For Juniper Therapeutic Services By Katherine Cullen, MFA, LMSW

You’ve likely heard that using social media (especially in excess) can increase your risk of depression, anxiety, plunge your self-esteem, and may even impair your social skills. While some research shows this isn’t always the case, many studies support the adverse effects of social media use—combined with spending too much time online in general—on our emotional, social, and physical health.

Many factors account for the deleterious effects of social media on our wellbeing. Among them: exposure to an abundance of other people’s curated images of material success and artificially filtered beauty, which prompts us to upwardly compare ourselves and conclude that we don’t measure up. Missing out on the physical presence of people we know and trust, which helps regulate our mood and can even increase our threshold for pain. And being overwhelmed by an influx of information that taxes our cognitive processing abilities, increases our impulsivity, and undermines our ability to focus.

But does this mean we should abandon social media altogether? Some may wish to do so, but for those who prefer to stick around on the potentially toxic platforms, here are six tips to navigate them—without losing your mind.

Filter Out Useless Information

Unfollow or mute accounts that flood you with useless articles (“You’ll Never Believe What This Celebrity Looks Like NOW;” “This ONE THING Will Eliminate Your Belly Fat Forever”). Turn off alerts from websites that bombard you with these headlines. Such posts are merely distracting noise that will likely contribute nothing to your productivity and peace and instead rob you of previous time, energy, and cognitive resources.

Mute Troublesome Accounts

Perhaps it’s the colleague always posting about her perfect marriage and family. Or maybe it’s the social justice warrior barking about the latest instance of misogyny they’ve read into an otherwise neutral interaction between two persons of the opposite sex having a calm conversation. Maybe it’s a news account blasting you with a 24/7 stream of human tragedy. If the majority of an account’s posts make you annoyed, angry, anxious, or otherwise distressed, mute them. They’re not worth the cognitive and emotional expenditure.

This isn’t to advocate avoiding the discomfort of reality’s harsh truths and challenges (and the many people who embody such phenomena). But the Internet is a simulacrum of the real world—not the real world itself—and the latter guarantees us sufficient exposure to such truths and challenges. Save yourself the headache, heartache, and mood-demolishing impact of accounts that exacerbate insecurities and unrest so you can shore up your emotional and cognitive resources to face the real stuff in person.

Nudge Yourself In The Right Direction

Set time limits on the apps you use the most to ensure you’re not losing precious hours (of productivity, sleep, or quality time you could be spending with a loved one or engaged in an offline endeavor like reading or getting outside).Time-limit setting via the iPhone’s Screen Time app and setting your phone to grayscale mode have both been shown to help people reduce their screen time. Here are some other apps that help set limits on screen time and social media use.

“Don’t Feed The Trolls”

If someone harasses you or another person online, threatens violence, or swamps you with misinformation, report them as needed and do not engage. As Anastasia Kozyreva and colleagues describe in a paper on how to “critically ignore” extraneous information online, “individuals who engage in trolling are motivated by negative social power, and their trolling behavior is reinforced by the adverse impact their actions have (e.g., annoying and upsetting people). To fight back…one needs to withdraw that negative social reward, thereby diminishing trolls’ motivation to engage in antisocial behavior.”

Be Intentional

What exactly do you want from social media? Entertainment or amusement? A genuine place to connect or learn? A mental break from work? A means to build your brand? These are all fine goals but they should be kept in mind when browsing and interacting, since it’s too easy to lose track of them and get sucked into digital (or virtual interpersonal) rabbit holes. Before opening a social media app, clarify your intention for your use of it to ensure you stay on track with any goals that use is trying to serve. This can aid you in ignoring irrelevant information and interactions while increasing your sense of control and agency.
One warning, though: If your goal is to escape negative emotions through social media use, you're more likely to use it in a way that worsens your mood and anxiety. If you’re having trouble dealing with negative emotions, consider these tips on what to do with them before logging into social media.

Positively Engage

The more we passively scroll through social media, the more unhappy we become as we use it. By contrast, when we positively engage with people on social media we end up feeling better. If you’d like to come away from Twitter, instagram, Facebook, or any other social media app feeling a bit better and more connected with others, consider finding ways to offer other users encouragement, validation, share helpful and supportive messages.

Is Social Media Bound To Make Us Miserable?

Social media use isn’t an inherent threat to our mental health, provided we use it wisely and within moderation. How we engage with social media has a substantial impact on how good or bad it makes us feel. Reducing the amount of time we spend on social media, engaging positively with others when we do use it, as well as filtering out harmful or useless information and accounts can go a long way towards improving our online experience—as well as our offline wellbeing.