Social Media Cleanse Week 5: Clean up the Negativity

“Sensitive souls draw in the negativity of others because they are so open” – John Gray How to Get What You Want & Want What You Have

Week 5 of our Social Media Cleanse is an easy one. Clean up shop. I strongly believe that we are all those “sensitive souls” that John Gray writes about. We absorb EVERYTHING. Intentionally or not. We want to be open to the world, so let’s get rid of the negativity we surround ourselves within our daily lives.

Last week we did work on becoming intentional with your use of social media. Now let’s be intentional about what we are filling our minds with. Here are some tips on how to clean up your Facebook news feed:

Utilize the “hide” button. On the top left corner of a post, click the down arrow. Select “Hide Posts From…”  This little trick works for:

1. Your aunt who likes to share hateful commentary towards… well, everything. Now her rants are hidden from your view and you can “maintain” your social media friendship
2. Your college friend who likes to post distasteful video clips. Sure he is just trying to get a laugh, but do you really want to see all that, everyday?
3. Your neighbor who doesn’t quite get the concept of fake news. The conspiracy theories are abundant and get crazier by the day. Don’t feed these site with your clicks, even if you are just curious. The “Hide Posts from…” actually works for particular websites so you can just opt to hide all posts from a particular website.
4. Fear Mongering websites. OK. Let me explain.. Websites that disguise themselves as helpful, informative sites but once you open the article it leads to terrifying statistics. Maybe it is a new mom thing, but I have seen one too many “informative” articles that leave me wanting to put my daughter in a bubble and hold her hand through college.
5. Trashy entertainment news. Yep, you can opt out of these too. If you find yourself in a rabbit hole of who “tweeted what” and find yourself growing in frustration daily by the amount of focus placed on celebrity gossip. Take a stand. Click NO
6.  Your Ex that you find yourself checking in on to see if they are dating anyone.. and then spend the entire night comparing yourself to… Actually, you better just press the unfriend button on this one. Remove the temptation. You are better then that.

Surprisingly Facebook actually begins to learn what you want to see, so once you start this clean up process… things get easier. Once I began hiding posts from all of the celebrity gossip, Facebook started showing me more news based articles in my newsfeed. I just needed to make a few adjustments and now Facebook works for me.

Take your time this week as you scroll through your social media world and really notice what you are exposing yourself to. Don’t just scroll past it, get rid of it.

Ahhh, Happy Cleaning Everyone.

Photo Credit: Banksy