Tiny Buddha

Tag: Twitter

  • Why Social Media and My Addictive Personality Don’t Mesh

    Why Social Media and My Addictive Personality Don’t Mesh

    Twitter didn’t give me the flu or bronchitis, but it made me sick. Unhealthy. Ill-feeling. And it could have been any social media platform that did it, I just happened to have chosen Twitter.

    For years I avoided creating any sort of social media account. I complained to companies the old-fashioned way: calling or emailing customer service. I didn’t need to know what people I wasn’t in touch with in real life were doing.

    As someone who was married and not dating, there simply wasn’t the requirement to be on any kind of social media. With two kids, I spent my (little) free time watching TV or texting with a few friends. I would proudly state, “I don’t even have Facebook” when people discussed it.

    Then in January 2018, I decided to open a Twitter account, mostly to rant about things, as I had done a few years prior on a blog. Not big-issue political rants or anything, more “Why isn’t the first car on an advanced green turning?? YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY, MAN” type stuff.

    I had conveniently blocked from memory the reason I had stopped blogging about all my anger-inducing experiences: I had felt like it was poisoning me. To always be posting something negative, it builds over time. As much as I liked expressing my anger, I didn’t like the feeling it created.

    Fast forward to the beginning of 2018 and I have a Twitter account. All fine and dandy for a bit: I build a little network of like-minded parent Twitter accounts, we follow the same accounts, and it’s fun to see people living the same type of kid-related dramz as I was.

    Then I realize that with Twitter, I have access to breaking news way faster than say, my husband (a complete non-social media user). So that’s fun. Then I realize I have easy access to celebrities—wow! Now I can communicate directly with them! And businesses! To celebrate or chastise them! Fun! Then I’m excited when I gain followers. Cool! But some are random accounts who I don’t ever see post anything, or weird corporations. Okay… still fun?

    Then I interact a few times with some celebrities. That goes to my head quickly—now I assume every tweet I send will result in some retweet or like by them. But no, it doesn’t. “Well, that’s crappy,” I think on more than one occasion, when I obsessively check my account to see if they liked what I wrote.

    I see parenting-related tweets by other users who gain hundreds or thousands of likes for some inane comment, and I think “But that’s not even funny or very observant.” I develop a never-ending circle of thought in my head, consumed by potential tweets.

    I start to feel what many people before me have felt: the highs and lows of social media. When it’s good, it’s good—your self-esteem is high, you’re feeling well liked, and well received. And when it’s low, it sucks.

    “Why didn’t anyone agree with what I said?” I would question. “How come my tweets don’t garner that much attention?” It started to become too much. I was turning into someone I had never thought I would be: feeling validated by the number of likes I got.

    Soon, it became obsessive. I was checking when I woke up (my phone having never been beside me at night), considering checking in the middle of the night when I woke up, checking while driving (something I had shamed people for doing previously), being logged in all day while at work. It was all day every day. I had become consumed.

    And it wasn’t lucrative; I had 200-ish followers and maybe 20 I actually interacted with. It had quickly turned from something “neat” into something destructive. Everything I was living I was thinking could be a potential tweet. Which meant in turn, while I was physically there, I wasn’t really present in my actual life.

    Along with parenting woes, I used Twitter to talk about my sobriety. I found it to be an awesome support network for the ups and downs and also to help others.

    Over the past year of sobriety, I, like many others in the same situation, have connected much more with myself, learning who I am more in the past year than ever in my whole life. I recognize when I am feeling sad, toxic, anger, jealous. I feel everything now. And so when I started to feel weird with Twitter, I didn’t ignore it. I looked at what was happening.

    And I realized it: as I now know, I have an addictive personality. I had become addicted and consumed by Twitter. It was now controlling my day. From wake up, to work, to driving, to watching TV, I was one tap away from seeing “what’s happening.” With strangers. And not actually paying attention to what I was living.

    Instead of living what was happening, I was typing it, sharing it, obsessing over who saw it and interacted with me. Instead of alcohol, I was now consumed by Twitter.

    So last week, I promised myself I would stop tweeting, stop checking it, and back away. Unfortunately you can’t hide your account. Either you have it and you just don’t use it, or you deactivate.

