How to Decrease or Stop Using Social Media

Dec 23

Social media is a part of many people’s daily lives. This may take the form of mindlessly scrolling on TikTok or Instagram before bed, while waiting in line or for an appointment, or whenever one is bored. Others are more engaged with specific content, post content and comment on other’s posts. Social media is made to be addictive. It’s algorithms are designed to keep you hooked, scrolling, and glued to your phone.

Research on the Benefits and Harms of Social Media on Mental Health and Well-Being

Research on social media is unpacking what makes social media use helpful for some people and unhelpful for other people. There are race, age and education differences in how social media affects health and well-being. The research shows that while the benefits of social media are generally associated with younger age, better education, and being white, the harms of social media use are associated with older age, less education, and being a racial minority.

A recent study showed that there are positive effects of social media such as social well-being, positive mental health, and positive self-rated health when social media is routine and people are more engaged with the content. However, many studies are revealing that social media can have negative effects on mental health, sleep, self-esteem and life satisfaction. In general, it appears that passive scrolling is linked to the poorest outcomes on mental health and well-being. Also, emotional use of social media when it is associated with feeling left out or disappointed, is linked with poor mental health and well-being.

How Does Your Social Media Use Affect You?

If you’re not sure of whether social media is helpful or harmful, you might start slowly and follow these steps:

Gather data. Start to really pay attention to your mood and how your body feels while scrolling. Notice if you start feeling excited, content or joyful or if you start feeling envy, sadness and anxiety. You might keep track using a journal or a note on your phone and write down how you feel and what content you were viewing.
Slow down your scrolling. Take a moment to take in a post or video and pause to notice how it makes you feel. Notice the difference between how various content affects your mood, thoughts and body. Take note of which content uplifts and inspires you to take action about meaning aspects of your life and which makes you feel badly about yourself or creates anxiety.
Unfollow the content that makes you feel down on yourself, like you’re not good enough, that is associated with sadness or anger. Pay more attention to and follow the content that makes you laugh, feel connected, and generates energy to take action to do things that are important to you.
Set limits. You can certainly use the screen time limits on your phone for social media. You can download apps that have better systems to not let you unlock your apps. You can also make a schedule for social media so that you are intentional in your use. Perhaps you allows yourself to mindfully engage with content that brings you a sense of joy or is educational while drinking your morning coffee and then you don’t check again until after dinner. These limits can be hard to stick to but change is possible!

You might also start to notice how social media affects you at different times of day. If follow a few people who post recipes you might reach for your phone earlier in the day to pick a new recipe for dinner so you can run to the store on your way home from work. Or you might check your phone on Sunday night to see what is going on at your kids school during the upcoming week. If you find yourself scrolling at night and staying up too late, you might pick a different activity to do before bed. (And BTW, any use of devices before bed is not recommended due to the way blue light from screens negatively affects sleep).

How to Stop Using Social Media Completely

If you want to take a full on break from social media, you can follow these steps:

Delete all the apps from your phone and other devices. You will need have a plan for how to connect with anyone or any organizations that you normally connect with via social media. You might have to let a few people know you will need to text or email with them.
Have a plan ready for how to cope with the feelings that will come up when you are not able to reach for your phone to scroll. You may feel bored or uncomfortable when you don’t have your phone to reach for. You might notice other feelings coming up that you have been ignoring and distracting yourself from. You might want to plan what to do with the time you have not scrolling. Maybe you now have an audio book or book on your phone that you read or listen to in the time you would have spent on social media. Perhaps now you strike up a conversation with the person next to you in line or in the waiting room and have a moment of human connection. Perhaps you look out the window on the bus and notice the view of the mountains or the new restaurants along the street that you never noticed before because you were on your phone.
Give yourself time to get used to not using social media. Ideally a detox or break will be a month but a week if useful if that is all you can commit to doing. Even a weekend or a day is helpful.

You can do an initial break from social media and then follow up with other planned breaks. Continue to notice how you feel when taking a break and how you use that time.

Some people find that they don’t miss it after a while and don’t want to return to it. Others may discover that they do want social media in their life but want to engage with it more intentionally.

When to Get Help for Issues with Social Media

If you have the sense that social media is unhelpful to you or problematic in any way and you’re having a hard time decreasing your usage, you might seek help. Therapists can be a good resource for helping you understand your unique relationship with social media and how to change it. If there are underlying anxiety or other issues driving your use of social media, they can help you with skills for these conditions. Trained therapists can also help you to better understand how addictions work and how to change your relationship to social media and/or your phone overall.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Problematic Social Media Use

Cognitive Behavior Therapy or CBT is a particular type of psychotherapy well-suited to help with social media issues. How one interacts with and regulates their use of social media and their phone overall connects to larger issues around self-regulation. The ability to self-regulate starts with understanding how a behavior functions in your life, how it affects your thoughts, feeling and physical sensations and then provides tools to help you make desired changes and live a connected and meaningful and joyful life.

In fact, there is a set of skills called “effortful control” skills which appear to be helpful for problematic social media and internet use. “Effortful control” refers to the ability to regulate one’s own behavior and includes skills taught as part of CBT such as the ability to observe and label one’s experience, the ability to delay gratification in the moment for longer-term rewards, and mindfulness. Self-regulation starts in infancy and continues up through adulthood.

The process of CBT lends itself directly to changing one’s use of social media through:

Tracking the use of social media (and other problematic behaviors).
Skills to manage emotions such as anxiety, anger, boredom and overwhelm.
Helping clients to engage in activities and relationships that are meaningful.

References

Vahedi, Z., & Zannella, L. (2021). The association between self-reported depressive symptoms and the use of social networking sites (SNS): A meta-analysis. Current Psychology, 40(5), 2174–2189. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-0150-x

Bekalu, M. A., McCloud, R. F., & Viswanath, K. (2019). Association of social media use with social well-being, positive mental health, and self-rated health: Disentangling routine use from emotional connection to use. Health Education & Behavior, 46(2_suppl), 69S–80S. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198119863768

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