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5 Ways to Manage Social Media Inputs

In the last six months have began focusing heavily on managing my daily inputs. Inputs are anything in your life you choose to focus on or put energy into. This includes things you read or look at online. Or, they could even be people or situations that you surround yourself with. Managing your inputs mean recognizing what boundaries need to be set in order to reduce negative feelings and maintain a positive state. For me specifically, this means reducing social media time to reduce anxiety and negative feelings of comparison.



Social media has always played a large role in my life. I have been on social media since I was about 13, and realized I started to rely and crave the external validation it gave me- especially when it came to being accepted, loved, and feeling beautiful. (I'll explain more about external validation in another blog soon!) Early adolescence is such an explosive time of growth, mentally and physically. Especially for girls through puberty this period looks different for everyone. Social media early on damaged my self-esteem and body confidence as I compared constantly and became obsessed with trying to morph my body into what I thought was "beautiful".


As I became older and transitioned from a "pre-teen" to "teenager" beginning to date, things got worse. Poor experiences associated with boyfriends and social media caused me to associate a lot of subconscious comparisons and anxiety that I still work through today. Learning how easy social media made micro-cheating, disrespect online, hiding pornography and lying left me scared and traumatized. I now implicate very strong boundaries with partners on social media and make sure we discuss it early on in the relationship. It wasn't until a couple of months ago I began to realize I wasn't setting many boundaries on MY inputs, mostly my partners. (check out my boundaries and social media blog!)


Long story short, about six months ago I fell into a cyclic pattern of self sabotage leading to anxiety and depression. This was largely due to the beginning of a new relationship and navigating all of the expectations and boundaries that we had to work through when it came to social media and how I related it to past trauma. Through therapy and a TON of thought reframing work and self control, I am was able to realize much of this came down to my insecurities and negative core beliefs.


This is where managing my inputs became so important. I realized that I was obsessing about things that my partner could care less about. I realized that my anxiety, worry, and need to control the inputs he had, really stemmed from a deep seeded insecurity inside myself. In order for me to be happy, and feel happy, I had to control the inputs I was consuming. Here are some of the ways that I have managed my social media inputs over the last six months and how it has helped me.


5 Ways I Managed my Social Media Inputs

  1. Deleted unhealthy apps and unneeded connections.

    1. After a ton of discussion, my partner and I both realized that Instagram was not a healthy social media for us to have. For me personally, but also our relationship. We decided together to delete Instagram, and I can say that it definitely improved our relationship and trust.

    2. We decided to do a purge of social media and remove any unhealthy connections that we had remaining on social media. This could include ex’s, pages that were no longer relevant to us, or others that may try to sabotage my mental health or relationship.

  2. Set time limits

    1. I set a time limit of half an hour for Tik-Tok and 10 minutes a day for Facebook. I recognized I had the largest problem with Facebook and decided that if I spend more than 10 minutes on Facebook I generally find myself engaging in comparison or self sabotage behaviors. After I have spent the allotted time on either app, my phone automatically shuts down the app. The time limit you choose is very personal and is solely based on how long you can engage with the app before feeling worse than when you started.

  3. Moving Apps on my phone

    1. I created a folder called healthy socials and limited socials. I moved the apps I set time limits on to the limited socials and removed this from my main screen. Healthy socials like Linkedin, Snapchat, and Pinterest remained on my main screen. Again- these will differ for everyone so use your own judgement!

  4. Turning off notifications

    1. For apps that I was addicted to checking anytime there was a notification, I turned these off reducing the amount of time thinking and checking these. For me, this was Facebook.

  5. Recognized self sabotage and set “off limit” behaviors.

    1. These "off limit" behaviors were only harmful to my mental health. Their actions had absolutely nothing for me to gain from them. In my head they were a form of “playing detective” and gathering information to prevent myself from getting hurt. For example- sifting through the friends of my partner on Facebook and looking at their pictures to see if he liked them. Yes- it went that far. It is kind of embarrassing to admit, but this is the kind of self sabotaging behavior I decided was “off limits”. Why? Because as soon as I would begin searching, even if I found nothing, my heart would race, I would get thrown into a frenzy of anxiety, and ultimately spiral from there creating problems out of nothing.


Overall, after applying and working hard to follow through with these- I can say that I am 90% happier. I still have some work to go, but realized just how important managing these inputs is for my mental health. Remember, inputs can be more than social media- they can be the radio you listen to, the books you read, the magazines you purchase.


I am hoping to write a blog explaining more in depth about how inputs can subconsciously and consciously cause you to feel anxiety from comparison. Make sure you stay tuned!


What social media or other inputs do you manage? I would love to know!


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