    This weekend I looked at it here and there to see if I had any likes or DMs. To get a sense of what I was missing. I had a few likes from some tweets posted last week, oddly enough a number of new followers (even after doing nothing for days, which is so bizarre)—nothing earth shattering. I didn’t scroll through at all, and I didn’t engage with anyone.

    And I realized: Nothing in my life actually changes if I am “connected.” In fact, I realized that being “connected” actually made me feel more isolated than ever. I was relying on something very independent to feel part of something. When in reality, it was very secluded.

    I found it serves as a distraction and delivers information that just makes me angry or depressed. And there’s already enough of that in life. I am quite happy to go back to using reality TV to unwind and let my sister being my sounding board for my road rage.

    I will give it another day or so and I will deactivate it completely. And luckily, goodbyes are not necessary. A nice clean break. I will miss some elements of it, but I know myself enough to know I cannot keep it. Like trying to moderate alcohol, it’s too much of a slippery slope.

  • 7 Tips to Help You Scale Back on Social Media & Reclaim Your Time

    7 Tips to Help You Scale Back on Social Media & Reclaim Your Time

    Social Media Addiction

    “Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” ~Theophrastus

    We’ve all been there.

    We’re supposed to write a paper, send an email, do our job!

    We have deadlines, places to see, people to meet, and yet we find ourselves (for the umpteenth time) perusing our Facebook timeline, scrolling our Instagram feed, or catching up on Twitter updates.

    Whether it’s YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, we are all experts at self-distraction, and we wonder where all that time goes!

    It’s actually getting a bit scary. Social media addiction is a real thing, and research from the University of Maryland shows that approximately four out of five students experience negative side effects when disconnecting from technology for a day.

    More research has shown that too much social media and smartphone use is affecting our happiness, stunting development in children, and decreasing academic potential in students.

    Social media rehab programs are available now, but like everything I believe we can avoid going to rehab by implementing some simple but necessary practices into our daily lives. Let’s be proactive about curbing our social media use.

    Now, before you get all self-righteous, let me just stop you. I love social media like it’s my job. In fact, it is!

    I am a social media manager and spend much of the day creating content and engaging communities on social platforms. Not to mention spending my free time maintaining my personal social profiles and interacting with friends online.

    Not so long ago, I was not practicing any of the “rules” below, I was constantly online, and my sleep, stress levels, and relationships were the worse for it.

    I had to learn to be disciplined and use the tools available to stay focused and do the work without getting sucked into the proverbial black hole.

    Here’s how!

    7 Social Media Rules

    1. No laptops or cellphones in the bedroom.

    There was a time when I charged my phone beside my bed every night. Checking Facebook or Twitter became the first and last thing I did every day. I did not want to miss that important news tidbit or mention.

    But here’s the thing! It’s really bad for you. The technology itself, the light given off by our screens to be precise, prevents our brains from releasing melatonin, a hormone that tells our bodies it’s nighttime.

    A recent study published last year in the Science Translational Medicine journal found that the amount of caffeine you’d get in a double espresso has a smaller effect on your sleep schedule then the light off of our smartphones and laptops. So while you may not be drinking coffee in the evenings anymore, it turns out your sleep is way worse off because you are using your smartphone in the evenings.

    This means it takes us longer to fall asleep, but science is also showing us that it has more and more negative, and even dangerous long-term effects—not getting enough sleep or only getting poor quality sleep has been linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and an increased risk of certain cancers.

    And guess what, checking Twitter that one last time is not going to change your life or even your next day one little bit!

    Practical Tip: Buy an alarm clock! You do not need to use your smartphone to wake you up every morning.

    2. Create a morning ritual.

    I don’t really care what it looks like, as long as you need to finish it before you get online every morning.

    If you’re really ambitious you might try to “sign on” after you have eaten breakfast, but I know that is unrealistic for a lot of us.

    Other ideas could include: meditation, (or if you are religious, a daily devotional), a work out, or walking your dog.

    Knowing that you cannot access your smartphone or laptop first thing will free your brain up for other things and is a much better start to your day.

    Practical Tip: This practice of creating a ritual can be used at any time throughout the day. For example, you might decide you want to read a book for thirty minutes a day during your lunch break. Leave your smartphone at your desk when you go for lunch.

