Enjoy social media without wasting time

Smart strategies for limiting social media breaks

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is about how to enjoy social media responsibly
without losing hours down rabbit holes that you didn't mean
to jump into. Every year, new surveys point out how

(00:26):
much time people spend on social media and messaging platforms.
One recent report claimed that among people who do use
the Internet, the average was a hundred forty two minutes
per day, or two hours and twenty two minutes. This
is quite a bit of time, just for comparison's sake.
If you use that time to read War and Peace instead,

(00:47):
you'd be done in less than two weeks. And it's
not a short book. Of course, this time isn't all wasted,
some is sure, But the amount of time we spend
on social media is complicated by the reality that these
days many people do need to be plugged in as
part of their jobs. Maybe they do digital marketing or communications,

(01:07):
or they work for policy groups that need to be
aware of the news cycle. Plus plenty of us want
to know what people in our industries are talking about.
These are absolutely legitimate uses of work time and preclude
swearing off social media completely. The problem is that you
might go on Twitter to check what a client's competitor
is talking about, and then all of a sudden, you're

(01:29):
watching cat videos. People who use social media professionally are
no more immune to this than the rest of us.
So I've been talking lately with people who do use
social media professionally about how they manage their time. How
do they focus on the necessary parts of social media
while skipping the rest. What can the rest of us
learn from them? The first tip recognize that social media,

(01:54):
like email, can fill in cracks of time around other things.
You can check headlines and Twitter or your competitors YouTube
videos in chunks of ten minutes or less, but you
probably won't write not ed or a press release, or
give your direct report a thoughtful critique of her proposed
strategy in ten minutes. So build your daily schedule around

(02:15):
the big stuff. You might aim to work on big
stuff for forty five minutes, and then you could spend
a few minutes on social channels. Second, put some intention
into those social media breaks. People who do this professionally
take the time to curate lists of accounts that they
find worth following. Yes, There's always the possibility of serendipitous gold,

(02:37):
but you have to scroll through a lot of stuff
to get there, and it might not be worth the time.
In any case, if you follow a diverse group of
thoughtful people in your industry or in your area of interests,
you will see pretty much anything that's being discussed. The
nature of social media is that you can rely somewhat
on other people to do the searching for you. I'd

(02:58):
add that unless you do have a really good professional reason,
it's not worth following any accounts that tend to upset you.
Thoughtful disagreements are fine, but drama and personal attacks aren't
worth the mental space. Focus on quality. Third, and just
as important, you also need to identify an end of

(03:19):
the social media scrolling cycle. Many of us keep going
until we realize that we've just kept going or something
interrupts us. People who do this professionally might decide to
look at a specific group of ten accounts during a check.
At the end of that cycle, they move on. If
you have a really difficult time setting an end like this, well,

(03:39):
then set a timer. Well. I don't recommend snoozing in
the morning when you're trying to get out of bed.
Using a nine minute timer for social media breaks could
be smart. Think of it as using the snooze function
on your phone for good. Finally, the best way to
keep social media in check is to be more proactive
about your leisure time. Cal newport Its book Digital Minimalism

(04:01):
has a longer discussion of this, if you'd like to
check that out. It turns out that breaks at work
are one thing, but the biggest social media binges tend
to happen at other times, namely at night after the
kids have gone to bed, or when you're hanging out
around the house on the weekends when you don't have
ideas about what else you'd like to do with yourself.
Social media is a very easy option. You don't have

(04:22):
to dress up, and you don't have to hire a babysitter.
But there are plenty of more rewarding ways to spend
this time. Consider various forms of low energy analog fun,
like doing jigsaw puzzles or crossword puzzles, coloring and adult
coloring books, or doing a craft such as cross stitching
or knitting, or reading. I know that when I'm really

(04:43):
into a good book, I spend a lot less time
on Instagram when I don't have a good book, Well
that's when I actually get that sad message that I'm
all caught up, which is probably not a noteworthy achievement.
What do you do to enjoy social media responsibly? Please
let me know. You can email me at Before Breakfast
podcast at i heeart media dot com. In the meantime,

(05:06):
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's B the number four,

(05:31):
then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me
an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media
dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
the letters. Thanks so much. I look forward to staying
in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio.

(05:53):
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