If you’ve found Facebook becoming an overwhelming part of your life you might want to take a step back and rework your relationship with the social media platform. I’ve taken a complete break from Facebook (my personal page) for the past few weeks but if you’re not ready to completely sign off, below are a few tips to cut back your time and involvement with the all-consuming medium.
1. Unfollow everyone. Luckily you can keep your friends while avoiding their unnecessary chatter. There’s no official way to unfollow all your friends at once but I suggest digging through Google and attempting to find an extension that will allow you to do so. You can also unfollow your friend one-by-one. This is quite a task if you have thousands of friends but you can simply pace yourself and unfollow everyone over a week’s time. After unfollowing everyone only re-follow people’s who’s post you enjoy (unless you enjoy gossip, then unfriend those folks too) and benefit from. And don’t worry, no one will get a notification when you unfollow them.
2. Turn off notifications. After writing a post, turn off your notifications so you don’t get alerted every time someone likes or comments on your post. That doesn’t mean you don’t engage, but rather that you engage on your own time instead of feeling the urge to reply immediately after each comment. Do the same when you comment on other people’s post, again this doesn’t mean not engaging but rather, engaging on your own time.
3. Make valuable people first. This can be done in conjunction with or instead of unfollowing everyone. You have the option on Facebook to follow, unfollow or see first, choose ‘see first’ for the people you get the most benefit from. In this way, you’ll know the first 5-10 posts in your feed are more than likely worth seeing/engaging with. You’ll also be aware that the further you go down your feed the less valuable the posts get which should serve as an impetus to spend less time scrolling.
4. Remove notifications. Remove notifications for everything that isn’t important to you -the charity updates, the page updates, the updates for groups you don’t care about, remove, remove, remove.
5. Delete the app on your phone.
6. Turn off the notifications on the app. If deleting the app from your phone is unappealing (since it is easier to use Facebook through the app than through the browser), turn off all notifications so that you only know what’s happening when you actually log in to the app instead seeing the red square popping out of the app icon begging you to open it up.
7. Log out. Logging out every time after you use Facebook allows your Facebook usage to have a clear beginning and end whenever you use it. If you’re constantly logged in, it’s easier for your Facebook experience to be a continuous part of your day that you constantly check up on.
8. Time yourself. How much time do you spend on Facebook? Chances are most of us would answer, ‘too much’. Time yourself to whatever you feel is the appropriate limit and try your best to stick to it. I’d also suggest the app, ‘Moment’ that details phone usage and time usage on each app.
9. Write down your intention. What is your intended use for Facebook? Catch up with friends? Read the latest stats of people who post meaningful content? Have a discussion in a group that shares your interests? Great. Write it down on a sticky note (digital or physical) and do exactly that. This allows (inshaAllah) for less wasted time on things you had no intention of doing but can so easily fall into within the confines of social media.
10. Deactivate your Facebook. This allows you to be completely off the map for a period of time, you don’t have to be concerned about people tagging you, commenting on your page or liking your picture —and when you’re ready you can log back in.
It may seem strange to take social media so seriously but it has become a significant part of our human communication. Just as we take what we say and what we write seriously we have to take what we post and engage in online seriously as well. We’re not used to having discourses over brief text exchanges or sharing content that can be instantly seen by hundreds, thousands or even millions of people. We have to learn how to use it in a way that is fun, effective and does not negatively affect our offline lives. Stepping back to reflect on how we engage and limiting our engagement may be the best ways to achieve those goals.
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