    Whatever ritual you decide on, make sure you commit to yourself that these “me” moments are smartphone-free.

    3. Social time means NO social media.

    This works if you have a significant other, a roommate, or live at home. If you live alone this is more difficult, but there are still practical applications.

    My wife and I have a rule: When we are spending time together, whether that is on the couch reading, at the table eating, or in front of the TV, our phones and computers are not allowed. This can be applied when you meet friends for a drink or to watch sports.

    Practical Tip: You might want to keep your chargers in a room that you aren’t often in, that way when your smartphone needs a charge it has to leave the room. You would be surprised what happens, out of sight, out of mind!

    4. Get a watch.

    This one is dead simple! I actually have to thank my wonderful wife for this particular tip. For her birthday this year she asked for a watch; that way she could stop needing to use her phone to check the time.

    Not only is a watch a stylish, fashion accessory that not many people use anymore, but it actually works to reduce smartphone (and social media) use. So many of us use our smartphones as our alarm clock (direct violation of rule 1), we check it to make sure we catch the bus on time or to count down the minutes in our class.

    Just because our smartphones have the ability to do something doesn’t mean we should rely on them for it.

    Practical Tip: Reduce your reliance on your smartphone for things you need (like knowing the time) and you will check social media less.

    5. Take tech breaks.

    Use a stopwatch during the day. After you have checked your social profiles and have caught up on emails, set it for fifteen minutes and then turn your phone off.

    This is what Dr. Larry D. Rosen of California State University suggest continuing this until we don’t feel the need to constantly check in. Dr. Rosen is a Professor of Psychology, author of iDisorder, and one of the world’s experts in the “Psychology of Technology.”

    “Increase your tech break by five minutes every week or so, and soon you will be able to not check in for an hour or more without getting anxious about what you may have missed,” Rosen advises. “It also trains your friends, family and colleagues to not expect that immediate Pavlovian response!”

    6. Turn off notifications.

    Social notifications are the enemy of everything this post is trying to achieve. If your smartphone pings, vibrates, lights up, or does a dance every time you get a new follower or “like,” then it is distracting you from whatever you may be doing at the time, whether you check it or not!

    In the last sixteen years, the average attention span of humans has dropped from twelve to eight seconds. We now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. The age of social media and smartphones has resulted in hyperactive attention spans that can’t rival our pets!

    Practical Tip: Turn off Facebook and Twitter notifications on your laptop and smartphone. I guarantee you that you’ll still check your profiles often enough that you do not have to worry about giving your followers timely responses, and this way you can stay focused and in the moment.

    7. You can’t do it alone.

    It is not weakness to fail; after all, the science shows that social media is addictive. So don’t rely solely you’re your own will power to accomplish the above.

    There are multiple apps now which block social media sites, apps and other time-wasting online activity of your choosing. For Apple users you can even block websites on iPads or iPhones via Settings à General à Restrictions and then pick which apps or websites you would like to block.

    Other softwares that can help us battle our need for social media “hits” include:

    Unfortunately, this is only relevant to Google Chrome users, but this app has been a game changer for me and my fight to stay productive.

    Basically it allows you to limit the daily time you spend on any website. I allow ten minutes daily on Facebook. You would be astonished at how long ten minutes on a social media platform actually is.

    At the beginning, I ran out of time before lunch, which freed my mind and time up for more productive and often more important things. Now, I never even reach my ten-minute limit. I have realized how little I need to check Facebook on a daily basis.

    The great thing about this app is that you can dictate how long your daily limit is, which particular sites that you limit and then it will warn you as you near your limit on said sites. Try it out, it might surprise you.

    A Challenge

    I wanted to leave you with a bonus thought that may be completely unrealistic but at least will give you something to think about before you go off to check Facebook. Smartphones are the biggest facilitator of our addiction to social media.

    A report from Informate Mobile Intelligence found that people in the U.S. check their social media accounts seventeen times a day. That’s at least once every waking hour, and American’s are not even close to the biggest culprit.

    Smartphone users in Asia and South America checked social media at least forty times a day. Generation Z might be the most unsettling trend. Some teenagers in the U.S. check their social media feeds more than 100 times a day.

