Social media quite often evoke human qualities that are far from being the best. Moreover, social media often become a counterproductive factor: they take much time and attention. Instagram addiction is a real illness, resulting in a heavy addiction to social media activities. However, if you use social media correctly and follow certain safety rules, you can find yourself in a very productive environment with lots of opportunities for development and education. Besides, such platforms can become a problem-solving tool. Today we are going to discuss 12 safety tips on social media.
12 rules that will help you use social media productively
1. Review the list of people you follow
Don’t waste your time on information noise. Only read the accounts run by your close friends and relatives and accounts that post information relevant to you.
2. Don’t check the number of likes
Obsession with likes is a dangerous illness that has a subconscious desire to receive acclaim at its core. If you checked the number of likes 10 minutes ago and now you feel like doing it again, stop.
Add several multiple links to Instagram instead of one — to your goods and services pages, promotional campaigns and special offers, or other social media accounts.
3. Don’t accept invitations
Don’t pay attention to invitations to groups, subscriptions, and other marketing gimmicks. Avoid falling for marketing ruses, especially such unprofessional ones.
4. Stop procrastinating
Analyze destructive patterns of using social media. Maybe you use social media when you have a spare minute at work, or you use them as an excuse for procrastination. You aimlessly scroll through social media when you feel nervous. Detect those behavioral patterns and make the first step to get rid of them.
5. Use email as a primary communication method
Let people know that you prefer communicating via email instead of social media. Communication via social media has numerous disadvantages: you can’t sort letters, add reminders to your calendar, or delegate your workload via mail. However, the most important issue is that when you communicate on social media, many well-thought-through techniques are trying to distract you by stimulating you to have a look at the friends’ photos, watch new IGTV videos, read your feed, or listen to music. Each page you view generates money for advertisers on social media and steals your valuable time.
6. Set a time limit
Install RescueTime service or any other similar time tracker. Get a review to see how much time you spend on social media. The result might be shocking, but it may prompt you to limit the time you spent on social media.
7. Don’t add people you don’t know to friends
Don’t add people you don’t know to your friend list. Let them be your followers. The only difference between friends and followers is that you won’t be reading your followers’ posts unless they are your friends – people whose notifications you indeed want to see in your feed.
8. Unable notifications
Unable notifications from all social media apps. Otherwise, you will always be distracted, and it will be hard to resist the urge to constantly use social media.
9. Don’t argue in comments
Avoid arguing in comments. Everyone has their own vision. Don’t waste your time trying to impose your opinion. Think of comments as a festival of opinions instead.
10. Close all social media tabs
Don’t keep social media tabs open in your browser. All these subtle sounds that notify you of a new like or message were invented to make you open social media more often.
11. Delete unnecessary groups and accounts
Make a revision of all groups, channels, pages, and accounts you follow. Do you really need a page “Beads and necklaces for 10 dollars, New York”? Do you really read all these 25 communities with funny memes?
12. Avoid being put into a trance
Online media often put a person into a semi-conscious state. Simply look at a person using social media, for example, Instagram. They keep their eyes glued to the page, rarely blinking, with their mouth slightly open. It is not the most pleasant sight. The person is barely self-aware. If you ask people about the motives of opening their social media accounts, they are unlikely to remember. User Interface designers have come up with a variety of tricks to prolong the time people spend online, thus increasing the number of pages they view. Be conscious about how you use social media. Use them to your advantage, but don’t let them use you.
