How To Stop Addiction to Social Media: In this Modern era, Social Media has become a potent tool communication and entertainment; that billions of people across the globe cannot spend a week off Social Media and a good number of people have gotten so addicted to Social Media that they cannot even spend a day off it. This wide Addiction to Social Media is understandable, but it’s not palatable as it is a habit which you must stop if you want to make good use of your time.
In case you are fond of this bad habit of addiction to Social Media, this Article is for you as in this Article I shall give you valuable tips on how you can effectively curb your addiction to Social Media.
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What Is Social Media?
Social Media is a Computer based Technology usually an application or a Website which permits it’s users to create and share contents, transmit information, and send messages to one another.
There are a couple of Social Media platforms, notably: WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Facebook, Blogs, Podcast, and Telegram which all currently ranks as the most popular and used Social Media platforms.
These platforms are widely used because of the numerous advantages associated with making use of them.
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Benefits of Making Use Of Social Media
1. Social Media Fosters Communication as it has notably taken over Text message as the most popular resort of sending a message across to a person, especially a person whom you are not friends with or is a complete stranger.
2. Social Media helps us in Social networking as it is the easiest way for us to increase our network and make new friends especially for introverts. This is so because Social Media will provide you with the necessary platforms to interact, communicate, and bond with strangers.
3. Social Media does not only increase our network, but also increases our visibility necessary to build a large audience for ourselves or our business brand.
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4. Social Media gives us access to information, as in most workplace or School, Social Media particularly WhatsApp is the medium for passing information to students, so therefore by being active on Social Media you will have speedy access to information.
5. Social Media aids learning through the online resources, materials, Articles, Research Work, and contents which enables us to read and learn, not to mention the virtual interactive platforms where we participate in Webinars and Online classes.
6. Social Media is a good source of entertainment as you cannot be on Social Media without laughing especially on Platforms such as Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, and YouTube due to the amazing contents, memes, comments, and interactions on these platforms.
Aside these; there are many more benefits of Social Media which best explains why people cannot do without Social Media. As a matter of fact people build their brand on social media as Influencers, Bloggers, Content Creator, Business brand and lots more, also some other people largely spend their time on Social Media for entertainment and less beneficial purposes because of their already fond addiction to Social Media.
If you are in this later category, it’s important to note that there are lots of disadvantages of such addiction to Social Media.
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Disadvantages Of Addiction to Social Media
1. Social Media is time consuming as you could spend your whole day on Social Media being entertained and chatting with some friends.
2. Social Media reduces productivity because when you spend so much time on Social Media, by default you will be less productive as the time you ought to use to do something reasonable will be devoured by Social Media.
3. Social Media is a potent took of distraction especially for Student’s who are social media addicts, as such Student will rather come online instead of concentrating on reading their books and when a Teacher is teaching they will always be on their phone.
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4. One negative effect of Social Media is it’s increased low self esteem amongst active users when they see pictures of their mates flexing or living a fake life. This may therefore prompt such a person to indulge in a malapropos act to keep up with the flexing trend on Social Media or alternatively could get such a person feeling down and less inferior to their mates.
5. Social Media facilitates Cyberbullying as active users of Social Media are often victims of backlash, dragging and unprovoked insults which could lead to depression. Moreso, general users of Social Media are often victims of fake and hostile information usually spread across Social Media.
These and more are the very good reasons why once in a while you should detach yourself off Social Media and this can only happen when you are not an addict, as an addict will find it difficult to detach himself or herself from Social Media. So in case you are an addict to Social Media finding it difficult to detach yourself from Social Media despite it’s time consuming and distractive effects in your life, here are some valuable tips which could help you end your Social Media addiction.
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9 Effective Tips to Stop Your Social Media Addiction
1. Get A Hobby or Job off the Media: Social Media is a source of pure entertainment, yes. So one way to counter your addiction to Social media because of its entertainment is to find a hobby off Social Media. If you have something which you enjoy doing outside social media, you will find yourself doing that thing more and this will reduce your active presence on Social Media as well as reduce your addiction too.
For instance, if I’m a Jobless Social Media addict, the best way I can employ to reduce my addiction on social media is trying to do my hobbies off Social Media such as playing PS4 games, playing table tennis, playing Chess. When playing these I will spend more time off social media and when I continually do this I could comfortably spend hours off social media.
On the flip side, one of the easiest way to get off your addiction on Social Media is to get a job which will keep you busy. Trust me when you are always busy or have lots of work on your table, you will not really have time for Social Media and you will only come online if and when necessary.
