5 Ways to Use Social Media Healthier

Seriously. Any time you see something and question your self worth, how pretty you are, how cool you are, or how many friends you have, unfollow or mute the account. It may seem petty, but there’s no sense in continuing to consume content that makes you feel insecure. You are in control of the content you consume and the unfollow button is a great way to use that control.

You can follow artists you love, your friends and family who you love outside of social media, accounts with cute pictures of puppies, mental health tips, etc. Fill your feed with things you want to see, not with the things other people want you to see. Some of my favorite mental health accounts include: @drheidigreen, @enneagramashton, and @thegoodquote.

Posting on Instagram can be an anxiety ridden task for some people, especially those with anxiety. The constant pop up of notifications on your screen with the amount of people who “like” you or your picture certainly doesn’t help. Post your picture and go about your day. The likes will be there whether you watch them accumulate or not; I promise.

Posting should be a fun way to show others what you’re doing, not to get the most likes and certainly not to tie the amount of likes to your self worth. Turning off the like count on other people’s posts and yours will help you do this. Post because you have something to share with the people you know, not because you want a meaningless number to show up above a picture. To turn them off for other people’s posts, go to settings→privacy→posts→hide like and view counts. With this option, you won’t see total likes or views on the posts in your feed. To turn them off for your posts, after posting a picture, go to the three dots on the top right →hit hide like count.

Challenge your motive behind posting something. Are you hoping someone specific sees it? Are you posting it to prove you’re “doing so much better”? Are you thinking about how people will perceive you by posting that? Post because you want to. Because you have cool ideas and do cool things. Post for you, not that to prove anything that to anyone, including yourself. And most importantly, remind yourself that social media is a highlight reel, not the whole story.