How To Take A Social Media Break: It’s Not As Difficult As You Think

Words by Louise Stanway

Let’s talk about social media–the digital networking tool we love to hate. As well as being addictive, it can also trigger anxiety, decreased overall wellbeing, and promote unhealthy habits (like drawing comparisons between ourselves and others). These issues are exacerbated when we consume social media via our business accounts *as well as* our personal ones.

So, how do we distance ourselves from these unhealthy habits while staying attuned to the needs of our customers and followers? Let’s start with these three steps.

1.
Set up an auto-response for times outside of work hours. Would you respond to a customer’s email at 10 pm at night? Probably not. The same goes for social media messages. Decide what timeframe you are happy to respond to messages within and let your customers know when they can expect a response. You can set up auto-responses for Facebook and Instagram in your Facebook Creator Studio here. Hot tip: turn your phone notifications off for these apps at certain hours, too. 

2.
Set a timer on your phone for hours used on the app. Decide how many minutes–or hours–you can healthily spend on the app in one day, then set your preferences accordingly. Most modern phones will give you the ability “shut down” an app for the day after you’ve run past those designated usage hours. 

3.
Deactivate the app for a weekend. Once 5 pm on Friday rolls around, consider going into your app settings and actually deactivating (and uninstalling) your social apps for the weekend. You won’t lose your account, you’ll only lose the temptation to scroll through it mindlessly–when you should be using that time to enjoy a hard-earned break from screen time.