Checking in with yourself every now and then about - does your online self feel like your real self? By definition online networks grow moment to moment and can soon become all encompassing as we take every opportunity to check for updates and sometimes miss out on real life moments of calm and peace.
Our online worlds can become a bubble containing only what we want to see and paradoxically this can leave us feeling less connected to our real lives as we endlessly react to what we see without the accompanying real human contact.
I am not anti-social media, in fact I love it and it has saved my life on many occasions (literally not metaphorically). It's possible to ensure being online doesn't detract from our wellbeing, with it's endless stream of unasked for information and opinions as long as we take responsibility to make sure that what and how we interact with is in line with our values and goes towards supporting our real life purpose and sense of meaning.
Liking, promoting and interacting with likeminded others and meaningful causes has enabled me to proactively go about shaping my experience online.
With some mindful awareness of how social media makes me feel, I have become a little less dependent on getting likes, seeing everyone's news first and that rush from seeing lots of notifications waiting. It was not easy to step back but these steps helped me. And guess what? I am still connected both on and offline despite less time and energy spent in my bubble.
These tips were written for those with #1in4 mental heath struggles but I hope you will agree are pretty common sense for all of us. Get in touch if you have any tips on putting social media use in it's place and let me know about your experiences.
More coming soon!