Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms. Millions of people use it to connect with their friends, family, and other loved ones. While it can be a great tool for keeping up with everyone, it can also be detrimental to your mental health.
Instagram is a great way to watch, share, and engage with friends and family, but it has become a matter of concern. It provides a lot of features that end up making you use it mindlessly. This results in deteriorating the mental health of people.
But the real question is whether the source of concern is the app and its features or how we use it. Well, technology today is developed for our ease, but it is up to us how we optimize it without affecting mental health. So, to help you stay sane, we’ve put together this article to use Instagram without affecting mental health.
Follow Positive Creators
The reason behind following positive accounts is that they give you a good vibe and make you feel better. It’s important to get positively influenced by your feed.
You must have noticed that once you follow or like a particular subject matter in your feed, Instagram then shows you several similar posts and content. Following positive creators helps you build a positive content-rich feed. You can see what they’re up to, but more importantly, you are exposed to their thoughts, beliefs, viewpoints, and experiences. Positive creators can inspire you and promote mental wellness.
Follow Hashtags
Hashtags are the best way to find content of your specific interests. You can easily find and follow hashtags of your interest. Hashtags are a great way to search for your favorite topics, but they can also be a powerful tool for getting the most out of your Instagram experience.
They’re easy to find and follow, just search for something you’re interested in, then click through the tags to see what other people have said about it on Instagram.
Posting and searching hashtags with an eye towards mental health can be very beneficial since they allow you to connect with others who are looking for similar things from their social media accounts.
Set an Appropriate Time Limit
Instagram has become very addictive these days. That ‘just one more meme or one more reel’ mindset is never-ending. It can easily distract you, no matter how much you try to avoid it. Limitless use of Instagram is a major factor in affecting the mental health of people.
But luckily, Instagram has given a solution for this. You can set reminders to take breaks from using it to avoid continuous use of an app. You can also set a daily time limit for maximum use of an app that notifies you when you reach that time limit and does not let you use the app further.
Turn Off Notifications
Your notifications have a direct impact on your mental health as one beep of notification distracts you from whatever important task you were indulged in. There’s the constant barrage of notifications that keep coming in, and the temptation to check them all.
If you impatiently check your phone every time it buzzes, you may be overexposed to Instagram and its demands much of your time and attention.
That’s why it is suggested to turn off all notifications on Instagram; you’ll find it easier to focus on what’s important and less likely to get distracted by information that aren’t important at all.
Take Regular Breaks
We all know that social media is a time-suck. Between scrolling through our feeds and staring at our phones, we spend hours per day on social media. We tend to procrastinate a lot when we’re on our phones.
It’s important to take breaks from your phone so that you can work and spend time on other things that are important to you. Instagram has a feature that lets you temporarily deactivate your Instagram account. You can utilize and go for an Instagram detox for short periods of time without deleting your account.
We hope this article has given you some ideas to optimize your Instagram for better mental health. Instagram can be used to maintain and improve your mental health, but only if you take the time to understand what it can do for you and how you can use it in the most productive way possible.
