Our relationship with social media is up to us, says author and podcast host Susie Moore.
As an advice columnist on Oprah, Cosmopolitan, and Good Morning America, Moore recently told Sonia Baghdady of Advocate Now about how we can change our use of social media.
"Social media is actually a very neutral tool. It's up to us whether it's healthy or unhealthy based on our own personal use of it," Moore explains.
According to Moore, social media algorithms are explicitly made to be addictive, but luckily, users can remain in control of what they look at.
"I know you know these tools, as you said, are created to be addictive, but the boundaries and the parameters that we create are up to us," she elaborates. "And if something makes you feel bad, stop looking at it. If you don't see it, it can't bother you. And this is the control that we have, which sometimes we abdicate. We just simply forget."
Advocate Now | Susie Moore
The same concept applies to what users post. Sharing locations and certain details online put people at risk, but beyond that, feeling the need to share personal details can be harmful to mental health.
"We're in control of what we post and what we don't post. Always come back to the truth that our social media use and what it is that we choose to share is our decision and that we have the power," Moore says.
Though social media can be inherently harmful, users can still derive positivity from it — so long as they engage in online spaces consciously.
"I enjoy social media as a tool for entertainment and sometimes even learning new skills and seeing what my friends are up to. And this is up to us. Our relationship with anything in our life is determined by how we how we allow it in and our own intention for its use."
For more interviews like these, watch Advocate Now on The Advocate Channel.
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