Social media effects on decreasing productivity is not a new finding. Besides productivity, social media has also caused anxiety, as you may read here and here. The endless and mindless scrolling does not accumulate to anything productive. The repetitive habit can easily turn a person to feel overwhelmed and start clicking (i.e. the like button) as auto-pilot, without mindfully consuming the content.
Fact is, social media content doesn’t give anything new (i.e. ideas) when a person reaches a point of surfing the social media too much. If you look at the pattern, as users lack of inspiration, they automatically look for fresh ideas on social media and imitate what other users are doing with their content. There are less and less original ideas on social media and users keep ‘numbing’ their productive minds by consuming the same content over and over again. So, the urgency of ‘getting fresh air’ from social media is no longer relevant.
As addictive as it is designed to, it’s hard to be apart from social media. Asia has one of the highest social media penetration. Compass Index by Compas Offices, 1,200 respondents from seven countries across Asia Pacific and found that 60% of Hong Kong employees use social media for news. Whilst 54.6% workers in Philippines chose social media as their news source and 52.5% Singaporean employees considered it as their go-to. Users spend an average of 4 hours a day on social media. Imagine how much productivity is lost within a week just for mindless scrolling and liking and sharing.
However, this is not without a solution. Some of these tips can help you create a healthier relationship with social media, be it by having a total break, a limited time or altering your social media activity.
1. Social media detox
Taking time away from social media can give you a significant change of habit. Since you are completely restricting yourself from social media use, you simply alter your focus on other things. You will discover other forms of ‘escape’ or entertainment or source of ideas. A detox could vary from a week, a month to a year, depending on your preference and the will to challenge yourself. It’s like a relationship, really. Sometimes, couples just need a break to introspect themselves. So do you, with social media.
2. Restrict time of usage
If total loss of access to social media seems impossible (i.e. your work is related to social media), then limiting your usage time is an effective way to develop a healthier relationship with it. The restriction could be once a day for a certain period of time or a few times a day for fewer period, depending on your needs.
3. No multitasking
Opening more than one window seems to be a common thing. One window for work, another for funny videos or personal messaging. However, this creates a habit of distraction and you’ll find it hard to focus on one thing. This distributed focus will affect both tasks: you pay less attention to the contents on social media and you give less effort to your work. In other words, you are not maximizing either tasks. The only way to solve it is to designate separate time in a day for work and social media, as pointed in number 2.
4. Stop checking on social media without a purpose or plan
Determine a plan or purpose on what you are going to do when you open your social media account. Say, you are making a statistic report on content engagement or you are looking for some information about a person. Restrict yourself to do just those and don’t stretch your needs to checking on some celebrity gossip or your high school mate’s wedding. Also, don’t give an excuse of ‘work related’ as you are scrolling through your friend’s Facebook profile, after you posted an actual work related content.
5. Turn off notifications
It’s harder to be apart from the habit of checking social media when you are constantly reminded to do so. Notifications, especially with sounds, are strong and direct temptation for users to take action and open the app. It makes users feel like congratulating someone on their graduation post is important, or replying to a bunch of ‘where do you get this and that’ questions is important. More important than the actual task they need to do: monthly report, finishing a design, grocery shopping, making appointments with colleagues.