wallet

I am a child of G-d

All I can do is try

Be kind

Listen

Do my best

Give 100 percent

Lend a hand

Lend an ear

Listen to that inner voice that whispers 

Try to find clarity during times of uncertainty

Try to focus on the positive

Try to find the joy in the little things

Try to make a difference

And try again

—————————————–

So I try to keep things low-stress and positive.  Do some decluttering and change your settings and see what happens. It cut down my stress. Perhaps the same will happen with yours.

Thanks for reading,

Karen