10 Steps to Break Free of Social Media Addiction

Social media addiction. Is that even a thing? Researchers can’t agree if overuse of social media is really an addiction or just a compulsive habit. I’m not an expert, so I can’t answer that question. All I know is that my social media usage was unhealthy. I used Facebook to wake up in the morning. I used Facebook in bed before falling asleep. I spent hours and hours each day on social media. My usage was unhealthy for me. Many times, I would get upset about a post on social media and become anxious and sucked into some internet argument. This was me:

It was difficult for me to “just cut down my social media usage.” I found I needed a deeper dive into my reasons for getting stuck down the rabbit hole. If social media or internet overuse is an issue for you, here are ten steps to help you get untangled from your smart phone:

Step One: Define the problem

The first step to improving your relationship with social media is figuring out what is problematic for you. Examine these questions:

Is your use of social media affecting your family and social relationships in a negative way?
Do you depend on social media to make you feel better?
Do you find that you are sucked into social media and unable to control the amount of time you spend online?
When you aren’t using social media, do you feel upset or uncomfortable, like you are having withdrawal symptoms?

Researchers have developed tools for assessing social media and internet addiction. Here is a simple tool you can try.

When you look at the answers to these questions, you can get an overall picture of your social media use and how it affects you. Looking deeply at how the problem can motivate you to do the work and make changes for the better.

Step Two: Establish a Baseline

Some people can just take the problematic app off their smart phone and the problem is solved. If you are still reading at this point, I am going to assume you have determined you are dealing with compulsive social media usage. You are probably the type of social media user who needs to get more intentional to make changes. First, we need to face exactly how bad the issue is right now.

Find a way to determine what your current level of social media usage looks like. There are app tracking features built into the settings on most smartphones. You can download also download an app tracker for a smart phone or an activity tracker on your computer. You could use an old school notebook and pencil to write down how many times you check and how long you spend on the apps that are an issue for you. Sometimes when you start using an app tracker, it can change your normal usage patterns, so be sure to use it for several days to see what you are doing when you aren’t especially self-conscious.

Once you have information about your regular usage pattern, start looking at trends. Examine these questions:

What applications and programs are most problematic for you?
Is there a certain time you might binge social media?
Is there an aspect of social media that particularly draws you in?
Are there any times when it’s easy to stay off social media?

Step Three: Determine what’s the Hook?

Research shows that people struggling with social media addition report they are getting an important emotional payoff. That’s what keeps people coming back day after day. For many people, social media is an escape or distraction to block pain,uncertainty or discomfort. Start to examine critically the payoffs you get for social media. Start journaling in a notebook about your feelings related to your social media usage. Examine these questions:

What’s the aspect you can’t stop thinking about?
What do you find yourself compulsively drawn to?
- Is it the social support you find with your online friends?
- Is it the excitement you get from posting great things about your life?
- Is it scrolling through the feed to find out what’s new with other people?
What kinds of feelings do you have at the moment when you crave using social media?
How do you feel when you are on social media?
- Do you get a “rush” from certain aspects?
- Does it relax you when you are anxious about real life?
- Do you use it when you are in social situations and you feel uncomfortable?

Start to notice the connection your emotions have with you favorite applications. As you develop this awareness of the role social media fills in your life, you will be able to reign in your social media usage and still meet those needs in alternative ways.

Step Four: Establish Life Balance

Often, when your social media usage is compulsive, it can be a sign of a larger life issue. If you are wondering why you can’t “just cut down,” it could be because your life is out of wack. If you look at the big picture, you might have less need for social media as an unhealthy coping strategy.

For this step, look critically at all aspects of your life and self care. How are you doing in each of the following areas:

Nutrition
Sleep
Exercise
Stress Management
Relationships with family and friends
Creative expression

For each area, determine how well you are doing and examine how social media usage interacts with that area of life. Compare with other times of your life when your usage of social media was not so compulsive for a more clear perspective.

Step Five: Cultivate Motivation

You have looked at your life overall to see areas where you are doing well and areas that may be suffering from your unhealthy relationship with social media. Your real life relationships and social life may be neglected. Maybe you don’t pay as much attention to your family as you would like. Maybe your sleep or nutrition has been overlooked. Keep those elements in mind as we start to develop motivation to make changes.

