Photo by Glori Beaufort Photography
Hey friend. Thanks for joining me this mornin’ to chat about a subject that’s been heavy on my heart lately. As a new mama, the wife of a middle school teacher and a blogger + freelancer who spends a good bit on social media, I’m feeling the feels. Not the good kind of feels. The yucky ones. You know what I’m talking about?
The blogging and Instagram world has changed so much over the past few years. There’s a lot more content being thrown our way, a lot more sales and things to buy and a heck of a lot more voices to listen to. When I started blogging it was a completely different world. We blogged to share our family’s stories, our daily musings, and what inspired us. Don’t get me wrong, I still love so many things about the Instagram of today and I enjoy watching blogs I’ve followed for years flourish, but I like to look back and see how much this “industry” has changed. Speaking of change… here’s a look at my first ever insta post 285 weeks ago. Just sharing my life, heavy on the sepia tone filter of course. The internet really is a neat place. I’ve met lots of sweet friends, been inspired in countless ways, had an awesome community to turn to when I needed advice on subjects big and small, shared ideas, passion projects and things that make me happy. But I’ve realized this year that as social media changes, I constantly need to reevaluate how I use it.
After praying about how to handle social media I’ve got a few new “rules” to move forward with. I thought these might be helpful to share in case, you to, want to set a few social media boundaries this year.
get to know the “unfollow” button
I’ve become a bit vicious with this one but it’s totally okay. If an account makes me feel yucky for whatever reason I unfollow. I went from following literally thousands of accounts to following under 800. My goal is to cut it down to 200-300 accounts. I just don’t believe we were made to consume so much everyday!
take breaks
This is a big one. I’m still trying to navigate exactly what this will look like in the future but for now I’m just giving myself permission to take time off as needed. I took a week off last month and it was so refreshing! How do these breaks work? Set a timeframe and delete the app off of your phone. Whether it’s a weekend, a month, or an evening. Breaks are good. In addition to big breaks I think it’s important to set boundaries on how much time you spend each day using social media. If you have an iPhone, you can set daily limits for each app on your phone within your settings! Such a helpful resource.
be intentional
Consider your “why” before logging into the app. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through my feed I’ve tried logging into Insta with a purpose. The stats show that Americans check their phones 80 times a day. That’s a bit wild, isn’t it?! I’m terrified of my daughter growing up seeing her mom on her phone all day every day so logging on with intention is so important!
This is definitely something I’ll need to keep coming back to regularly. What are y’all doing to foster healthier social media habits?
