Social networks becoming a burden? When out-of-control social media taxes your nerves, steals your focus and distracts you from important tasks, it\u2019s time to do a digital detox. Today we will tell you how to get it done in a few easy steps.<\/p>\n
Unfollow anyone who doesn\u2019t contribute to your experience \u2014 a former classmate newly obsessed with Sanskrit, an old hobby group that\u2019s basically just ads now, whatever else you simply don\u2019t want to deal with. If you\u2019re not getting any benefit from the content, you have no need to invite it onto your feed.<\/p>\n
If an account is one you\u2019d rather not unfollow or unsubscribe from, try muting it instead. Social networks let you hide updates from accounts without unsubscribing. Your friends won\u2019t even know you\u2019ve muted them.<\/p>\n
Social networks are much more than just feeds; they\u2019re also places to stay in touch with friends, relatives, and colleagues. But if you\u2019re talking with people on half a dozen platforms, you may be wasting lots of time checking inboxes \u2014 even if no one has written to you. Try deciding with your friends where they should contact you, and centralize your correspondence on one or two platforms. That way you\u2019ll be able to check the others much less often with no fear of missing an important message.<\/p>\n
Have you ever picked up your phone to check the weather, and then seen the Facebook icon, opened it just for a second, and ended up wasting two hours down a rabbit hole? To keep that from happening, try moving your social media icons out of sight. For example, hide them in a folder or send them back to your third or fourth page of apps \u2014 out of sight, out of mind.<\/p>\n
No matter how responsible you may be about avoiding your feed and even keeping certain icons out of sight, if a social network sends a notification about a new post, you can easily, unthinkingly press that sneaky little window and find yourself right back in the thick of things. For help concentrating on what\u2019s important, try disabling unnecessary notifications. To learn how, check out our instructions for iOS<\/a>, macOS<\/a>, Windows 10<\/a>, and Android<\/a>.<\/p>\n Seeing exactly how many hours a day you waste roaming social networks and messaging apps can be sobering. Apps to help with self-control are easy to find, but you don\u2019t need to download anything for a view into your digital habits: Open your smartphone\u2019s settings and enable Screen Time (in iOS) or Digital Wellbeing (in Android). Put the widget with the statistics in a place where you\u2019ll always see it.<\/p>\n And if seeing statistics isn\u2019t enough, configure the app to let you open the social network only at certain times or for a limited amount of time.<\/p>\n Whenever you start something new, the most important\u00a0\u2014 and hardest\u00a0\u2014 thing is to establish new habits. Try spending a couple of weeks avoiding the apps that consume most of your time \u2014 when you reach for one out of habit, you can try imagining you\u2019ve gone on a hike and don\u2019t have an Internet connection.<\/p>\n Better yet, actually get away from the Internet if you can. Cut off the flow of information so you can reset and no longer feel like you\u2019re missing out.<\/p>\n This step is optional; the suggestions above may have helped you attain the digital freedom you\u2019re looking for, but if not, consider the drastic measure of removing the app from your phone or even deleting your account altogether. Don\u2019t worry\u00a0\u2014 you don\u2019t have to lose your posts, messages, or photos. Almost every social network lets you keep all of your data even if you deactivate your profile. We\u2019ve posted instructions on how to do this for Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, Snapchat<\/a>, and Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Having freed yourself from today\u2019s social media overload, take a sec to congratulate yourself \u2014 but keep an eye on yourself as well. It\u2019s entirely possible your brain will try to return to old habits. If in a couple of months you find yourself online at 3 a.m. debating the pressing issues in some stranger\u2019s post comments, just go back and repeat these simple steps.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Free yourself from social media and start living again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2581,"featured_media":18992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[105,2323,1061,1596,131,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-18991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tips","8":"tag-android","9":"tag-digital-comfort-zone","10":"tag-ios","11":"tag-notifications","12":"tag-tips","13":"tag-windows"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"en-ae","url":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/18991\/"},{"hreflang":"en-in","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/23507\/"},{"hreflang":"ar","url":"https:\/\/me.kaspersky.com\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/9521\/"},{"hreflang":"en-us","url":"https:\/\/usa.kaspersky.com\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/25596\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/23660\/"},{"hreflang":"es-mx","url":"https:\/\/latam.kaspersky.com\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/23140\/"},{"hreflang":"es","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.es\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/26280\/"},{"hreflang":"it","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.it\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/25824\/"},{"hreflang":"ru","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.ru\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/31763\/"},{"hreflang":"tr","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.tr\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/10187\/"},{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/42632\/"},{"hreflang":"fr","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.fr\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/17930\/"},{"hreflang":"pt-br","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.br\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/18327\/"},{"hreflang":"pl","url":"https:\/\/plblog.kaspersky.com\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/15438\/"},{"hreflang":"de","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.de\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/27617\/"},{"hreflang":"ja","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.co.jp\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/31853\/"},{"hreflang":"nl","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.nl\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/27751\/"},{"hreflang":"ru-kz","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.kz\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/24499\/"},{"hreflang":"en-au","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/29859\/"},{"hreflang":"en-za","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.za\/blog\/8-steps-to-freedom-from-social-media\/29661\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/tag\/digital-comfort-zone\/","name":"Digital Comfort Zone"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Step 5. Configure Screen Time or Digital Wellbeing<\/h2>\n
Step 6. Take a break<\/h2>\n
Step 7. Delete the app or your profile<\/h2>\n
Step 8. Keep an eye on yourself<\/h2>\n