6 Picks: Books To Support a Social Media Fast


6 Picks: Books To Support a Social Media Fast

It seems like everywhere you turn there are expectations heaped upon you. You have those from your family, friends, co-workers, supervisors, and community. You probably also have high expectations heaped upon yourself to be better, stronger, smarter, more successful, and so on.

When you’re heavy with expectations, social media is a great escape. Or is it? Maybe not. Not only is turning to social media an excuse for avoiding expectations, but it can become one in itself. Because once you start, it’s hard to step away from the pressure of “keeping up with the Jones’s,” your friends, celebrities, and everyone else posting pictures of their “seemingly” perfect life.

If you’re caught up in the dopamine hit addiction, the rush of unending expectations, the desperate desire for ‘likes,’ and the time-suck accompanying a social media obsession, it’s time for a change.

Perhaps a social media fast is in order. Here are six books to help you get started.

How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life by Catherine Price. Helping to curb the phone obsession that takes you away from important tasks, award-winning journalist Catherine Price teaches readers how to have a healthier relationship with your cell phone. You’ll learn about the addictive nature of technology and its long-term damage. Countering this addictive cycle, she provides resources and strategy for taking back control of your life.

The 40-Day Social Media Fast: Exchange Your Online Distractions for Real-Life Devotion by Wendy Speake.Christian author known for her best-selling book 40-Day Sugar Fast addresses another dangerous addiction—cell phones. She explores how prayer, contentiousness , and focusing on your relationship with God will sustain you through a “screen sabbatical.” She encourages readers to use this newfound freedom as an opportunity to renew ones’ soul, spirit, priorities, and personal relationship.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier. This author challenges you to imagine a world without social media. Then he provides strong, proof-based arguments as to why this presents a desirable future. The dangerous platforms create a poisonous grip on people, bringing out the worst in them with illusions of popularity, success, and acceptances of false truths. He also explores the headlining, invasive surveillance and privacy issues of apps and social media companies. But as a self-proclaimed “tech optimist,” Lanier provides more humanistic options for balance and connecting safely in a virtual world.

Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life by Katherine Ormerod. Straight up, social media makes you feel less than. Based on what’s on all your feeds, you’ll never be good enough, pretty enough, successful enough, or popular enough. Not true. Break through this deception with help from the experts. Ormerod shares interviews and advice from influencers, psychologists, professionals, and doctors among others focused on disrupting this dialogue. This book is designed to provide strategies for creating a healthier way of consuming social media and reclaiming your happiness.

SMARTPHONE ADDICTION: How to Break Up with the Digital Life: Start your Social Media Detox and Discover the Positive Effects of an Offline Life by Steve Harris. The reader struggling to let go of constantly turning to one’s cell phone will benefit from this book. Harris shares how the human brain is wired to crave ‘happy hits’ from smartphones, which can lead to an unhealthy, obsessive addiction. This book teaches you how to infuse discipline into your social media time and take back control of your technology so you’re once again in the driver’s seat. Why should you lose precious moments of your life behind a cell phone when you could live unique moments off-screen? The author is dedicated to helping you live every moment to the fullest.

Untethered: Overcome Distraction, Build Healthy Digital Habits, and Use Tech to Create a Life You Love by Sini Ninkovic. Statistics don’t lie. Author Ninkovic shares the hard truths of how social media consumes one’s life. After quitting his tech job with Apple, he went on a journey of technology enlightenment, sitting with experts, attending retreats, transforming his relationship with tech, and on to becoming a certified Digital Wellness Educator. His book and teachings are designed to teach you about the harmful effects of technology and how you can break free. Then learn how to pursue the path of a productive, happy, balanced, and more enlightened human being.

Experiment with social media fasts and see all the positive effects it has on your life.

For one, you’ll probably feel more rested as you’re not up all night worrying about something that you’ve read. You’ll also find yourself in better spirits. Social media is linked to depression, so there is science-based reasons that consuming too much of it can be toxic to your health.

Use these resources as inspiration to exchange social media for family time, exercise, and fresh air. Then share below what you’ve discovered.

Source: Purchased. Image Courtesy of Henry Holt & Co.

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