We only get 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. How are you spending yours? 

If social media is taking up too many of your hours, then you really need to make a change because social media is a detrimental way to spend your time. It is more often than not hurting you rather than helping you.

You can never get back the hours you’ve spent on social media with nothing to show for them afterward. But you can make a change now to increase your mental and emotional well-being, to spend more time in the present on people and activities that enrich your life. 

As nurses, we often have to deliver tough news. We often have to say the hard things to our patients. 

So let me blunt: you are wasting too many hours of your life scrolling through social media.

You need to make a change now.

And if you pause a moment, you’ll realize that you’ve been thinking the same thing for quite some time now. You’ve watched yourself from the outside lose hours of your day scrolling mindlessly through one social media app or another, missing countless opportunities to do anything more productive and enriching.

So this month, I am going to propose to you a stress-relieving challenge — several different challenges, actually, that you can choose from to suit your life better — that involves detoxing from social media.

Social Media Detox Challenge #1: Cut Your Time in Half

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Go into each of your social media apps — I think this could also include news apps as well — and look at how much time you spend on the app each day. If you don’t know how to do this, go into Settings>Screen Time>See All Activity and then you can swipe left or right to look at different days or weeks to total the amount of time you spend on different apps.

Now, take that rough average amount of time and cut it in half. You can then set Screen Time Limits in your settings so reminders will pop up when you have reached your time limit.

Here’s the hard part: controlling yourself when those time limit reminders pop up. You have to actually close the app and not return to it for the rest of the day.

This is hard. In some ways, reducing your screen time is actually harder than going cold turkey. But if you are a disciplined person, you should be able to successfully cut your screen time in half.

Assuming you recover from the shock of seeing how many hours you’re spending on social media in the first place…

Social Media Detox Challenge #2: Limit Your Social Media Apps to Just One

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For some people, social media is how they stay connected with family and friends so cutting time or even going cold turkey may actually increase feelings of isolation and loneliness.

So for those who use a social media app to stay in touch and stay connected with loved ones, you may want to accept this challenge and reduce the number of social media apps you use.

You want to keep the essential app you use for personal contacts and quiet all the other apps you use for constant distraction.

Go in and remove all of your social media apps except the one that you use for staying in touch with people. You don’t need to delete your accounts, but you do need to remove your easy access to these apps so you can reduce your mindless scrolling.

Obviously, different apps bring us different uses and joys so you may have to consider your choice carefully. Which is the one app that is likely to bring you joy rather than anxiety and tension?

Social Media Detox Challenge #3: One Month Cleanse

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If your social media addiction has too much control over your life, you may want to cut yourself off from it completely for one month — do a complete social media cleanse. This isn’t going to be easy, just like going cold turkey from sweets, coffee, soda, cigarettes, or just about anything isn’t easy. But it is necessary.

If you’re already sweating about this, then you probably really need it. If you’re wondering how you are going to spend your time without it, then you absolutely need it.

Before you delete your apps, though, create a list of the things you want to do with all the hours of your life you are going to recover when you take this challenge. Here are some suggestions:

• Play games — real games with real people like family game nights
• Go outdoors — get outside and go for a walk, bike ride, hike, or sidewalk shop
• Start a hobby — puzzles, knitting, arts and crafts…whatever floats your boat.
• Read a book — you may need to re-build your reading stamina and attention span.
• Write letters — this lost practice is super rewarding and it also stimulates brain growth.
• Exercise — just think how you’d feel if you spent those hours walking and exercising
• Read a magazine — if you don’t have any, subscribe to a weekly and carry it with you
• Make love — spend more romantic time with your spouse or partner

NursePower Empowers Nurses!

The negative effects of social media consumption on our stress levels and mental health are well researched and documented by health organizations and universities and think tanks. Yet, we still scroll through it willingly, mindlessly, and constantly.

Perhaps it is the fear of missing out (FOMO), or perhaps it is the need to always be consuming information, or perhaps it is boredom. Whatever it is, it is a bad habit that is having serious repercussions on our family time, our quiet time, and, even, our work time.

How many times have you told yourself to put your phone away or wished you’d spent the past hour doing something more productive than scrolling?

Just think: sitting quietly with a cup of tea and no distractions is more productive for your mental well-being than scrolling through social media.

Take the social media challenge this week, this month and let me know how you feel.