The start of the academic year is the perfect opportunity to break old habits, develop healthy ones, and cut out anything that’s no longer serving you. In our digital age, it would be foolish to pretend that social media doesn’t often fall into one, or all, of the aforementioned categories. It can be a vicious vice, a tool for good, or a toxic wasteland all at once, but the common thread in any of these is that you have control over your relationship with it.
Unfollow and Unfriend
There’s some taboo over the concept of unfollowing people that you know, or have known, on their social media accounts. However, just like it’s okay to phase out people in your real life, you can do the same on social media. Unfollow and unfriend the people or accounts that you feel put you down, give you anxiety, or make you compare your life to theirs or anyone else’s.
Follow and Friend!
This is the total opposite of the previous point, but if you’ve gone through the process of unfollowing, definitely consider following and friending people and accounts that lift you up and inspire you to be a better, stronger, more confident you. From your new roommates to inspo-girl-power accounts (highly recommend @girlboss on Instagram for inspirational quotes), you should only feel excited to check out what the people you follow post, and never apprehensive.
Turn Off Notifications
I don’t know about you, but I always get frustrated when people tell me to take a “social media break,” because it’s simply unrealistic in the college lifestyle. However, one thing you can do if you want to phase out how much you use or check up on social media is turn off your notifications for those accounts. This will limit how often you’re tempted to reload a page, and help you focus on your real life with far fewer distractions.
Create a finsta
Finstas (or fake Instagrams) are becoming increasingly popular because they take the pressure out of keeping the perfect theme, coming up with the cleverest caption, and all the other pressures of having an Instagram account. Make a second account that only your closest friends can see, and post the silliest, most ridiculous things you want whenever you want to. This can be really liberating and can make you feel excited about posting in a way that often doesn’t happen when you’re trying to impress followers.
Never feel guilty
Despite the negativity that comes up, you should never feel guilty about how you deal with social media. Whether you love going out with your friends and finding the artsiest backgrounds for a photo shoot session, or you only post once a year, never ever let anyone make you feel like you should change an online presence that makes you feel good. The fact is, our generation does care about our online personas, and just like “real” life, we have the right to dictate exactly what and why we post. Moral of the story: life is short, post that selfie.
[Feature Image by Pexels]