When was the last time your mind was so at rest that you found yourself gazing out the window and listening to the soft breeze blowing through the tree line? As hard as it is to believe, that time was much too long ago for many. With smartphones and social media right at the fingertips in an already fast-paced world, it seems as though every single minute is occupied with the compulsive need to fill time. Possibly without even realizing it, social media may be literally stealing time, energy, and rest from your life. How can we retain peace and stillness in our lives while at the same time utilizing this social-media-driven world to our benefit?
There is no doubt that limiting the amount of time spent on social media would bring more positivity and mental rest to the day. The reality is, though, social media is hard to ignore. The overstimulating technology is saturating almost every aspect of our lives. Business, community, friendships, families and news are all using the social world as a means for communication and success. Col. Sean Ryan, public affairs officer, sees social media as a great means for keeping communication in the military. He says it helps to keep people informed of social gatherings and unit activities as well as being a great way to stay connected with family and friends while this military life has people shuffling all around the world.
So the real question should possibly not be whether or not we would be better without social media, but how to balance it to our true benefit and not to our detriment. Ryan has served five combat deployments to Iraq, worked three times for Gen. Paul Funk, worked the presidential inauguration, and has also been coaching the World Class Athlete Program since 2014. He says that although “negativity in social media is rampant,” social media does provide a great number of positive resources for the world today.
One of his ways of keeping his stillness in social media is by keeping it positive and limiting the time he spends on it to 10 to 15 minutes.
“I look for positivity at all times and quite frankly, either disregard negative posts or at worst, have to block the individual as a last resort. I try and give everyone the benefit of the doubt as I don’t know what they are going through.”
“Social media can be beneficial for everyone, but moderation is key and understanding your life is just as good without it as well. The number of likes or followers really doesn’t matter at the end of the day,” says Ryan.
The best ways to find stillness in this social-media-spiraling society seem to lie in how we are using it and how we are letting it affect us.
Here are 3 simple ways to help stay on top of the social media spiral:
- Place: Designate a place to keep your devices when you are not using them for something productive. Let social media be more than an arm’s length away as much as possible.
- Person: Try putting down social media if there is a person nearby. You never know what may be missed in the physical world if we are constantly glued to the social one.
- Personal: It is surprisingly hard to keep our best moments personal. Try keeping some of those precious photos and special times locked inside. You may find yourself embracing time more when you are not concerned with how you are planning on sharing it with the rest of the world.
Military Tip from Col. Sean Ryan:
“It is definitely a slippery slope trying to keep professional and personal social media accounts in order. My first tip is try not to post anything political or military-related that can harm myself, the unit or give away confidential information. It’s not that I don’t like to hear interesting news, but I try and keep it on other social media platforms or in direct conversations, not something everyone else can see. My other tip is to use a draft format. We often post from emotions, so walk away and if you still feel the need to send the post an hour later, it is probably OK. The times I’ve regretted posting something have always been in haste and not well-thought-out. In the military, you can lose your career over posting something you shouldn’t have posted or bad mouthing someone in politics or in the military. It is simply not worth it.”