The line between what is real and digital is blurred. We work, begin/nurture social connections and spend leisure time in digital spaces. For most people, social media has become in real-life experiences, also known as IRL or ‘in real life.’ While an individual’s virtual life is very real to its creator and viewers, the content of that life can be easily ‘manufactured’ to be fictious.

What you choose to post is an authentic desire to project a certain image to the world. Yet this content can be a manifestation of wishful thinking and where the natural and artificial merge to distort reality. The digital search for self-definition can render cyberspace a harmful psychological environment.

We should remember that social media platforms profit from holding and monetizing our attention with practically no regulation. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the governmental body responsible for controlling social media. However, the First Amendment prevents the Commission from exercising greater authority over content posted online.

Some suggest that social media's influence on our democracy and national security is a problem. According to a new Pew survey, sixty-four percent of Americans believe social media has had a negative effect on our country’s systems creating polarization, division and eroding political civility.

Social networks use an ‘attention economy’ whose business model focuses on convincing you that your way of life is under attack by presenting stories of woundedness and division in order to buy your time and attention. This sense of fear leads people into the automatic habit of searching for the newest information to confirm their biases. It is wise to periodically pause and question one’s patterns of activity on social media to maintain a healthier relationship with these platforms.

How to define your relationship with social media:
1. What does a healthy digital relationship look like?
2. What emotional needs does social media fulfill for you?
3. How do you feel after being online for an hour?

How to craft online safeguards:
1. Prune your social media garden by deleting who/what provokes anxiety
2. Protect yourself by blocking
3. Remove toxic apps that focus on negativity. Counter these with daily
positives, such as Nice News
4. Moderate exposure by taking periodic breaks to gain perspective and
create balance in online activities
5. Turn off notifications that eat up time and create distractions that keep
you from main goals
6. Remove blue-light screens to improve your sleep
7. Look at computer tracking that informs about the actual length of your
screen time

For parents to teach their children to make smart choices:
1. Parents to model good judgment and mindful behaviors with their own
devices
2. For older children, explain why devices should be put away in a variety of
situations where it is rude not to fully address those with whom they are
directly speaking
3. Clarify why children are asked to turn off their electronics at dinner and
bedtimes
4. Have a designated charging station for the entire family to avoid
electronics in bedrooms
5. Practice mindfulness by disconnecting one day a week and limiting social
media checking times
6. Balance your screen time with outdoor activities and hobbies that do not
include online activities
7. As recommended, limit time on social media to 30 minutes per day, as
per: (Hunt, M. G., et. al., (2018). No more FOMO: Limiting social media
decreases loneliness and depression. Journal of Social and Clinical
Psychology, Vol. 37, No. 10).

IRL: Finding Our Real Selves in the Digital World
by Chris Stedman (August 30, 2022).

Suzette Turner-Clark, LCSW-S, RPT/S, RYT-200