Think about what you value in your life as a whole. Write a list of motivators for making change around social media usage.

What are your key values, especially those that have been impacted by how much time you spend in the social media world?
What key values do you want to prioritize right now?
Are there any negative impacts from social media you want to eliminate from your life? (ex: drama or stress)

Step Six: Setting Goals

You have a baseline of what your usage of social media is right now. Now it’s time to make your goals and set up a plan. You may decide that you want to eliminate social media from your life completely. You may decide that you want to keep social media in your life, but make some reductions about when, where and how you use social media. In this step, you will set goals for your social media usage and build a plan to meet your goals.

Think about what limits you want to set in your use of social media.

What role should social media play in your life?
Do you think you should give it up entirely?
What would appropriate usage look like?

Step Seven: Making a Plan

Now is the time to start making a plan to gradually reduce your usage of social media and bring it under your active control. Sometimes it is helpful to make your first few steps incredibly easy to get over the hump of getting started and make changes that will stick. Write down your plan. Plan a start date and see how the first step goes.

Here are some suggestions for setting manageable boundaries for your social media usage.

Limit your daily social media usage to scheduled times on your daily calendar and keep checks within those blocks. (For ex: Morning, noon, and night checks or only during your baby’s nap times) It is often helpful if these time blocks are frequent, but shorter than your usual time periods. That way you don’t feel deprived, but also start setting clear boundaries.
Create times of your day where social media usage is off limits and practice not using social media during those times.(Ex: In class, at work, during meal times, when hanging out with friends or family, when taking care of children, in bed, before breakfast, while driving)
Replace a time when you habitually use social media with an activity that is incompatible with social media. (Ex: I stopped checking Facebook first thing in the morning and did a short morning exercise routine.)
Create a limit on total time usage per day and start to keep your usage within that time period. Start with an easily doable limit and slowly reduce down to where you would like your usage to be.
Remove the social media apps from your smartphone and limit use of social media apps to a computer or tablet device. Some people find this makes them more deliberate in their choice to use social media. If you do this method, be sure that your method of tracking usage calculates the usage of across the different devices so you can be aware of how you are doing.
Unfollow groups or individuals so that your timeline is less busy. You can pick and choose when to drop into groups or check on certain friends.

Pick a strategy and make your plan!

Step Eight: Managing Triggers

As you start making changes to your life and setting goals to reduce and reign in your social media usage, you might notice some cravings to check your device. Identify things that make you want to check social media and think of alternative things to do instead. Here are some examples from my own analysis of my triggers.

Emotional triggers – Boredom, anxiety, fear,overwhelm, over stimulation. For example, I get very anxious when my children come down with stomach bugs. I used to be an emetophobe and vomiting still makes me very anxious. During those episodes, I will often compulsively check Facebook and binge use Facebook. Other types of anxiety will make me want to check as well.
Visual triggers – Sometimes just looking at my phone will make me want to check it.
Social Network triggers – If there is something exciting going on in my Facebook world, I will want to check more often or longer. This usually means if I have posted an interesting status, I will want to see how my friends have reacted. If my friend or group has a controversial post about a topic that is hot button issue for me, I will want to check and watch the drama play out.
Habitual use triggers – When I am in a place where I used to use social media often, it can be a trigger. For me, this means sitting in bed or parked at a red light.

After I identified my triggers, I started brainstorming ways to address each one. Here’s a table showing my ideas:

Emotional triggers:
Boredom	-Deep breathing and mindfulness of my environment -Surf Pinterest instead -Read the news -Read a book (Paper or Kindle format) -Go for a walk -Do a hobby -Work on chores
Anxiety/Fear	-Surf Pinterest -Do a hobby -Journal -Call my husband and talk
Special Case: Anxiety because someone is throwing up	-Give myself a break and expect to go over my goal usage. -Try not to use compulsively. -Try to be mindful of usage.
Overwhelm/Overstimulation	-Ask myself “How can I take a break? What will refresh me more than Facebook?” -Lay down with my eyes closed in the dark. -Go outside and take a walk
Visual Trigger:
Seeing my phone	-Keep phone in the charger or in a drawer
Social Network Trigger:
Exciting Social Media debate has sucked me in	-Reduce number of Facebook Groups -Focus friends and groups on my real life social network -Don’t respond to controversial posts -Hide friends whose posts fire me up on a regular basis -Reduce Facebook friends who are known only through social media connections. -Focus on real life friends.
Habitual Use Triggers:
Sitting in bed	-Create new morning and bedtime routines that makes it impossible to start the day with Facebook
At a red light	-Set a goal of no social media usage when the car is running or in the car

