A spring clean means to ensure your space is tidy for the new season and is known to positively impact your mental health. While a spring clean usually refers to cleaning your house, you can also follow suit with your social media.
Social media has many benefits, but it can negatively impact mental health too, with a staggering 57% of 16-25-year-olds believing social media creates an ‘overwhelming pressure’ to succeed¹.
Following a 124% increase in interest for the term ‘social media and self-esteem’ over the past 12 months², youth-led community organisation Conscious Youth, share their top tips for giving your social media a spring clean:
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Unfollow accounts that don’t boost your mood
If you’re not feeling positive after finishing your social media scroll, then you need to change what you’re seeing! Going through who you follow and unfollowing particular accounts could make all the difference to your mental health. Whether these accounts post too many edited images, opinions that differ from yours or unkind content, it’s important to put yourself first and unfollow accounts that make you feel negative.
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Stop interacting with negative content
Social media works through algorithms, and if you like and engage with content, the platform will decide to show you more of this in the future. This can be great if you’re engaging with suitable posts; however, it could be detrimental to your mental health if you’re engaging with negative posts.
Content such as political debates, arguments and judgemental comments are just a couple of examples of what to avoid when liking, commenting and sharing content on social media.
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Follow positive accounts
Once you’ve removed accounts from your platforms which make you feel negative, it’s time to follow some positive accounts. It could be an influencer who posts very honest and relatable content, a funny meme page or a celebrity who makes positive changes such as Marcus Rashford.
A good way to figure out who you want to follow is by making a list, write down what you would like to achieve from going on social media, and once you’ve figured out what you want to gain from spending time online, you can then decide who or what would best provide this.
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Post what makes you happy
It can be easy to overthink what you post online. Once you’ve posted something, it’ll be there forever, and this can be daunting. It can be frightening to consider what others will think and say about your posts, but this is your personal platform, and you should feel free to post what you’d like. Posting what makes you happy not what others want to see will make you feel more comfortable online.
Use your spring clean to start fresh on your platforms. If you start posting what makes you feel positive online now, your page will look exactly how you’d like it to by the end of the year.
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Compliment or encourage one person each day
Why not make someone’s day, every day? Whether this is leaving a kind comment on your friend’s picture, encouraging charity work or sharing a local business, it feels good to make others feel good.
Sophie Simpson, Co-Founder and CEO of Conscious Youth, adds: “Social media is such a massive part of our day-to-day lives. Although we see how it can be positive for our Conscious girls and boys, we also see the negative impact it can have on self-esteem and confidence. Unfortunately, some people go on social media to spread negativity and be unkind. It can be challenging for young people to switch off from this and unfollow the accounts making them feel this way.
“Spring is the perfect time for all young people to change their social media habits, hopefully benefitting their mental health before summer starts. Our Conscious girls sometimes struggle with self-image, which often stems from seeing ‘picture perfect’ images on platforms such as Instagram, where it’s possible to apply filters to images. This can be damaging as young people can often find it hard to recognise what’s real and fake.
“We’d recommend looking through your social platforms to make some positive changes. If you spread positivity and kindness this spring, others may follow in your footsteps!”
To learn more about how to conduct a social media spring clean, please visit: https://consciousyouth.co.uk/how-to-give-your-social-media-a-spring-clean/
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Sources
- https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/about-the-trust/news-views/ebay-youth-index-2019#:~:text=The%20Prince’s%20Trust%20eBay%20Youth,makes%20them%20feel%20%E2%80%9Cinadequate%E2%80%9D.
- Google trends data for the search term ‘social media and self esteem’ correct as of May 2022.