How to deal with the stress of social media
Take charge if you reach a breaking point with politics
Ever since the election, more people appear to jump at the chance to share their political views online.
It was overwhelming enough that some users started to show signs of fatigue. According to an October survey from Pew Research Center, one-third of social media users said they were worn out by all the political posts from friends or people they followed.
And although the election is over, the political posts don’t seem to haven’t stopped. Neither has the fatigue. In a recent poll from the American Psychological Association, 57% of respondents said the political climate is a major source of stress. Have you reached your breaking point? Here are some tips to cope. uHide posts from people: Have a friend or relative who will not stop posting about politics (or anything, frankly)? You can hide their posts from your feeds. On Facebook, you can choose to unfollow people. If you see their name come across your feed, click the arrow to the right of their post, and choose to unfollow. You’ll still remain friends on Facebook, but their posts won’t clog up your feed. You can always follow back later when you’re ready. Twitter boasts a similar feature, called Mute. It allows you to follow that account without the tweets appearing in your feed. uThird-party options: There are some browser extensions available such as Remove All Politics From Facebook, which will comb your feed and block any references to politics from your newsfeed. Meanwhile, Twitter apps such as Tweetbot and Tweetdeck let you apply word filters to remove related tweets.
uLog off: Perhaps the easiest way to cure social media fatigue? Get off social media. Seriously, those baby pics and Kermit memes will be there when you get back.