I’ve been staring at a blank page for the better part of a week trying to decide how to navigate this article.
This topic is talked about SO heavily, and despite how potent the words are, daily we all still experience burnout, imposter syndrome and comparisons due to social media use. In an age where more time is spent scrolling on platforms than hanging out in real life, how can one combat this ever-present and crippling feeling?
It’s a tricky dilemma that we face as entrepreneurs. Being active and engaged on social media can help you connect with investors, other founders, sales leads and more. It can also result in indecision, attention issues and comparison. Checking in with yourself to determine which version of social media use you’re taking part in is crucial.
With more and more careers relying on social media, this dilemma continues to grow. Below I’ve detailed five tips that I implement in my constant (and often failing) pursuit to avoid “the social media trap door.”
1. Take Social Media Breaks
Don’t be afraid to take social media breaks when you need them. Everything will still be there when you return. Read that again. Your friend’s post about how cute their dog is can wait. Even most opportunities will still be lying dormant waiting for you to activate them when you return as a healthier human. It’s important to give yourself a mental reset and reminder that the real world still exists. When you feel you’re in a good mental state to re-enter the land of ego and attention, then get back out there.
2. Limit Usage With Apps
There’s a feature on your iPhone that can limit your use of certain applications. You can navigate there by going to your Settings > Screen Time > App Limits > Add Limit > Social, and pick your preferences. Obviously, this won’t physically prevent you from jumping back on your perfectly curated “For You Page” for a quick fix, but it will remind you that you’ve hit your daily limit. I’ve found that to be effective in pressuring myself to stop.
3. Pick Up an Offline Hobby
This one is self-explanatory, but rediscovering your interest for a lost hobby, or finding a new one, is a great solution to avoiding additional phone usage. It’s also a great way to spend time with friends or make new ones! Meetup.com and various other platforms allow you to find local hobby-driven hangouts in your area. Search by hobby type and, voila, back to being a real-life human!
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4. Be Diligent With Your Social Media Time
There’s a time for scrolling, and there’s a time for using social media to aid your career. Find that balance. If you’re extremely diligent with outreach on socials or whatever is needed in your daily work functions, then you shouldn’t need to constantly be on there for work. This is a case of working smarter, not harder and also being brutally honest with yourself. You may be doomscrolling, convincing yourself it’s for work, but is looking at engagement photos of a random person from high school really work-related? If you’re reading this and trying to work up a reason it is, it’s time for a break.
5. Curate Your Feed
This one is probably the most underused of the tips. It’s your social media experience. Customize your feed(s) so that they’re useful to you and not things that give you imposter syndrome or other negative reactions. Comparison is the thief of joy. Remember that. You can mute or unfollow accounts that don’t make your social media experience positive whenever you need to. I promise you it may be hard if it’s something/someone where there’s an emotional connection, but in three months, you’ll have forgotten all about it/them and be far better for it.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes escaping to a Twitter/X thread or an Instagram meme carousel is just what the doctor ordered. And that’s totally okay! Just don’t let those outlets become your entire life as they are extremely addictive and will quickly control how you spend your personal time.
In-person activities can become harder and harder to justify with an addiction to social media. Anxiety can rear its head where you never knew it existed and can suddenly be crippling in deciding not to attend activities or events that may be worthwhile to you, your significant other or your career. Something as fleeting as a 15-second vertical video is not more important than shaking a new hand or catching up with an old friend.
Implement these five tips for utilizing social media platforms to aid in your personal and professional growth. We all stumble and make mistakes with the ever-growing suite of tools to connect on our phones. We all compare ourselves to others and we all feel bad at times; just zoom out and realize that you’re great and a post from someone you haven’t spoken to in 10 years won’t tell you otherwise!
You got this!
