pardon my french: my social media resolutions for 2018

This past Saturday, I went to the movies and saw "Call Me By Your Name" (which was good and I would recommend seeing it). The movie takes place in 1980's Italy where the main character, a teenage boy, spends his summer days reading, writing and listening to music. This aspect of the film made me nostalgic for the days before social media. It made me realize how much time we waste mindlessly staring at our phones and how easy it is to pick up your phone and start scrolling through apps out of boredom. While I love creating content for Instagram and my blog, and I have no plans to stop doing that, this year I want to be more intentional with my time on social media. I want to avoid falling down the rabbit hole of hate stalking frenemies on Instagram or reading poorly written Facebook articles. So here are some tips I've already began implementing to limit my social media screen time.

•unfollow accounts that no longer inspire you
By now, you are probably aware of the "follow/unfollow" method a lot of Instagramers use to gain followers. If you're not familiar, a user will go through and follow a bunch of accounts, hoping they will follow back. Then they go through and unfollow anyone who did not follow them back. I've ended up following a few bloggers this way, bloggers whose style I do not like at all. Every time their posts would come up, I would get a little annoyed, or ask myself, why am I following this person? I decided to start cleaning up my following list, and make sure I'm only following accounts whose content inspires me. It's not worth it wasting your time looking at images you do not enjoy, especially just for the sake of a few extra followers.

•mute instagram stories
I started muting certain people's Instagram stories a few months ago, and will continue to do this in the new year. I've muted a bunch of friends who I've grown apart from, because I was constantly getting FOMO sitting home on a Saturday night and seeing them uploading story after story all hanging out together. I've also muted some bloggers, not because I don't enjoy their stories, but because they were just posting too often and I was wasting a lot of time watching them. The beauty with muting Instagram stories is you are still able to watch them if you go to the persons profile, but you're not tempted to keep clicking to see their next story every time their little icon pops up in your queue.

•turn off notifications
I don't use Facebook much, it's not a platform that I post content to or interact with friends on. The main reason I keep it around is because it is a way I find out about events happening around the city. However, if I see I have a Facebook notification, I'll end up mindlessly scrolling through the app once I open it. I turned off notifications, so I am opening the app less, which is less opportunity for me to waste time on it. I've also unfollowed a bunch of pages, such as Elite Daily, Glamour Magazine and E! News, pages that are constantly posing click bait articles, which I would waste so much time reading when I was bored. With less temptation and opportunity, I will hopefully end up spending less time on Facebook in the new year.

•schedule time for activities that don't include your phone
One of my goals for 2017 was to read more. While I did finish a few books, I didn't read as much as I would have liked to. Often times I'd find myself bringing a book along somewhere I might have free time to read, but then end up scrolling though Instagram instead, merely out of habit. To get myself in the habit of picking up a book rather then my phone, I am going to schedule time to read. I am going to try to plan to read every night before bed, instead of staring at my screen until right before I go to sleep. Hopefully this will help me stop using my phone as a security blanket and find more fulfilling outlets for filling my time.

I hope these tips were helpful if you also want to become more intentional with your time on social media. What are your goals for 2018?

Dress: c/o Karina Dresses
https://www.karinadresses.com/
*I am wearing the "Ruby" dresses from the Resort 2018 collection, which will be available on Jan 12th
Beret: Target; Shoes: Franco Sarto
Location: Pardon My French (East Village, Manhattan)