So the last couple of podcasts, I had on some guests who I think do a really good job at being intentional with the content they share on their social media.
We have Blake from the Crappy Christian Podcast in episode 14 – I love her boldness and her anti hustle chats. She is always pointing us back to Jesus.
And last week in episode 15 we had Lindsey Maestes from the Living Easy Podcast. I just love this woman’s sweet soul and her genuine kind heart to help others.
If you missed either of their episodes I would encourage you to go check them out!
Today’s episode we are going to be chatting all about action steps you can take if you are wanting to be more intentional with your social media.
We all have different ways that we connect on social media. There is a ton of positive that can come from social media. But if we aren’t careful there is a lot of danger and darkness within that sphere.
I think the 3 biggest issues women face on social media are time sucking, comparison and straight out ignoring our families.
So how do we safeguard ourselves in these areas?
Let’s talk about the time that social media takes away from our lives. It is so easy to start scrolling and keep scrolling and scrolling and the next thing we know we have gone down a fb rabbit hole or an IG stories binge.
Our time is our most precious commodity, it is not renewable, once it is gone we can’t get it back. We need to be really intentional about how we choose to spend that time.
I have set boundaries for myself and I am pretty good at this now but sometimes it can still get away from me and I need to check myself. However the vast majority of the time I look around and see people staring straight down, ignoring what’s going on around them. Missing the small things because they are worried about Sally’s outfit off the day.
So if you are struuggling in this area, maybe these tips can help you.
Set yourself some limits.
I am an iphone user so I am not sure how it works on android, but you can go to settings>screen time> and you can see your screen time usage for the day and for the week. I try and compete with my day or week and get those usages lower.
There is also an area in here to set downtime and app limits. These are really useful tools if that screentime number makes you feel sick. Sometimes when we look at our daily use it may not seem like a lot but multiply that number by 30 to see how many hours on average your are spending on social media and screen time in a month. I bet you will be shocked.
I would also encourage you to set rules for yourself. Like you will put your phone in another room from dinner to bedtime during the week so you can be really present with your family.
Let’s dive into comparison next.
Unfollow people. It has nothing to do with them. If you are following someone that makes you feel bad about yourself or inadequate then unfollow them. You ar n ot obligated or required to follow anyone. Your are in charge mama. This is your social media and your precious time. Follow ppl or accoints that lit your spirits,, encourage you, teach you sometimes, inspire you.
A couple years ago I unfollowed all celebrities. At the end of the day I just didn’t care about what they posted. Flaunting wealth and listening to prideful banter just want my jam. I also unfollowed beauty and lifestyle bloggers that made me feel lacking. Again its not about them, I’m sure most of them are lovely people but spending any of my time watching them do makeup or hair was not aligning with any of my life goals or values. These accounts present a very curated feed which yes is beautiful, but it did not make me feel good.
These days I follow foster families, friends, and Christian accounts that inspire me or business accounts that teach me something. That is the content I want to be consuming so I limit everything else. Personally, I want to scroll through my feed and see bible verses, women speaking about God, and to comment and like other foster mamas posts because I want to be an encourager for them. This is the community I choose to cultivate within my social media.
This is my personal conviction, I am not saying its bad to follow certain accounts but I just want to be intentional and use social media for good, and in a way that aligns with my own life values and goals. So if you find yourself feeling envious or not enough scrolling through your feed go on an unfollow binge.
Focus on your Family
OK this last one is the most important one. And you probably don’t even realize how much you are doing it. This is vital guys. Our kids see us with our heads in our phones so much. What message is this relaying to them? That our phones are more important than them. I am in no way perfect at this, and constantly try to improve in this area but we have a couple strict rules at our house. One is no tech at the table. Connecting around the dinner table is a lost practice with the busy lives we lead. We often are driving kids to various activities and not even having dinner together as a family, so when we do have time to sit together I think it is vital to our relationships within oir families to remove all screens from this precious time. To truly connect, see how each others days were. Laugh, communicate.
Our phones have so easily taken over these precious times. If we are not careful they can be our ultimate distractions.
I also highly suggest turning off your phone for a set period of time, half or even a full day a week. You would be surprised at how much time that will free up to focus on your people, your hobbies. Don’t let yourself become a slave to your phone and those dopamine inducing addicting social media apps.
If you really want to be held accountable I urge you to use your kids for this. Ask them to tell you when they see you are on your phone too much. Or tell them when they want to play a game or toy with you and you are on your phone that you will put it away and play with them. Let your kids replace some of your social media time. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
So, as we head in to 2020 soon make some commitments to yourself to be more intentional with you social media use. The world won’t stop i you don’t post daily, or spend half an hour every morning scrolling your social media feeds. Your time is precious remember that.
Lord, thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you for the amazing minds that we have and the things we have created. Help us to use our social media for good, to share your word and love with others. Lord make us aware of temptations and shortcomings in our social media use and help us to change them. Lord we know you care about all the little details of our life. We know it’s not silly to ask for help in prayer with social media. Lord please help us. I pray blessings and favor over each of the listeners today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.