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Elise Miller, LPC

Social Media Usage for Moms



We live in an age of tech! Whether its mindlessly watching reality TV after a long day with so many big emotions from our toddler or picking up our phone to scroll on instagram while sitting on the playroom floor on a Saturday morning.


Many moms I work with call out that they feel burnt out. The U.S. surgeon general even said it in his warning in late august of this year, parental stress is at all time high and affecting the mental health of our parents, kids, and culture as a whole. I could go on a soapbox about what all is causing this: maternity leave policies or our cultural leaving the "village" mentality behind for example. But one of the factors seems to be our use of technology. I am suggesting that we as individuals, and as a collective moms, would feel better if we took control over our social media usage. 


Why?

Here are the stats: Our social media usage has caused a loss of time and loss of sleep. Think of things like a doomscroll....We enter instagram to look at a funny video or to pull up a recipe for dinner and then look up and 30 minutes have passed and we find ourselves leaving this “scrolling time” feeling more defeated, stressed, disconnected from our life, etc. The average american adult spends 3-4 hours a day on these screens - this is that loss of time. What about sleep?

Almost every mom I talk with whether professionally or personally tells me a story of a time they were exhausted and instead of going to bed stayed up till midnight, or 2am, scrolling on their phone. We need sleep to function at our best. Over many moms, this is a time in our life where we don't get much, but sometimes we are giving it away to mindless scrolling. 

There is also research that says symptoms that mimic ADHD like lack of focus, impulsivity, difficulty with time management, over-stimulation, and overwhelm increase at a large percentage directly correlated to how much time we spend on screens.

And my final why is just a personal reflection. Take some time to think about this for you: How is social media or scrolling making us feel? How do we feel after?


There is also no shame in this behavior! We all have things that bring us to our phones. Life is stressful. This is relief! This feels good. It is truly in the chemicals, we get dopamine hits from social media and dopamine is the feel good hormone. This is one of those coping mechanisms that many of us turn to. Similar to other popular self-care strategies that just provides temporary relief or distraction, like getting a message, eating a bowl of ice cream, or watching a funny show. We need more! We need to care for our souls, the deep parts of us. We need to do the work to know the why and build a life that does not require escape. 


So I have made a case for why this may not be best, but what do we do? Practically this is about intentionality vs. automatic behavior. I am not suggesting removing phones from our lives altogether, they serve a purpose and there is a lot of good that comes from them. But I want us to be choosing to use them, vs. them having a grip or control over us. I do not want to automatically pick up my phone and be on instagram without even realizing what is happening. So my goal is for us to each individually make a choice about how and why we want to use social media. That would be my challenge to each of you today… how and why do you want to use your phone and social media? 


Let’s get practical. Here are 3 things I think we could all use to help us be more intentional in our use: 

  1. Move your apps around - changing the position of our apps can make a huge difference in creating that half second pause between picking up your phone and being on instagram. I moved my apps onto a different page then my home screen to make a difference here. My reflex of picking up my phone while in line at the grocery now had a second pause and I was able to ask myself if I wanted to. 

  2. Manage your notifications - when we get a ping on our phones, many of us auto look at it. “It could be an emergency” is the background thought that often leads to this behavior. If you are working to minimize phone use, be more present, or be intentional with your phone use, then turning off notifications either all the time or for periods of the day (use focus settings for iphones) can make a powerful difference here. For example, you could avoid getting notified on your phone for social media or emails. You can then choose to intentionally click on these apps and then look at the notifications but it is not pinging on your phone. 

  3. Have some phone free time - times of the day or the week that we do leave our phone aside and focus on being fully present. I like to do this when I am in the play room with my children, asking myself do I “need” this. And putting my phone up, depending on circumstances I may still have my watch on to be reachable or my phone volume on. But this could also be leaving your phone at home when you go to the park with your kids for 40 minutes. Make sure these are do-able time limits 


These are just a couple ideas but I hope this is helpful to look at our social media use when we think about our overall wellness as moms. Also, our therapy practice has a couple of amazing therapists that are passionate about working with moms and we would love to see if we could be a support to you. Find our more at thrivecoun.com.


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