Tips for playing safe, healthy, and stress-free social media

Accessing social media has become an inseparable habit in the lives of many people. Almost everyone nowadays will automatically open a social media account on their smartphone, whether it's just to exchange news with friends or to get information on the latest situation out there.

However, the ease of socializing through social media is often not realized that it can have a negative impact on your mental health. Moreover, there are quite a lot of negative nuanced content which unfortunately we cannot always avoid. So, are there any safe tips for playing social media so we can be stress-free?

Wise and safe tips for playing social media

Many people don't realize that playing social media can backfire on mental health. So, what can we do?

1. Select the content you want to read

Every day there are more and more news about crimes or political issues that make you feel hot.

Quoted from CNN, Susanne Babbel, a psychotherapist specializing in trauma recovery, explained that the human brain is constantly "fed" by bad and traumatic things without stopping (in this case negative social media content) can slow down its work to deal with stress.

In the end, accessing negative content too often can cause you to continue to feel stressed and thus unconsciously elicit an overly (paranoid) unreasonable response to anxiety and fear.

So, you can use the mute or block feature found on most social media sites to filter the content you want to read.

In order to be more secure and calm while playing social media, make sure that only follow trusted official accounts, which are as neutral as possible, and which do not spread hatred or crime.

2. Follow only the closest and most trusted friends

Apart from being wiser about filtering the content that's present in your timeline, make sure the people you follow (follow) is the closest and most trusted person. It's okay to severely limit your following "quota" to only certain people. This method aims to limit or prevent the spread of hoax issues and hateful content to you.

On the other hand, you also cannot fully understand or change your thinking the following. Some people sometimes don't realize that they have contributed to spreading fear, issues, and even hatred to others on social media.

If you have this, you can still filter what you want to see and get. But remember: immediately reprimanding him is not the right step because he will likely argue that he has the right to reprimand him. post whatever he wants on social media.

Then the safe way is you can mute that person, if he or she is a close friend of yours, or simply unfollow and block the account if the content really bothers you. This method can help protect your emotional and psychological stability from feeling annoyed by seeing posts by irresponsible people.

Relax, blocking in cyberspace does not necessarily mean breaking friends in the real world. You just cut off what it spreads because it makes you stressed and afraid. In the real world, you are still free to choose whether to interact with that person or not.

3. Be careful spreading the word

After sifting through the content and people present in your timeline, now is the time to fix yourself. If you have avoided people and accounts that spread negative content, you also need to avoid spreading anything that risks becoming an argument.

You may consider that content or post -an that you spread is good for disseminated to the public. However, not everyone has the same opinion and opinion as you. Not everyone also has the same interests and interests as you about content.

So, you also need to be careful in distributing content to stay safe playing social media. Disseminate neutral info and content that is sure to have positive benefits for many people.

4. Limit your use of social media

It's fun to scroll through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram timelines for a long time. But unfortunately, this hobby can become addictive over time.

So that you are not constantly exposed to negative content that actually makes you stressful, limit the time you have to access it.

Until now, there has been no research that provides a time limit for safe social media access. However, set a time limit that you feel is reasonable for yourself. For example, you can aim to play social media for a maximum of 1-2 hours a day

Then, divide the duration at a certain time. For example, 15 minutes of checking social media on the way to work, 15 minutes at lunch, 20 minutes during the trip home, and the rest before your bedtime.

Once you get used to it, start trimming the duration even tighter. From only 1 hour a day to roughly playing social media only on free time.