Make a list of your triggers and brainstorm strategies for addressing each trigger. Some groups of triggers can be managed with one overall strategy. Other triggers must be taken one at a time as you work through managing your total usage of social media. You can use my table above as an example. I didn’t do each of these strategies all at the same time. That could be too overwhelming. Many of these ideas were implemented one at a time as a baby step in regaining conscious control over my Facebook usage.

Step Nine: Building in Support Systems

Research shows that each time you check social media, your brain gets a hit of dopamine, which is a feel good chemical in your brain. Your usage of social media is giving your brain happy sensations each time you scroll through to see what is new on your feed. When you get likes on your posts you are fueled by another hit of dopamine. Many compulsive users of social media are also meeting their need for socialization and entertainment through use of a social media network. Now that you are making changes to reduce your usage of social media, we need to look critically at your each element of your support system to make sure we are meeting those needs in other ways.

Do you need a professional support system?

Addiction to social media is often one symptom of larger mental health issues that are associated with this method of coping. Depression and anxiety often go hand in hand with social media addiction and are best addressed by seeing a professional. Is this something that might be right for you? With a mental health professional you can work on core issues and also get professional support for changing your social media use. These steps are self help strategies, but some people will need to talk with a professional to get an additional level of help and support. Professional medical help and counseling can be a great element of a support system.

Replacing the dopamine hit

Once we have looked at our mental health concerns in general, there are plenty of ways that we can replace the quick fix of checking social media. For me, the best way by far to keep my brain happy and reduce cravings for social media was to start exercising regularly. Even a short time period of exercise can get the blood flowing and release endorphins that have positive effects on mood and health.

In addition to exercise, look at sleep and nutrition. For me, when I am trying to make changes in my social media usage, I have better success if I am well fed with healthy food and well rested. Sometimes using social media late into the night can affect the quality of sleep, so turning off your phone at a designated time can be helpful in starting a pattern of good quality and quantity of sleep. I also notice that the times when I crave a quick fix from social media are also the same times that I crave junk food. It’s helpful to have healthy snacks on hand so that you don’t replace social media with coffee and chocolate bars.

Social media is by definition a social pursuit. You need to look at ways to replace the social interaction you have been getting online with real life friends and social interaction. Look at ways to expand your social life outside of the internet. This real life social interaction can often be more satisfying that the type of social interactions we have from Facebook.

Now that you have started using baby steps toward changing your social media patterns, one way to reduce cravings and withdrawal and increase your chances of success is to build in your support systems to make sure your mental, social and emotional needs are met. Let’s look at your support system piece by piece. Your homework is to think critically about each of these areas and think of ways you could build up each area to support your goal of breaking free of social media addiction. Be sure to look at these questions:

Do you need professional support?
How will you replace the dopamine hit that social media has been providing?
How can you support your general health? (Eating, sleeping and exercise)
How can you build up your real world social support system?

Step Ten: Plan for Slip Ups

Making changes is not always easy. As you start working through your plan, you will probably have days where you won’t meet your goals. Sometimes that can lead to going back to old patterns of binge or compulsive usage. It can start you down a path of feeling guilty and upset and lead you back into unhealthy and out of control usage of social media. Having a plan for when you slip up is the best way to get back on track quickly after you fall back into your unhealthy patterns.

You have set your goals and made a plan for how you are going to get your social media usage under control. Ask yourself these questions and try to picture how you will get yourself back on track:

What do you plan for days when it just doesn’t happen?
What will you do if you break your rules or go past your limits?
How will you restart your plan?

Try to think about days where your triggers will be present and you will most want to surf social media for long periods of time. Think about ways that you can make the process of resetting guilt free so that negative feelings don’t send you further off the rails.

Beginning the Journey

It’s worth it to do the work to regain control of your time on social media. Doing this work will help you understand why you are getting sucked in and what is keeping you there. Once you know why you are drawn in, it can help you understand how to get your needs met in healthier ways. Good luck on the journey and comment below or email me to let me know how it’s going for you!