People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
This is a ‘rule’ that helps you manger some of the heartbreak and sometimes even shame of relationships that end.
This same rule works for the ‘people’ who show up in your social media feeds.
Every so often, some of them just have to go. How do you know who needs and who gets to stay?
Keep People You Want To Follow
There are plenty of people dropping wisdom or sharing joy on social media that don’t have the time to be sucked into the malaise of living in their social media. Some are lucky to be popular for whatever and some have been lucky enough to turn a once in a lifetime opportunity into a sustainable thing. Don’t sweat it if they don’t turn around and follow you as long as the content they provide is positive and helpful to you.
You Don’t Have To Follow People Who Don’t Follow You
This is where the decision should be simple, but many people put too much emotion into being connected to people that they have no real connection to. A follow for follow mentality is not mandatory. So, if you started following a person or brand on a whim, and their content isn’t showing up regularly in your feed, or isn’t adding much to your life, you are more than welcome t unfollow them. If they are not following you, they will no have much knowledge that you specifically unfollowed them. You don’t owe them much, especially if they are not supporting you with a simple follow.
You Don’t Have To Keep Refreshing The Feed For Updates
This is not about who you should or should not follow per se, but how your addiction to being in your feed also feeds your anxiety of having max capacity of followers. I am not a champion of the ‘social media fast,’ but everyone can gain from backing away from the keyboard and holding back on the drag to refresh on our mobile devices. The dopamine hit you get looking for new content is contributing to the anxiety of who you are following and what they are contributing. There is far too much content for you to consume anyway, so obsessing over who you are following and what they are contributing is a self-sustaining exercise of futile non-self-sustaining stability.
When the time comes for you to cull you feed (and you should do this more often), you should be ruthless in who survives the cut. If this seems like a problem, I hope the guide provided will help.