    I don’t know about you, but even while writing this I find myself getting all defensive about my smartphone use. I tell myself I need it for work, or that I will lose touch with my friends, or even that my social presence will suffer for it.

    But the fact is, they are all lies. People had thriving careers and social lives long before smartphones. And as for my social media presence, if it is that important to me I will make it work via my laptop or tablet. But the fact is we don’t need to be connected 24/7.

    I know it is very counter culture and a scary thought, but I challenge you to at least think about whether you need your smartphone. The process of thinking about it will make the rest of the “rules” listed above seem way more important, and even doable, and surely that is worth it.

    Go Out and Live

    Yes, we have all been there.

    But it doesn’t mean we have to stay there. Life is more than RTs and Likes, even if it is your job.

    Your home should always be a refuge and a place where you can unplug, at least a little.

    Since I have been using these rules in my life, I got married and have a happy, healthy relationship with my wife, I read more, I work out regularly, and I have started a personal yoga practice. All things which I can attribute, in part, to not being so plugged in at home.

    You are going to mess up! Heck, while writing this article I must have checked my smartphone a dozen times. But using the above household rituals and rules will make sure that your life revolves less around social media then it once did.

    Try the above suggestions for a week, and I promise that you will notice a difference!

  • Using Social Media for Growth and Minimizing Its Negative Effects

    Using Social Media for Growth and Minimizing Its Negative Effects

    Like Button

    “Social media should improve your life, not become your life.” ~Patrick Driessen

    The summer after college, my best friend and I had many a girls’-night-in, largely to accommodate her new life as a single mother.

    These nights consisted of drinking wine and Facebook stalking anyone and everyone who went to our high school.

    One night we went as far as creating a false page representing a popular local bar so that we could peer into the lives of anyone our hearts desired without revealing ourselves as grade-A cyber stalkers.

    We spent a lot of our downtime that summer focusing on what other people were doing, and none of that focus prompted any kind of personal growth or increased self-worth on our ends.

    I know there are people out there who are masters of self-discipline when it comes to their devices and social media pages.

    These people put their phones down during dinner, turn them off to go to bed, and only check their social media pages during specified times during the day; they may go days or weeks without accessing their online profiles. I, however, am not one of them.

    I often find myself torn between the practical benefits of engaging with social media and the detrimental toll these same tools can take on my inner self.

    On the one hand, I rely on being able to access certain private pages for work, and I enjoy keeping in touch with long distance friends. On the other hand, compulsively checking my profiles on various devices often prevents me from living in the now.

    Over the years, I have deactivated and reactivated my social media accounts time and time again in an effort to break myself of my bad social media habits.

    For me, deleting my accounts helps me focus on the present moment and the goings on in my own life. However, I missed connecting with my friends and risked alienating myself from an ever-more-technological professional sphere.

    When I began a position with a company that all but requires the use of social media, I realized deleting and reactivating my accounts was no longer a solution to my social media problem.

    I found myself faced with the question: how do I use social media in a way that helps me grow, both professionally and personally, while minimizing the negative effects of overuse?

    Over the past year, I developed some strategies for increasing positive content presented to me through my social media accounts, while decreasing the material that leaves me feeling bad or distracted and creating greater awareness around my usage habits.

    1. “Follow” the blogs and websites you like to read.

    Your favorite blogs and websites often have social media counterparts to which you can subscribe. If you don’t have a running list of blogs and websites (I didn’t until about a year ago), spend an afternoon searching for content that interests or inspires you and then continue to add to it over time.

    I created a folder on my favorites bar containing links to literary journals, professional and personal development blogs, online learning websites, recipe guides, fitness videos, etc.

    As you scroll through your newsfeed, you’ll pause to read articles related to your interests that may help you grow, cause you to pause and reflect, or inspire you to begin a new project.

    Instead of spending an hour cyber stalking your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, who you saw in a picture with a mutual acquaintance, you may end up writing an article (like this one), bookmarking an interesting recipe, or sharing a funny video with a friend.

     2. Unfollow or block people who distract you.

    Do you find you criticize yourself after viewing your beautiful friend’s daily selfies? Do your brother’s travel photos make you lament your office job? Does your aunt’s constant complaining clog your newsfeed with negativity?