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2. Limit Your Time on Social Media: One viable way to reduce your Social Media addiction is to limit the time you spend on Social Media. You may limit your time on Social Media by setting a data limit which automatically turns off your data and prevents you from coming online on Social Media once you reach your data limit for the day.
Also you may limit your time on Social Media by turning off your Social Media notifications as the more the notifications you get the more the urge to click and when you click that’s how you could spend hours on Social Media trying to reply chats or catch up with entertaining contents.
Setting a daily data limit and turning off your Social Media notifications will help you in reducing the amount of time you spend on Social Media, and likewise it will help you curb your addiction to Social Media.
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3. Freeze Your Application: The easiest way to reduce your addiction to Social Media is by limiting your access to Social Media, and you may limit your access to social media by freezing your social media applications and only unfreezing them when very necessary to use.
4. Self Control: It is not easy to set a limit to your access to Social Media and comply with it. This is where self control and discipline comes in, as it takes only self control for you to set a data limit each day and not increase the limit when you notice that it is giving you limited access to Social Media and likewise it only takes Self control to freeze your Social Media apps without being tempted to unfreeze them just to come online.
One way to exercise self control is to motivate yourself by telling yourself the importance of spending your time doing something productive rather than winding up that time on Social Media. Motivating yourself on the importance of staying off social media for a while and exercising self discipline to comply with your growing desire to be off the media will definitely help you in reducing your addiction to Social Media.
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5. Limit Your Phone Time: Another way to exercise Self control over your Social Media addiction is by limiting your phone time by not always being with your phone.
It happens that people who are always pressing their phones are Social Media addicts as being active on Social Media is one thing which keeps them glued to their phone at every point in time, so therefore if you can curb the way you always use your phone everytime you will definitely reduce your time on Social Media and this will help curb your Social Media addiction.
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6. Setting a Schedule: Setting a daily schedule of your activities and program in a day will keep you busy and productive as you will be trying hard to achieve all the things which you set out to accomplish in your to do list for the day, a phenomenon which will shift your focus off Social Media and will make you comfortable with staying hours away from Social Media.
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7. Spending More Time With Your Friends Offline: Social Media has become an instant messaging tool which has replaced the traditional letter writing or text message, so therefore people are always online to send texts to their friends and loved ones, and this is one of the things that births Social Media addiction.
So therefore, if you can spend more time off Social Media with Family and Friends through phone calls, text messages, and social gathering. It will definitely reduce your Social Media time.
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8. Get busy: The generally proven way to limit social media addiction is to get busy. Yes, it is correct that a lot of people even switch from their various tasks to social media at intervals or even consistently throughout the days, but then, you can imagine how intensive the act of addiction would be if they weren’t busy. Getting busy reduces the intensity of addiction to social media. You will agree that sometimes, people get busy and forget visiting the social media space for a while.
And when they realize this, you may relate to how much proud they would be for being absent for that short while (for addicts who feel remorseful about their addiction and desires to quit). Now, what kind of busy should one get to take his mind away from social media? It’s simple; get a job. You do not expect a busy banker to switch in-between work and social media. He does not even have the time to attend to phone calls, let alone surfing through media spaces. Moreover, there are regulations in working environments which usually includes putting away phones.
Even without an express statement, an addict need not be told that pressing phone in a working environment is not a good recommendation. Even in a private job, an addict who steps out every day to pursue funds need not be told that social media addiction decreases his productivity level. So, it is convenient to tag this heading, ‘Get busy with a job!’, unless you earn from social media whether directly or indirectly.
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9. Turn off your social media apps notification: Another practicable method is to block the reception of notifications from your social media applications. You can turn this off through the applications itself and/or through yourl phone’s notification setting.
Most often, people are impulsively driven to check out their notification from social media applications whenever he sees one. How much more, for an addict? It is a view that cannot be controlled when seen. So, the best option is to turn them off. At least, you get reminded of your media absence only by your intuition.
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If the first thing you do when you wake up is to come online on Social Media. You always use Social Media even while doing other things such as having a meeting, doing School work, Working, Eating, Hanging out with friends, being in other social gathering. You rely so much on the use of Social Media that you cannot do without it. You are restless when you are not in Social Media for hours. You always use Social Media to take your mind off a problem. You always depend on Social Media for entertainment. You are angry whenever your access to Social Media is limited, then you are a Social Media addict and you should kindly apply the aforementioned tips to curb your Social Media addiction.
Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka, ACMC, is a lawyer and a certified mediator/conciliator in Nigeria. He is also a developer with knowledge in various programming languages. Samuel is determined to leverage his skills in technology, SEO, and legal practice to revolutionize the legal profession worldwide by creating web and mobile applications that simplify legal research. Sam is also passionate about educating and providing valuable information to people.