It’s fast, free, and will change your life for the better right away…
Can a simple “hack” change our lives for the better? This appears to be the belief of Guardian journalist Madeleine Aggeler, but will also be confirmed by social media experts and more…
It’s fast, free, and will instantly change your life for the better, he writes: Just mute the people who bother you on social media.
The process is different for each platform. Usually, you go to the profile of the person who is confusing you or one of their posts and mute, snooze, or unfollow. That’s all!
This digital “dusting” makes your social networks spotlessly clean and tidy, or if nothing else, less dirty than before. They disappeared from your updates along with the fuss they caused you. And unlike unfollowing or blocking someone, the muted “boyfriend” / “boyfriend” has no idea it’s been done, so there’s no risk of embarrassment or drama.
Sometimes some get mutated. There are people who have been rude to us or others, people in the past that make us want to bang our heads against the wall.
There are people who make us undress or bring out our worst.
But let’s see what the experts say.
“By silencing accounts (i.e. people) that repeatedly bother you, you’re setting digital boundaries to create a healthier digital environment,” says Bailey Parnell, founder and president of the Center for Digital Wellbeing. This allows you to avoid disturbing content without cutting ties, he says—a solution for difficult situations where a connection may be important to you despite an annoying online presence.
“This way you can maintain your peace of mind while maintaining social or professional networks,” he says.
It may sound like reasonable advice. But this is not always easy to do. This is because the irritation we feel when we see someone’s annoying posts can be associated with a certain satisfaction: Look at it! So annoying!
“It can be a burst of dopamine that accompanies strong emotions,” says Monica Amorosi, a psychologist who specializes in trauma treatment in New York. We crave the adrenaline rush that comes when we encounter content that shocks, angers, or disgusts us.
Amorosi says that if our lives aren’t very interesting, if we’re bored, or if there’s nothing to excite us, then taking in these things can become entertainment or distraction.
He emphasizes the importance of not creating a “space of ignorance” in our feeds by avoiding different perspectives or news that concern us about current events. But that doesn’t mean that social media should only be a place where disturbing information appears. He says our streams can be used for healthy, positive education, connecting with like-minded people, seeing the nuances and diversity that exists in the world, checking information, connecting with new hobbies or ideas.
Therefore, mute is probably best used against those who annoy you in a mild, everyday way – like your nagging co-worker. Not seeing him pretending to be good and shy of yet another professional success won’t narrow my horizons. Instead, I can take a screenshot of the post and save the 5-10 minutes I spent complaining to my friends.