Being active on social media can overwhelm us, but we continue using it because of FOMO (fear of missing out). We feel like we have to open Instagram all the time because we are really afraid to miss the last Story from our friends.
But even though we know social media harms us, why do we still use it really often? That's because Instagram, Facebook, and other social media were designed by psychological engineers.
They design social media in such a way so that we feel at home by spending our time on social media for a long time. The layout placement, likes system, and all other social media interfaces are deliberately designed to make us unable to escape.
So it takes more effort to get rid of them. We must consciously avoid them. Because if we are just trying to avoid them passively, we will be dragged into the system they have designed. So we need to dump them actively.
One way that I think is the most effective is to use apps against apps. There are many apps that we can use to help us get away from social media. I'll give a few:
1. Digital Wellbeing (Android) #
This is usually already installed by default on Android version Pie and above. I use this to limit my phone usage. This app can give you a look at the total hours of our phone usage, divided per application. So we can see at a glance which applications are taking up the most of our time.
Then these apps can also limit the use of applications per day. I myself limit Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok each 5 minutes per day. This is really helpful, so I never go too far and waste my time mindlessly again.
Websites on Chrome can also be limited to prevent us from continuing to Twitter in the browser.
There is also a Bedtime Mode feature, so the phone automatically enters Do Not Disturb mode, and the screen will be black and white when it's night.
2. RescueTime (Android, PC) #
This application can also record the time we spend per application, but it can be synchronized on a phone and a laptop.
For those who often use laptops, we can know the total time we spend on laptops and phones in one application. RescueTime also has extension for Chrome, to monitor our time on all websites.
3. Limit (Chrome extension) #
This is an extension that can help us limit the time on a website we visit in Chrome. Similar to Digital Wellbeing earlier, but for Chrome on desktop.
There is also Pause which gives us a 5-second pause every time we want to open a distracting website like social media, so later we will be lazy to wait and finally won't often visit them anymore.
In my opinion, these three apps above are enough to help us get away from social media. We can't access social media all the time because it will be banned by them. That's all, now you have to look for other activities.
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