6 Signs You’re Experiencing Social Media Burnout (And What to Do About It)

Checking and scrolling through our various social media accounts has become as much a daily ritual as snoozing Alexa. Have to pee? That can wait because you’ve got to see how many people liked your furbaby pic on Facebook. Have to brush your teeth? That can wait because you must know what people think of the same car selfie you posted on Instagram for the umpteenth time. And have to get dressed? Well, nobody really does that anymore since the pandemic anyway so no worries there.

Psychologists estimate that as many as 5 to 10 percent of Americans meet the criteria for social media addiction today. Social media addiction is defined as being a behavioral addiction of being overly concerned about social media, driven by an insatiable urge to log on to or use social media, and wasting so much time and effort on social media that it impairs other important life areas.

Those of us who work in the digital space have to learn how to separate our actual a-hole selves from our online a-hole selves. However, not many people have the ability to strike such a balance. It would be nice to go back to the simpler days of Myspace and lose friendships over stupid shit like who you put in your top eight, but that’s not our current reality.

In the interest of properly diagnosing and detoxing from social media, we’ve laid out the signs you’re experiencing social media burnout — and will tell you what to do about it.

Cover Photo: Rachata Teyparsit / EyeEm (Getty Images)
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