Remember kids: social media platform CEOs and internet influencers/trolls usually want you to be pissed off and miserable and bitter, because negative emotions are a strong driver for engagement. Even hate comments count as engagement and make money in the attention economy.
You can fight back and take this away from them!
Here’s how:
1. If you see something that irritates you, upsets you, or puts you in a bad mood, exit the app. Close your device. These people make money off of your angry comments. At the very least, scroll away without engaging at all. Don’t give them your time or attention.
2. Learn to recognise when you’re being pulled into a culture war or pointless argument rather than staying informed or engaging in healthy debate. There are times when online debate can be useful, but very few peoples’ lives were ever improved or minds were ever changed by an argument in an Instagram comments section. It’s not on you to constantly correct strangers online, most of the time it does more harm in one way or another than it does good. Learn to let people be wrong (yeah, I’m still working on this one. I get real fired up when I see misinformation about my interests.)
3. Curate your feed! Try to spend less time on your explore page/FYP or whatever the equivalent for your social media platform of choice is, and spend more time on your subscribed/following tab. Curating your feed is a lot harder now that platforms tend to push algorithms, but it’s not impossible - don’t let that same algorithm that rewards inflammatory content and bad faith debate choose what you watch every time you open social media. You will inevitably keep getting steered towards that kind of content. Follow profiles that align with your interests and values and that add to your life. Block tags and key terms. Unfollow people if you don’t vibe with them anymore. Actively look for things you’re interested in. You can do it! I believe in you!
4. If you see an idea you like on social media, consider adding it to a journal along with your thoughts on the topic. Don’t just save it to never look at it again, and ideally revisit it and try implementing it if you like it. Thanks to this tip I’m planning to make a summer bucket list punch card, rather than sending the post that inspired it to a friend and forgetting all about it five seconds later.
5. USE THE DANG BLOCK BUTTON. You’re not required to have a ‘good’ reason, you’re not submitting a report or accusing them of a crime. If seeing someone’s content or having them engage with you is not beneficial, you can block them. It’s your feed. Block whoever the hell you want. Me included if you like! Go for it.
And as always, practice your media literacy and be mindful of the content you’re consuming. You wouldn’t hand a tech CEO the keys to your car or house, so don’t hand them the keys to your brain. You can stay informed without constantly subjecting yourself to content that makes you miserable.
