Addicted to social media? | Tips to save your self from social media.

Do you often find yourself wasting time on social media like Instagram and Snapchat? Do you find yourself addicted to them?

Often we blame ourselves for the lack of self-control for getting addicted to these apps. But that's not entirely true. 

What we fail to realise is that these apps are designed to be addictive.

For example, take the 'streak' feature in Snapchat. You build up a streak with your friend as you keep sending a snap to them every day.

Sending a snap can become a habit since the action is easy to perform. We also have an immediate reward with the streak number growing up. Hence people are bound to repeat this action every day. Studies suggest that an action repeated for 21 days becomes a habit. 

“It takes 21 days to form a habit and just 66 to make it automatic. We’ve been in this virtual space for 300+ days. I suspect it’s sticking with us for quite some time!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Since this habit is easy to perform, it sticks. And as time goes on, we attached to this streak number and want it to go higher. The number starts becoming precious, and the app an addiction.

So after understanding why we are addicted to these apps, let's try fixing it. Below are two simple tips for that.

Steps to get away from social media:

Question Yourself

Take a moment and question yourself. In 5 years, does having a 1000 streak with your friend be helpful for your career. Unless you are using the app for your business, the answer will be a no.
As you question yourself, you will realise that this streak has no value and is just there to keep you hooked to the app. This realisation will be your first step to getting rid of your addiction.

Find an Alternate Habit

Second, since you may need something to replace this habit. You can explore something similar, some task that has a positive impact on your life.
Github's streak is a good example here if you work in the field of Computer Science. It rewards you with a streak for a single line of code a day.
Coding every day is helpful for someone in Computer Science. And you are using habit building to your advantage. You should start finding similar alternatives which reinforce habit building and are also helpful for your career.

I hope you found this helpful. Would like to hear your thoughts in the comments.

My insights are from the book Atomic Habits, if you are curious to know more about habit-building I would recommend you read the book.

If you are interested to know how you can incorporate investing habit to get rich, I recommend you check my post on Compounding from the book Psychology of Money.