Why I Needed Social Media Boundaries
“Letting go helps us to live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress. ”
I want to preface this blog post by saying that not everyone needs to do what I did to have a healthy relationship with social media. I’m sure some people love being inundated with vast amounts of information or ideas and don’t bat an eyelash at it. Still, there are probably others who need even stricter boundaries surrounding social media. However, I think it would benefit everyone to take some time to analyze their relationships with social media and reflect on how they feel after scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the like. Ask tough questions, like: Was your time well-spent? Are you left feeling better or worse after scrolling? Are you comparing your life to others? Do you feel less than after having consumed what you did?
I think taking the time to understand why you are posting what you do would also be helpful. Am I posting honestly? Am I being authentic to myself? Am I trying to prove something? Am I posting factual information? Should I be posting what I am posting? Social media is a great way to stay connected but the responsibility lies with you to make sure it is a safe space for your well-being.
The world is never free of chaos. There is always an ebb and flow between the good times and the bad. There are often certain places, companies, industries, or markets that are harder hit by a disaster. When these sobering times fall upon a group, we often see this unwavering support as the rest of us take it upon ourselves to rally. We attempt to carry the burden that falls on those amidst catastrophe, lightening their load as they walk through their tragedies and come out on the other side stronger for what they have experienced. From 9/11 to the market crash in 2008 and as far-reaching as natural disasters like the fires in Australia - generally, we do what is possible to provide relief in whatever capacity necessary to be beacons of hope in an otherwise dark time.
Well, 2020 was different.
2020 saw the entire world thrown into tragedy. A rare disaster and global pandemic, Coronavirus, spread across the world as it took lives and changed our very idea of normal almost overnight. The magnitude and speed at which the virus spread was unlike anything we had experienced in this lifetime. With lives lost and infection rates rapidly skyrocketing, countries took it upon themselves to implement social distancing and quarantine rules to slow the spread. This crisis, unlike countless others in recent memory, was different. Different because it was global. Different because no country was spared the horrors of this new reality. With such worldwide implications, our instinct as human beings to help out in active and meaningful ways became non-existent. Our tendency to try to restore normalcy was swiftly thwarted and instead we were told that inaction was the best way we could help. Our need to be saviours, heroes, and helpers was reliant on us doing nothing, staying home, and following the rules. A very difficult task for creatures of habit, dependent on everyday rules and normalcies to provide structure to the lives we lead.
And so, the majority of humankind did what was asked of us. We took it upon ourselves to do what needed doing to provide structure to a world that had lost its foundation, its framework, and its blueprint all at once. We adapted. We created schedules that allowed us to work from home, to teach our children, and to manufacture a sense of routine no matter how arbitrary it all seemed. With our new-found isolation and lack of human connection, we turned to social media to bridge the gap - to forge and cement bonds, to engage, to disconnect, to socialize, and even to rationalize what we were seeing in the news. Technology became an essential tool to provide us with some form of “living” that mattered; whether it was connecting via Zoom for work meetings or Skype game nights with friends or simply to enter a world that was different from our monotonous Groundhog Day existence.
I was no exception. I turned to social media and technology because it provided me with a sense of escape. At the tips of my fingers, I could see my friends, play a game, read the news, or share a thought. My phone usage numbers tipped sharply upwards and so too did my anxiety about the world we were living in. Every time I opened my phone I was bombarded with articles that detailed bleak facts in an already fragile world. I was inundated with misinformation or opinions that were simply lies masquerading as truths, promoted by well-meaning friends who were simply reposting what they thought were facts. My phone lit up with ideas on how to homeschool, activities to do with your children, rainbow schedules that should be followed, and projects that kids can do at home. Then the sharing began. Sharing by people who never prioritized posting about such things, people who were not and still aren’t experts in such fields, people who had the best of intentions and probably felt that they too needed to showcase how everything they were doing was making a difference. The message was continual - we needed to do more, be better, and achieve great things in 2020. As if simply surviving a pandemic was not good enough. We didn’t need people to tell us that our kids may not be where they would be if COVID wasn’t our current reality. They are holding on, getting through, and simply trying to endure the trials of life as we all know it.
It was then that I realized that my connection to social media and technology didn’t have to be toxic. I didn’t want to cut out social media because, for me, staying connected was essential through such a challenging time. I stopped blaming others and started thinking about ways that I could make social media functional. It isn’t the responsibility of the poster or sharer to inform me and entertain me with the content I desired. It is my responsibility to ensure that what makes its way onto my feed aligns with what matters to me, is content that makes me feel good, and ultimately has me walking away feeling better about myself - not worse.
I blocked, deleted, or muted accounts that were constantly filling my feed with misinformation. I said goodbye to individuals posting children's school schedules or any information regarding childhood health through a pandemic (if the poster wasn’t an expert in their field, I wasn’t interested in hearing what they had to say). I sought out accounts that were run by psychologists, educators, and actual news networks, saying goodbye to the rest of the noise. I took time to ask myself: is the person who is posting knowledgeable about what they are posting? Is the person thinking and researching before they post? Is what this person posting beneficial to my mental health? Am I inspired by this person or am I comparing myself to them? If the answer to any of these questions was no, I made the necessary changes.
Instantly, I felt better about my presence on social media. I could return to the various channels without feeling overwhelmed or less-than because of what someone else was posting. The noise was muted and I welcomed the quiet of it all. Surprisingly, the silence wasn’t lonely. The silence was comforting, reminding me that I already have what it takes to get through this. I learned quickly that I have a right to protect my digital space and that setting boundaries for “happy scrolling” preserves my well-being and in turn my family’s well-being. In enacting these self-enforced boundaries, I make myself a more loving person, a better mother, wife, and friend. And, I find that the stronger I get at defining my own social media space and how I choose to use it, the more at peace I feel.
Shortly after my social media cleanout, George Floyd was senselessly murdered under the knee of a white police officer. The BLM movement gained the traction it deserved as voices from POC were finally being heard. It was around this time, that I chose to stop blogging for (at the time) the foreseeable future. I felt like I needed to take a step back to listen and learn. Social media was already overwhelmed and I didn’t feel my voice was necessary to the conversation. This was just another way for me to exercise my right to boundaries. I can choose how I post, when I post, and what I post and you can choose if you follow my content. And I promise you that if you set your boundaries and they don’t include my social media, that’s okay. I’ll leave you with this honest quote that spoke to me by one of my favourite authors, Fredrik Backman, in his latest book, Anxious People,
“The truth of course is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”
