Social Media Addiction: The Road to Recovery

You want to stop, but you can’t. Your body seems to be working against your mind. You’re addicted. You feel the need to feed this thirst, this hunger, this hollowness, created by the absence of that thing. You indulge. The satisfaction is only temporary, the hollowness returns. It gets worse, your cravings are driving you crazy. ‘You should be able to survive without it’, you think. But your body tells you otherwise. You’re addicted. You want it to stop, you want to help yourself. You seek help from professionals or anyone around. They seem to be working, the solutions. You stop indulging where and when you can be seen. ‘This would be the last time I’ll do this’; ‘It's been long I did it, just a little this time and I'm done’. You lie to yourself. Even worse, you convince yourself to believe your own lies.
‘How did I get here?’, you wonder.
How did you get there?, I wonder with you.
How?, we wonder together.

Well, addiction has stages, it is a process. This process is slow most of the time. So, there's room for reconsideration, before you're hit with the last stage.

Typically, take drug addiction for instance:
You see something, you develop an interest in it, you want to try it out, you promise yourself you won’t let it get the better part of you or destroy you, you’ll take just a little and that’s it, just to know if what the others say about it is true. You go on and try it. You may not even like it the first time, but you still go back to try again. You find out that whenever you take it, it does something to your mind. It’s like you’ve been detached temporarily from the world and its numerous problems. You consider those moments, your best, your 'most-productive' moments. In your mind, you become invincible. You go from not liking it much, to liking it very much, and then to liking it too much. The fondness progresses to obsession. You always have to have it around. Then, you can’t seem to function ‘normally’ without it. Being high becomes your ‘normal’. You’re now addicted.

Some addictions can be very harmful, some, not so harmful. Addiction can be to just about anything: Movies, music, sex, food, caffeine, chocolates, alcohol, drugs, social media, even human beings. Yes, you can be addicted to a person. How cruel, right? My focus now is on social media addiction.

Signs of Social Media Addiction:

-You are on so many social media platforms, most of which are useless to you.

-Even after posting all the pictures, you still feel sad.

-You feel like your social media 'friends' aren't really your friends, yet, you can't stop posting for the familiar strangers to see.

-More often than not, you post solely for attention, not really to inform, educate, or entertain.

-Most of your posts usually have no useful content.

-You post for people's approval. You wait for strangers' likes, comments, and shares.

-It saddens you sometimes, when you go through other people's posts. You think their lives are perfect or better than yours.

- You find yourself scrolling your life away at odd hours.

-You start conversations you can't really keep up with or hold, and feel very sad, when ignored.

-You start conversations, and then proceed to act like you’re not interested. This is just to attract attention to yourself. This reeks of neediness. It sends off exactly the opposite of what is intended.

-You share too much on social media. For instance, when you see anything you find goofy or anything that is barely interesting, your first instinct is to go online with it.

-You post videos of yourself doing nothing. No content, just pouting. Such videos are sick, in a way that makes people sick. Show the people your talent. Can you sing or dance or bake? Anything! Don't just pout. Also, before you post anything, ask yourself: 'Why am I posting this?'

-You post several pictures that are pretty much the same. Like, people have to see all of you, different hues of you.

-You spend so much time editing your pictures before you post them, just for people's approval.

-You know that social media attention isn’t real, that it’s just an illusion, but you just can't help posting.

-You post and regret immediately.

-You choke people with your posts, especially those ones with no real content.

-You can't seem to stay away from your phone, even for a little while. You feel like a part of you is gone without it.

-You don’t deal with your real problems, and you’re using the social media to suppress them. However, this doesn’t last, and a reminder comes back quickly. As soon as you’re offline, your problems, reality, come running back to you. Like, come give mama a hug.

-No matter how much you post, to prove to people [even those that do not care] you’re happy, you still end up sad in reality. It’s like when you’re offline, you’re in a whole different world.

-You begin to bid reality farewell. Everything now goes online, with all its fakery.

-Your personal interaction skills drop.

-Depression kicks in. Your sadness now lingers for longer.

Just like you don't have to be at the bottom of the river before you know you're drowning, you don’t have to check all twenty-three signs, before you agree you’re an addict. If you do most of them [above 12], your result comes out positive, you’re an addict.

First, acknowledge the truth, agree that there is a problem, and then seek solution[s] to the problem. Sometimes, the solution to a problem, lies within that problem. For instance, one of the signs has to do with making irrelevant posts. The solution then becomes not to post, unless its absolutely necessary you do. Yes, it’s easier said than done, but, it has to be said anyway. The ball is in your court.

Take a break from all the social media platforms you use, from time to time, for your peace of mind. Peace is after all, food for the mind. You’ll survive without the fleeting attention. In fact, you’d be better off without it.

Just as becoming addicted to something, is a slow process, so also is recovery from addiction, even slower, probably. Start by avoiding those twenty-three things mentioned above. Stop feeding the urge. When you don’t do those things, you starve your addiction. When something is starved for a while, it dies.

These might also help:

Start in earnest. Do not say ‘I will start’, say ‘I have started' or ‘I'm on it'.
Even though they were crafted with WhatsApp in mind, these solutions are applicable to all the social media platforms you’re on-

•Do not post until it’s absolutely necessary. Not everything that grabs your attention has to appear on your status or page.

•Instead of updating your status erratically and too often, just open a word document where you’ll be writing such. From time to time, go back to read them, and you’ll realize just how stupid you were going to sound on several occasions.

•Do not post screenshots of your private conversations with people. This is also a texting etiquette.

•Unless it’s with someone you like, do not initiate conversations, unless it’s important you do.

•If you have something extremely important, intimate or personal to say to someone, avoid texting, call instead [if at that moment, you can't meet with the intended recipient in person]. This is also texting etiquette many people do not have.

•If you have nothing enlightening to say about a post, do not reply. Just pass.

•Mute the statuses of those who make useless posts.

•Try to turn off your internet connection when out. Leave it on when it’s absolutely necessary you do. When you need to work with it, perhaps.

It’s okay to have fewer conversations after observing these, but at least, they’d be with people worth talking to.

There are many more, but you can start with those. Anything that helps reduce the amount of time you spend online, is a solution, and should be welcomed with more than just a shabby side hug. It's up to you to breath life into these thoughts.

It’s very difficult to overcome addiction to anything, alone. So, you’ll need help. If there’s someone around you who can help you, good, provided that person is not also an addict like you. Let him or her help you control your social media activities until you’re fully ‘clean’, and regain full and proper control of your online activities.