How to give your feed a productive make-over

Social media has become much more than merely a way to interact with your friends and post photos. In the case of some influencers and creators, it’s their job which helps them put food on the table. It’s a place for people to share their ideas and cool things they’re doing. It’s just a pity that 80% of users take it as an opportunity to see who can scream at each other the loudest and send other users down a rabbit hole of angry, fearmongering content. 

While we all know how self-destructive it is to doomscroll social media, the main issue is this: it’s useless, and it’s counterproductive. It doesn’t do your mental health or creative drive any good. Believe me, I’ve been there. You see a news story about some frightening new political development, whether in the UK or anywhere else, and before you know it, you’ve made yourself so much more stressed, and you’ve wasted over an hour that you could have been using to do literally anything else. 

So, what do you do to combat this? When there is such an overwhelming amount of social media content to become lost in, how do you pick and choose the things you want to see?

It sounds like a daunting task, but the actual truth is much simpler. We all know that social media spies on our consumption habits, and chances are that, if you look at TikTok videos about the same subject for more than two minutes, you’re likely to get a whole lot more of them. By that logic, search for the things that you want to see. If you don’t actively seek out content that you want to see, you’re not going to see it. 

The benefits of doing something this simple are limitless. Since content creation is a major job prospect now, you can find influencers in the fields that you’re interested in, and see what content they make and develop ideas for your own. You can be inspired by their work ethic, their presenting style, their visual aesthetic, and the list goes on.

What I always find the most endearing with any social media content is honesty. Whether it’s a simple post or a fully presented video, if the creator is genuine about their opinions and ideas, then it’s worth keeping them in your feed.

Much like how TikTok and other platforms notice when you’re repeatedly watching similar content, they can also see what you quickly skip past. Therefore, if your feeds have got clogged up with annoying and needless content, then scrolling past it as quickly as possible lets the algorithms know that you don’t want that stuff on your recommended pages.

What constitutes useful content depends on the person, as we all have our own interests and hobbies. However, as students and as young adults, there are some really useful accounts and videos that you’ll want on your feeds. Pages offering advice on graduate jobs, balancing your studies with other commitments, prioritising your mental health, and how to live life away from home are all essential things you will want advice on. And you certainly don’t want those buried under 100 other posts that might as well be spam. 

Social media can be a toxic and overwhelming environment to be in. Crucially, though, you can also make it into the environment you want it to be. So let the algorithms know that you want useful, engaging and productive content, and the way you use social media should hopefully help you in the long term.