Social Media – How do we consume it without being consumed by it?

When you become a stay-at-home-mom, you go from a job where you interact with adults, to first taking care of a speechless baby, and later to being surrounded by belligerent and double-personality toddlers. So, in attempts to take some mental breaks, or not lose your mind completely you flock towards Facebook and Instagram.

I noticed that while we consume social media, it seems to consume us at the same time. I heard so many comments made by women in various settings that they feel depressed, discouraged and sad when being on social media. Or how they felt relieved when they realized other women are struggling also and don’t have the perfect lives they seemed to have on FB and IG.

So, I put some thought into why that is so, and I found two reasons as to why we feel the way we do regarding social media:

1. We are saddened or feel discouraged by what we see online posted by people in our “friends” lists because they may remind us of our own goals and aspirations that we have not tackled yet. It’s like a mirror to ourselves and we don’t like what we’re seeing. Most times we make up excuses or find reasons why we cannot accomplish or even attempt something, so when we see someone just like us who HAS accomplish the thing we also desire, it doesn’t make us feel good about ourselves.
2. We don’t have enough face-to-face interaction to balance the online contact we have with others. I remember one trip home from college that a friend went on an exotic trip with his girlfriend and her family. While I was doing nothing when visiting my family, I saw some pictures from his trip and thought he had the time of his life. When we got together at school, I came to find out he had a terrible time during his trip and that relationship was done. I wasn’t rejoicing that at all, but it did put things into perspective and made me appreciate my own reality since you don’t know the layers in anyone else’s.

How do we change this? I don’t believe in quitting and deleting our accounts. But I think we should embrace change and adapt rather than resist it.

• Sometimes the only change that needs to happen is in our Minds, the way we look at a situation. When I was in college many other young women around me were getting engaged and married. My FB page was flooded with such pictures and announcements. And it somehow made me feel sad about the fact that I wasn’t even close to that. One day I decided I would instead celebrate each of these announcements, because is not like any of their partners would have been my ideal partner, so there was no loss for me. So, with that mindset I would still study and seek out those photos, but to learn about their relationship, and how right they were for each other and I was instead truly happy for these people.
• Instead of viewing others’ successes as a threat or reminder that we’re not doing life as well as them, seeing it as an inspiration. When I see someone’s life seemingly perfect, I truly hope they are having it all together. Because if they do, that means I can also. It gives me hope when I see moms parenting much better than I do, it inspires me when I see other women’s homes which are clean. My most recent IG inspiration was from my friend Annie, who posted that she has read around 30 books. My first impression was to justify it by the fact that she was an English major in college, but instead I knew she was just as busy as me as a mom of two and pregnant, so I decided to read more the following year, because she proved it can be done.
• Consuming less social media also helps. It makes me stay more grounded and be more present. But just saying be less on your phone isn’t going to do it. You must replace it with something better; maybe it’s a podcast, maybe an engaging book. When you start exposing yourself to better mediums and information, you naturally will not go into that space as much.   

Always Genuine,

Alise.