This is a revised version of an article that I first published back in 2016. I decided to publish it again because 2020 had a lot of elements and events that brought people down; and while social media can do a lot of good, it can also do a lot of harm. Much of that harm is actually self-inflicted without people even realizing it, so here you go.
I think many of us have felt the impact that social media can have on us and how we feel day to day. We can see something that makes our day and makes us laugh, but we can also see things that can totally bring us down. The negative stuff can really impact our day, and the more of that you expose yourself to, the bigger the toll it can take. We can take some action to minimize it such as blocking or unfriending those that are either overly negative or rant about things that bring us down, but is that enough?
A few years ago, I decided to try an experiment and the results were amazing: I called it my own 30 Day Social Media Challenge.
The concept was that I promised myself that I would not post anything negative for 30 days, comment on anything negative, or make a negative comment about anything. The purpose was to see if I would feel different after 30 days of this.
Like many other new things that we start, the first few days were challenging, and resisting the temptation to not chime in on things was something that I had to focus on.
I wondered going into this how long it would take before I felt different, and if 30 days would be enough. To my surprise, it only took a few days to feel a noticeable change. I felt better, was more motivated and it got easier not to get sucked into the negativity both online and in the real world.
As part of my experiment I also made a point to start posting positive things daily. Not butterflies, rainbows and unicorns, but stuff that was either a positive reminder or something constructive that would get you to think about ways to improve. This compounded the positive effects of not commenting or posting negative things, and it has been a life changer. I described this process to a friend and compared it to doing a cleanse (without the juicing).
I decided to extend the challenge another 30 days and it kept getting easier. I will admit that in my second month, I fell off the wagon and chimed in on a negative post that someone had made. After I commented, I felt dirty and ended up going back and deleting it. I have joked about this with some of my friends since then. I’m implementing this again for 2021 and I’d like to encourage you to try it out as well. This year may be a challenging year for some, and we’ll certainly be bombarded with negative messages regarding things such as the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and other negative events that we can choose to focus on. I promise you that if you do this, you will not only feel better, but you will also be helping others as well, and we can always use more positivity in our lives.