Several months ago, I noticed that my time spent on Facebook was not entirely, shall we say, productive. The same was true of Instagram. And Twitter. Much of my time on these sites was quite good, of course; it was informative, or entertaining, or both. I truly love staying up to date on the happenings of my friends and family in a way I could never do without these tools.
But sometimes after jumping online, I was left with a nagging feeling I just didn’t like. It felt like discontent…or restlessness…or envy. I’d close the app and feel like my little life and I just weren’t quite enough.
Maybe you’ve felt it, too. It’s not like the topic is a radically new idea (you need only Google “Social Media Envy” to see what I mean), but what I’m about to say might be something you haven’t thought about yet.
You are fully in control of the situation.
That nagging feeling of envy? Of your life not being enough? You can make it go away. 
Here’s how.
- Determine whose posts get under your skin.
- Unfollow those people.
That’s literally all there is to it. It could be a college classmate, a former colleague, a fashion blogger, or the star of the Bachelorette Season #492 that is bugging you. It doesn’t matter.
You can unfriend them, unfollow them, or at least turn off their post notifications. (And no, in case you are wondering, it does not send them an alert that you did so!)
The media landscape today has basically made you the VP of Programming in all of your social media feeds. If you don’t like a show, then you can cancel it in one click!
You only feel like that certain person is everywhere you look because you’ve allowed her to be. If her seemingly amazing life is causing you to live in a near-constant state of envy or self-doubt, then stop watching her show. The same goes for anyone constantly spewing negativity into your news feed; just cut him loose. You don’t have to keep listening to it.
The content we allow to cross our path matters so much and we are more in control than ever before. Use that control to find people who inspire you, uplift you, and add value to your life. Follow those people. Fill up your feed with posts that remind you why you got onto these social media channels in the first place!
Go do it now. Think of the person whose posts leave you feeling worse not better. Unfollow. It may sound like a small act, but sometimes those tiny actions have a substantial ripple effect, and this one definitely does.
This one little click turns envy off.
