Unpopular opinion: you can have a Facebook account and get things done. Productivity should not come at the cost of deleting social media.
It seems these days, people are sharing strong sentiments about social media platforms – either love or cancel them. At least that’s what you see across the internet, which many believe is a true reflection of the real world – but wait a second. Is it?
First and foremost, a social media platform is a tool. Like any other instrument, people can use it to build or destroy – or both simultaneously.
Secondly, social media can create community and bring joy. At the same time, they can also be detrimental to productivity and mental health. As you can see, it’s complicated.
Before participating on a social media platform, think about your intentions and define the purpose of your engagement. Does this platform serve your needs? Furthermore, can it support your goals without setting you back?
Social media can create connections |
Social media can impede productivity |
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The platform designers build distractions into the user experience. A single notification can disrupt the deep focus needed for productivity. For example, when scrolling Facebook, each post distracts from the previous one. Moreover, automated content moves at warp speed, which forces us to multi-task to stay engaged. This gives the social media platform control of tired minds and drives behavior, therefore it’s not good for your brain (to say the least).
Have Your Cake and Eat it Too!
In 2016 Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University, published a game-changing book, entitled “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World.” Newport describes digital minimalism as a philosophy of technology used when users focus their online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support the things they value while happily missing out on everything else.
How can we apply digital minimalism to our lives to digitally detox – even a little, increase productivity, and enjoy social media?
- Sacrifice the “anxious” digital entertainment. Social media uses gamification for you to “play” the platform by jumping between tags, headlines, cat photos, alerts, laughter, pain, fear, joy, anger, and invisibility.
- Unsubscribe! Go through your list of subscriptions, because it’s ‘Marie Kondo’ time!
- Calendar your social media viewing and sending. Many websites and apps provide the option to schedule posts and updates.
- Turn off Notifications (all the way or almost). Social media now lets audiences control notifications. In the app settings, select which type of notifications to allow and which type to trash. Then choose the times of day to receive notifications.
- Imagine unrelated clicks are paid. Finally, our lifehack of the day: imagine you buy every idle click for $5, while the “free” clicks are reserved for your job. It is an excellent technique because, with it, you can see your priorities clear as day. Are you ready to pay $5 to watch a 10-seconds-long cat video? Do you want to like a funny GIF that bad?
To sum up, increasing productivity in the age of integrated work and personal life requires the intentional use of social media. With intention, feel the results of digitally detoxing when leaving behind social media anxiety.
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