Navigating university life often feels like balancing on a tightrope, with academic responsibilities, social life, and other commitments all vying for your attention. In this whirlwind, social media can become a major source of distraction. If you’re finding it hard to focus on your studies or feeling overwhelmed by your presence online, you’re not alone.
In this blog post, we’ll delve into practical strategies for digital decluttering that our student staff at Health Promotion use to maintain a balanced digital life. Feel free to use them as inspiration to transform your social media habits and reclaim your time, so you can focus on what truly matters—both in your studies and beyond.
SET CLEAR GOALS
So you've made a resolution to reduce your time on social media. Great! Next, take a moment to define your goals and priorities. What are you hoping to achieve by doing this? Get new hobbies? Improve your grades? Spend your time on things that truly matter to you? Whatever it is, having clear objectives will help you stay focused when you get the automatic urge to check your Instagram feed when you should be going to bed.
CURB YOUR BOREDOM
Another thing to consider is that reducing your social media usage will open up pockets of time that you didn't previously have. Research has also found that exposure to social media overstimulates the brain's reward centers (1). As a result, quitting social media can lead to feelings of anxiety (only at the start!) due to neurobiological withdrawal as your brain re-adapts to the reduced dopamine levels. Thus, it's important to think of what you will do with this extra time so that you don't have to fall back to social media to curb your boredom, whether that's painting, going to the gym, catching up with your reading list, etc.
notifications
Notifications can be a significant distraction. Despite what social media might make you think, you do not need to know every time a friend makes a post or comment. Our attention is a limited resource and turning off notifications can be a simple way to control your phone instead of letting it control you. Consider using apps like Forest and Flora to limit your access to social media while studying.
INCREASE BARRIER TO ENTRY
Another way to control your social media usage to go back to the principles of habit formation. One way to reduce the frequency of a habit you want to break is by increasing barrier to entry. Applying this to social media, this could mean deleting the social media app, or another one of our favorite ways: by making your password a very long and tedious one. This way, logging in to your social media accounts is a chore that makes you think twice!
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Balancing your social media use is a continuous process that requires self-awareness and intentionality. Good luck on your journey, and feel free to book an appointment with a peer wellness coach here if you need extra support!
Works Cited
Tereshchenko S. Y. (2023). Neurobiological risk factors for problematic social media use as a specific form of Internet addiction: A narrative review. World journal of psychiatry, 13(5), 160–173. https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v13.i5.160
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