64. Do You Have An Unhealthy Relationship With Social Media?

 
 
 
 
 
 

Building Healthier Social Media Relationships

We might think of social media as just another piece of software, but what happens when that software is eliciting an emotional response? What happens when there are humans that you’re engaging with within that software?

Social media platforms are places where we build and explore relationships, and the time we spend there does impact our real lives and emotions, just like in our relationships with people.

Erica Courdae joins India in a conversation about our relationship to social media and how we can approach the platforms in a healthier way.

Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:

  • Questions to help you clarify your relationships with social media platforms

  • Why characterizing the platforms can give you increased clarity

  • How you can proactively check in with yourself and create healthy boundaries

Humanizing Social Media

On the Flaunt Your Fire® Podcast, Erica Courdae says that one of the things she does as a coach is to prompt people with different questions and give them different contexts to dig deeper into nuances in topics. And that certainly applies to the question of our relationship with social media platforms.  

To move away from the standard line of thinking about social media, Erica suggests thinking of the platforms like you would think of a person in your life or social sphere.

If you can imagine the platform as a person, then you can imagine what your relationship dynamics would be. “You have to be honest about what that dynamic is, how it intersects with you, how it makes you feel.” 

The Fleeting Acquaintance

Going all the way back to Myspace, Erica says that first social media relationship was like a friendly acquaintance from high school or your first job. They’re nice to have around, but they’re not deep or lasting friendships and they tend to fade away on their own.

For India, Myspace was like a guy who says he wants to get to know you because he’s seen your photos and the music you posted to your page. “We're not actually ever going to be friends. You're just partaking, and in my case, observing and maybe commenting here or there, but there’s really no conversation.”

The relationship with Myspace was all about the public profile and Erica says, “any type of dynamic with someone that isn’t actually with the real you is going to be troublesome no matter what, because at some point the facade has to drop.”

The Dysfunctional Parent

Moving forward in time to what they both say is their longest-running social media relationship, Erica and India discuss their personal Facebook profiles.

Erica likens Facebook to a dysfunctional parent. “It feels obligatory, and that forced obligation only reinforces how much, if this person was not related to you…you wouldn’t fuck with them.”

India agrees with Erica’s assessment and adds that one of the things that is stopping her from ending her relationship with Facebook is simply the number of accounts that she has set to log in with Facebook and the time it would take to unravel those connections.

The Life of the Party

Erica compares Instagram to a “fun, but messy” friend named Tina that she would have to take her keys and make sure got home at the end of the night. “I personally will log into Instagram and it’s fun and it’s funny and then the next thing I know the rabbit hole happens and I’m like…why is this happening? Why am I the responsible person right now?”

“It is somebody that you can possibly have in your life, but you have to be real about…how you feel when Tina’s around.”

India agrees that “you have to have healthy boundaries with a relationship like that with social media.”

And she notes, those relationships and boundaries can and do evolve over time.

India recalls the early days of Instagram when photos had to be taken in the app, there were limited filters, and there was less pressure to write captions. “And then Tina changed the rules.”

Instagram became a social network rather than a photo-sharing app. And allowing images to be uploaded, rather than taken in the app, “allowed people to start to share their best instead of the real.”

The Loving Auntie

One of the other significant social media relationships both Erica and India have right now is with LinkedIn. 

Erica compares LinkedIn to an auntie or older cousin named Dawn who is established in the world and maybe a little stuffy, but wants to help and to give you information so you can get ahead.

India says this is exactly the reason why she tells people to get on LinkedIn. “You might not get as much action or attention on LinkedIn, but people are in the mindset there to talk business. When Dawn is introducing you to people, Dawn is introducing you to an opportunity and sharing your credentials and your credibility markers when they introduce you.”

She says she’s been spending more time on LinkedIn because that is the kind of relationship she’s prioritizing right now.

“People are thinking about opportunities and collaboration and making cool shit happen on LinkedIn.”

Shifting the Dynamics

As social media shifts and changes, it’s possible for any platform to move in and out of these relationship archetypes.

But if you want to proactively change how you relate to them, Erica says to ask yourself “what relationships do you feel called to engage in now? What relationships do you not feel as interested in or comfortable in and why?”

She says asking yourself about the interest may gauge what you think is boring, and comfort might push up against what you think is possible for you. “If there was an archetype that you wanted to embody more of personally, which one is that? And think about that when you choose to spend your time somewhere.”

How Erica Flaunts Her Fire:

Erica says she Flaunts Her Fire on the Pause on the Play® podcast because “people trust me. People want to hear what I have to say and I don’t take it lightly that you want me to share this with you.”

Coming up on the podcast, she’ll be revisiting her thoughts on impostor syndrome, what it really is, how it shows up for people, and how it’s different than what we’re commonly told it is.

“I want to be able to share with anyone that feels as though their embers are going out, or they need a little extra light to see, to reignite their own flame.”

Resources:

Ready to dive deeper?

Join Pause on the Play® The Community for community conversations about the relationships we have with social media, as well as monthly workshops and Q&As with India Jackson and Erica Courdae, and on-demand replays of prior workshops and masterclasses.

 
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