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How to Cure and/or Avoid Social Media Burnout

ByMatthew Harris Hours

If you find yourself spending countless minutes perusing Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Tumblr, Qzone, WeChat, or any of the countless other social media platforms, you’re definitely not alone. Which is probably one of the main reasons you’re on there to begin with, to chat and interact with friends, family, and new acquaintances.

These 21st century offerings provide us the opportunity to connect with long lost friends, make new ones, engage with customers and clients, and never miss a birthday thanks to those automatic reminders. Video chatting and even playing games in real time with people we know and love is the perfect end to the day for millions of people around the world.

However, just as with so many other things in this life, it’s best enjoyed in moderation. If you find that you’re spending all your free time online, it’s more than likely time to make a change. Furthermore, there are additional signs of social media burnout that you should be aware of, and what you should do to cure it.

Signs of Burnout

Aside from a nagging parent or significant other repeatedly telling you that you spend too much time online whether it’s been 5-minutes or 5-hours, there are several key indicators that you may be suffering from social media burnout.

  • Starting and ending most of your days by “checking” your accounts.
  • A sense of being “nagged” about your online activities.
  • Feelings of not being in control.
  • A definitive sense of “having” to check your profiles.
  • Feeling anxious more than usual.
  • Scheduling offline activities around your online “schedule.”
  • An onset of depression or symptoms of depression.

So, if you’re already suffering from any of the above or you want to keep yourself from social media burnout, we have a few tips.

Start With a Limit

Whether you just set a timer on your phone, utilize an app, or your device’s inherent capabilities, give yourself a set time limit for social media usage. This will help prevent those accidental 3-hour sessions (especially when you only meant to check messages) and give you a foundation to build the next couple of steps on.

It’s also suggested that you take things a step further and picking day a week that you don’t log into social media at all.

Let Some Go

According to Statista, 79% of the U.S population has a social media profile as of 2019, while Oberlo has the worldwide numbers at about 42%, or 3.2 billion people. To top all that off, a report from MarketingTech found that the average person has 7 different social media accounts.

If you’re experiencing the symptoms of social media burnout, this is your second area of change. Now that you know how much time you’re going to limit your sessions to, you need to divide it among the various platforms you use.

Sure, you could try to hit just one of your 7 platforms each day and break up your time that way, but the best idea is to actually trim down your overall use. 

Try selecting just 2 or 3 that you truly enjoy. Where do you get the most “value” for your time? Where do you create quality content that your friends and/or audience engages with?

Move contacts and shutdown those “extra” accounts to eliminate temptation and you’re well on your way to curing what ails you.

One Last Step… Disable Notifications

With your time limit, you also need to ensure that you aren’t “pulled in” throughout the day by every single post. It’s all-too-easy to fall into the trap of checking your accounts the moment you get a notification and of course that can lead to those 3-hour “oops” sessions.

Disabling push notifications and waiting until you log into the platform to see the day’s events is a huge step toward defeating social media burnout.

If you’re not experiencing the symptoms described earlier but you simply want to avoid it, simply follow the advice above.

  • Limit the number of social media platforms you utilize.
  • Limit your time spent on social media overall.
  • Don’t enable notifications.

These 3 small “best practices” will help ensure that you stay connected and engaged, while foregoing burnout and its inherent maladies.

Matthew has been with Geek Insider for several years and is the Managing Editor and 1 half of the Geek Speak podcast & radio show team. He's a certified Geek that has absorbed a little bit of all sorts of things, especially the odd and just plain WTH kind of stuff. If it's Geeky, Cheeky, or Downright Freaky, chances are he knows at least a little something about it. He enjoys relaxing at home near Austin, Texas with his new bride and their furbaby horde, and when he's not editing, writing, or broadcasting, he can usually be found watching movies and vegging in his recliner.

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