Social media has been an excellent way to connect people worldwide. However, it has become a major issue and is having the opposite impact. It is making people more disconnected, especially at home. Rather than spending quality time with friends and family, people are instead trying to unwind from their busy days and scroll through social media. However, this isn’t switching off your brain, although it may feel like it initially. Instead, your brain is overworking itself trying to take in all of the content that you are consuming. Humans are not used to taking in so much information, and bad news (which a lot of it is) in one go. Let alone what this leads to, for example, comparing yourself to people whose job it is to go to the gym, people who get paid to go on nice holidays, people who brag about all the nice things they have, and it is making people feel really bad about themselves.
Social media isn’t just making people feel bad, it is also leading to more people neglecting themselves, their self-care, their hobbies, cleaning, socializing, increased stress, and a variety of other activities. It is extremely addicting, and it becomes a vicious cycle. It will be hard to break the cycle, but one thing you need to help you is to put replacements in place. You need to be able to fill the time with something, as well as positively trigger your dopamine system. That is because that is what keeps people in the doom scroll cycle. A habit has several components, including the trigger, the action, and the reward. This begins to become self-reinforcing. With social media, for example, you may be stressed after a day at work or bored. This would be your trigger. The action is then picking up your phone and scrolling social media platforms. The reward is dopamine. With every new engaging piece of content the algorithm delivers, of the likes, comments, and notifications you get, it gives you a hit of dopamine and leads to addictive behaviors. Social media platforms are created to learn about your habits and personalize the content to make it more likely to trigger a dopamine release and keep you on the app.
Doom scrolling can have a significant and negative impact on your health, for example, it can lead to or exacerbate mental health issues, lead to addiction, reduce your attention space, disturb your sleep, and more.
To help you with this, you should start to consider other ways you can have fun, engage your brain, seek dopamine and coping strategies in a healthy way, and motivate yourself to make a change. This, in addition to being more mindful about your social media use, and resetting your brain’s dopamine system, can create huge, positive shifts in your life.
Before you make changes, you should bring some attention to what is going on with you and why. This awareness and understanding can support the changes you wish to make. Start by noting down your why. Why do you want to change, what are you currently experiencing, what is life going to look like if you continue down this path, and what do you want life to look like instead? This will help you create a strong foundation for change, and something to refer to when times get tough. Next, you should consider your triggers. What are you thinking, feeling, and doing when you feel the need to scroll social media? You can then use this information to address the triggers and make a plan. The plan should involve removing triggers where possible, and then deciding what you should do when you are triggered.
To support you on this journey, here are some strategies and ideas to inspire you, to spend your time more wisely at home.
Organize your home
When you have a cluttered home that is not clean, tidy, or set up for spending a nice time in your own space, it can really impact how you feel and what you decide to do with your time. Take some time to invest in cleaning and decluttering your home. This will help reduce distractions or the need to avoid things and improve your focus and well-being.
Make your home a safe space to be
Your home should feel safe and comfortable. In addition to decluttering it, you should set up your home in a way that is functional, comfortable, and meets your needs. Consider how you would spend your time at home in an ideal world and what you can do to change the layout of your home to suit this. Some incorporate things like zones into their home so that you don’t just have one room where you are conditioned to just sit on your phone. Zones will give you different spaces to step into when you want something e.g. a space to be quiet, a space to be creative, etc.
You should also consider how you can make your home feel good to be in, so you don’t feel like you have to disassociate so much. Paint your home mood boating colors, get some unique wallpaper up on the walls, and decorate it in a way that expresses your personality.
Make time for self-care
Social media may feel like you’re switching off, but it is having a negative impact on you. See where you can schedule a little time for activities that bring you joy and recharge your energy. It might be hard at first, especially if you are not used to prioritizing yourself. But it is really important that you put in a little effort and you try. When you get started, even with one small thing or just two minutes, you will begin to build self-trust and momentum to keep going and growing. You can then incorporate more. Once you get past this stage, you will find that these activities give you more capacity.
Engage in a hobby or learn a new skill
Picking a new hobby, or a skill to learn can give you something to commit to and work on. It is also excellent to help with the brain’s dopamine reward system. This is a natural part of being human, but this element can be skewed when you are addicted to social media, and you begin to crave dopamine instantly and quickly and it becomes self-defeating. When you start a new hobby or learn a new skill, you will begin to make progress on something, which then activates dopamine in a better way. This can help require and reset your brain’s dopamine systems. A new hobby or skill can also boost your physical and mental well-being, cognitive function, and your social connections. Choose something you enjoy or something you have always wanted to try. This can support your stress relief and better ways of coping, your self-esteem, and focus. All these things are negatively impacted through the use of social media, so it is a good idea to counter this.
Play games
Games are a great way to keep busy and keep your brain engaged. Whether you play an online casino game or Animal Crossing on Nintendo, it is an excellent way to boost your cognitive skills, keep you engaged, and have some fun. Consider what games might spark your interest. There are plenty of free ones you can play online, or you can opt for a games console or board games.
Leverage technology
In today’s day and age, there are a multitude of apps that you can leverage to support your habits, well-being, and life. Consider your weaknesses and struggles, and do some research to see if there are any apps that you can use to help you. This could be to better manage time, organize your to-do list, boost your productivity, and more. You can use technology to help you reduce stress, through the use of yoga and meditation apps. You can also help take things off your plate, by managing your finances, your energy consumption, and more. Make technology work for you, not against you as social media does.
Create routines that support your goals
Routines can set you up for success if you let them. Consider what routines you can utilize in your life to support your goals. This might be a morning routine that includes meditation and exercise, to help you become more mindful and aware of your thoughts and boost your natural happy chemicals. You may also create a bedtime routine that includes no screen time and slowing down to support your sleep quality to reduce your stress throughout the day and therefore, urges to use negative coping mechanisms such as social media.
Social media can be an excellent place to source information, learn about different people, and make new connections. However, there is a negative and addictive side of it that can impact your life. Consider what your social media habits are and if they need changing. You can then incorporate more ways to spend your time wisely.
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