A month ago I decided to move all my social media apps out of the home page of my mobile. I’m one of those anal people who hates clutter and prefers to group my commonly used apps so that they can all be accessed via the home page, rather than having to swipe to find it over several pages. I don’t use that many apps anyway, so my mobile is neat in its appearance, if I may say so.

However I have found that I scroll too much through social media and even though I have chosen to not have most of my friends’ posts show up on my feed I still get videos pushed to me. Usually these are animal videos or something related to a word or subject I had happened to look up on my phone. I realised it wasn’t mentally healthy to keep scrolling through videos and I’m not that interested in other people’s lives anyway. Sometimes I can’t even cope with my own, much less others!

So I decided to make the apps less accessible to myself by moving them away from the home page, making it only available when I have to scroll through my phone to find it. This has proven to work as I have found myself not bothering to open Facebook on Instagram.  In doing so, I’m reading more books and news articles instead. Much better for my brain I think!

I haven’t yet had the conviction to delete my social media accounts as I still value the pictures that are there. They could after all be my bank of memories, from which I can draw down when I’m physically incapable of making fun memories like those of hiking, travelling, eating and being with family and friends. But I’m posting a lot less now, to the point of not posting anymore, as I doubt others care about what I’m doing. For example, I couldn’t care less what my friends are eating for dinner and vice versa!

So I keep up with friends mainly by messaging them directly rather than posting on social media. I have found it easy to stay off those apps and haven’t bothered to access them since I moved them. Should have done so sooner!