How to Take a Break from Social Media When You Are a Digital Marketer
I want a break from social media BUT I am a digital marketer
According to stats, 55 percent of the total global population use social media in 2021.
All whilst being aware of its ill effects.
Therefore, we take intermittent breaks from social media to maintain a balance.
But, what about us, whose work revolves around social media?
Can’t we afford the “luxury” of taking a break from social media?
I say, we CAN. But How?
Whatever the work may be, everyone needs and deserves to take a break from social media every now and then, for various reasons, like:
- To maintain sanity
It is a proven fact that social media is a major cause of stress and anxiety in people. You must have heard similar things from people around you. In fact, chances are, you have experienced it first-hand, too.
Therefore, it is often advised to maintain a healthy distance from social media.
2. To feel connected to the real world
I’m sure you would remember a time when you were literally living on social media. Hardly interacted with anyone outside of your digital world, unaware of the happenings around you, didn’t care about anything else except social media. That’s how you get disconnected from the real world and start living in an artificial one.
We tend to use social media as a medium to escape from reality.
You can’t choose when to log in and log out of your real lives, unlike social media. Moreover, reel life depicts a false version of real life, leading people to believe and pursue the unpractical and hollow realms of life.
3. To save time
This is the most common one. Doesn’t matter what you do on social media, wasting time has to be the common factor for all. Endless scrolling, obsessing over useless things, stalking people, indulging in obsessive shopping, everything under the pretext of killing time whilst you are simply wasting your time.
We prefer messaging our friends and family for different occasions but we don’t have the time to make them a single call, let alone meeting in person. We would spend countless hours online and then cry foul that we don’t have any time for anything else.
Coming back to the topic now!
Whilst it is easy for other people to shut off their social media completely, whenever they feel like it, we, digital marketers don’t have that flexibility.
Social media changes rapidly and so do the information on it and our job is to stay updated with all of it.
It is a very consuming process and the fact that it is readily available on our phones makes things worse.
But we got to figure out a way for our digital detox.
Here’s how we can do that, something that worked for me might work for you, too.
Devise a strategy —
- Fix the work/usage hours for each social media channel, separately or all together, depending upon your requirement.
- Put your gadgets away to refrain yourselves from impulsive checks.
- And most importantly, convince yourselves that the world is not going to collapse if you log out for a few hours or days.
Digital marketers spend majority of their time on social media due to their work requirements, therefore, it is crucial to spend the rest of our time in different activities.
We are prone to feel FOMO more than others, but realizing that it is alright to miss out on a few updates helps greatly.
So, all those social media sorcerers out there who stay active on social media round the clock, take a moment and let it all sink in.
P.S. Adding my two cents, feel free to add yours!