    Unfollow people whose posts—for whatever reason at all—typically make your mood take a turn for the worst or cause you to lose focus on your own goals. You can still access these people’s content by intentionally navigating to their profiles, but you remove the spontaneous mood killers throughout your social media usage.

    If the person isn’t someone you care to maintain any kind of connection with, you might want to think about blocking him or her. My Facebook block list is a mile long, and here’s an example as to why that is:

    I recently blocked my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend on Facebook.

    Blocking her was not something I needed to do to prevent her from contacting me; I have never interacted with this person firsthand. However, we share many mutual friends (both on Facebook and in life), and I realized that her comments and Facebook activity became distracting for me in a negative way.

    Blocking her prevented me from seeing comments she makes to mutual friends, prevented me from stalking her profile during insecure moments, and removed from my vision any pictures that she previously tagged my boyfriend in while they were dating.

    This was not an attempt to erase my boyfriend’s past, just a measure prevent me from returning to it in the present.

    The unfollow and blocking features are not indications that you do not like someone; they are tools you can use to filter content that you don’t need to see on a routine basis. Remember, you can always unblock a person or decide to follow him or her again later.

    3. Delete the mobile app from your phone (or at least put mobile apps in a folder).

    Use the web app instead of the mobile app. This requires you to open a web page and intentionally login to a social media account versus mindlessly checking the same profile you’ve viewed twenty times today already.

    If you cannot (or will not) forgo the features offered by the mobile app, group all your social media apps into a folder, and move that folder to the last page on your phone or tablet.

    Increasing the time and effort it takes for you to access for your social media accounts helps to create awareness around your actions.

    4. Create separate pages for different purposes.

    I have three different kinds of social media profiles. One I reserve for personal use; this is private profile I use to keep up with friends, follow celebrities just for fun, and access my favorite blogs on any topic under the sun. The other two profiles are public: one I use for business purposes, and the other is dedicated to art.

    Having different focuses for each of your profiles gives you a direction for your social media use. Instead of using three different profiles to keep tabs on your friends and share photos of yourself, dedicate one or two profiles to your professional or personal growth.

    If you’re like me, you may spend a considerable amount of time perusing social media pages each week. Turn this time into an opportunity for personal growth by practicing social media habits that nurture your interests and promote positive connectivity.

    Woman touching like button image via Shutterstock

  • Compassionate Posting: Minimizing Social Media Comparisons

    Compassionate Posting: Minimizing Social Media Comparisons

    Social Media

    “We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.” ~Dalai Lama

    If you’re anything like me, you may have a love-hate relationship with social networking.

    There are so many cool facets to social networking sites, such as Facebook, but I am finding that the relative ease of information sharing with the masses and portable nature of technology bring their own set of challenges. Not a bad thing, per-se, but perhaps an invitation to practice even greater mindfulness and compassion.

    Consider the title “FACEbook”

    Jungian psychology describes the journey of the self through personal individuation. It’s a path of learning how to better understand and shed aspects of our persona—the “mask” or public face we use to make an impression on others, while potentially concealing parts of our true nature—as we work toward integrating a more holistic and genuine self-presence in our world.

    The hope is that in coming to better understand our multi-faceted selves (desired and undesired aspects), we come to realize that while we are unique, we are also very alike in our fears, our longings, our hopes, and desires.

    In other words, after all our all our striving to be someone, we eventually learn to relax into who we are in our shared humanity, which is broken and beautiful. 

    Facebook has been both my friend and enemy throughout the past year and a half, as I have struggled to recover from surgery after surgery due to traumatic injuries suffered in a climbing fall in November of 2012.

    Mindfulness practice is something I have chosen to embrace as part of my recovering journey. I am finding that as I come to better understand my own feelings in relation to pain and struggle, loss and gain, ability and disability, and despair and hope, I am comforted by the realization that these are the things I share with all human beings.

    Awareness

    I think I am not unique in the sense that, by nature, I tend to compare myself to other people. The society we live in encourages the competitive spirit—the edge that somehow sets one apart as “better” or “more deserving” of praise, affirmation, or whatever.

    We are proud of our accomplishments, our abilities, our attractiveness, or the things we believe define us. The feelings that arise with these qualities are good, even though they are fleeting.

    But what happens to our spirit, or our psychic energy, when we are faced with loss of ability, loss of attractiveness, or loss of what has typically brought us happiness and fulfillment? 

    When we are faced with any type of emotional experience, Facebook can provide a fertile opportunity for composting those feelings, or churning them around in our psyche.

    These feelings can serve as a reminder to have compassion with ourselves.

    For a period of time, I found that I needed to limit my interaction with Facebook, as the postings of others seemed to really magnify the pain and losses I was feeling.  

    Seemingly “perfect” lives appeared to reach out from my computer screen to punch me in the face. I was consumed with my own personal misery—my scars, my disabling injuries, and my frustration with how limited my life had become, as well as my uncertain future.

    My initial reaction to these feelings was to feel really bad and guilty, and to minimize my own experience.

    As my mindfulness practice evolved, however, I was able to create maitri, or unconditional self-acceptance as a part of my healing journey. To be able to tell myself “yes, your life does suck right now, and it is okay to mourn your abilities, your hopes, and dreams” was incredibly liberating.

    Since then, I have taken dozens of vacations from Facebook, and I return when I am ready.

    The feelings we experience as a result of social networking can also serve as a reminder that we are not alone. They are shared by all human beings.

    The Buddhist concept of Big Mind indicates an awareness of reality that transcends the merely personal, into the collective reality of all humankind.

    Have I ever felt proud of my abilities and my appearance? Absolutely. Have I felt the desire to share my joy in accomplishment or circumstance with others collectively? Of course. These are awesome feelings, and they teach us the value of gratitude.

    But I am acutely aware that there are folks out in Facebook-land who are also faced with struggles and challenges, and that whatever I post may engender a variety of responses or feelings in people with varying life circumstances.

    Mindful Compassionate Posting

    With every post, I try to be mindful of feelings and personal reactions. I ask myself these questions:

    What is my reason for posting this?

    Is it because I want to share what is happening in my life, to communicate good or helpful information, or a positive message?

    By my posting this, I obviously have some kind of expectation of others reading it (otherwise, why would I post?). How will I feel if the comments or feedback (or lack of them) are not what I had hoped for?

    Am I posting this because of some kind of validation that I need, or can I let go of the expectations that I might have?

    If I am posting to share good news (new job, achievement, marriage, children photos, etc.): Am I aware that my posting could bring up feelings of loss or pain in others?

    I know that every day, people are faced with job-loss, acquired disability, divorce, or inability to legally marry, infertility, and other losses of hopes and dreams.

    If I am posting to share news that is difficult, again, what are my expectations?

    To be encouraged? To simply share information? Am I willing to not take things personally, understanding that sometimes the written word is not adequate to share or respond to some things.

    It is unrealistic to think that in an age of widespread mass-communication, we can circumvent certain challenges and difficulties.

    But we can become more aware of our reactions and compassionate in our interactions. 

    We can learn to brace ourselves for a variety of emotions when exposed to a huge diversity of experiences—all of which are relative and changing, and utilize Facebook and social networking as tools for cultivating greater loving-kindness toward ourselves and all beings.

    Photo by geralt

  • Mindful Technology: Simplify Email & Reduce Inbox Stress

    Mindful Technology: Simplify Email & Reduce Inbox Stress

    Happy Girl with Laptop

    Up until recently, I received communication online in ten different places.

    In addition to getting messages through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon, I got emails through six different email accounts. I have not always managed this ever-flowing stream of information in the most mindful and productive way.

    Studies show that we actually get a little endorphin rush when something new pops up in the inbox. It’s almost as if an email, direct message, or blog comment confirms that we’re important—that someone somewhere values us and needs our attention, expertise, or approval.

    I’ll admit it: I enjoy seeing there’s a new comment on something I’ve written, and I love when someone sends me an email telling me how deeply Tiny Buddha has impacted them.

    But I’m not a big fan of spending my whole day reacting to things popping up on my screen; not when there are so many more efficient, fulfilling ways to spend my time.

    Recently I’ve been making some changes to create a more mindful online experience, less dictated by other people’s requests and feedback.

    If you also need a little help managing your stream, I recommend the following. (more…)