Long are the days since #ThrowbackThursdays and puppy face filters dominated our online lives. Scrolling through social media in 2026 often feels more like walking through a circus than checking the news or peeking at what your old high school buddy is up to these days – it's bright, distracting, and for some reason, everyone is screaming.
But if you spend enough time online, you can still discover hidden treasure troves of information, stumble upon wacky and delightful artists, and access educational and legal resources easier than ever before. Take it from your local social media manager, and someone who survived whatever was happening on YouTube in the 2010s, no one hates the internet more than I do sometimes! But no matter your personal stance on the apps, it’s no doubt that “socials” and algorithmically driven content aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
So today, I’m going to share my favorite tips on how to navigate online spaces in a way that adds value, not headaches, to your life!
Step One: Touch Grass
That might sound a bit like a joke, but stay with me. The first and best tip I can offer you online is to get offline as soon as possible. It’s also the hardest piece of advice to follow for a multitude of reasons.
For myself personally, detaching from social media is nearly impossible. (I am paid to be there, after all.) But even as someone employed to post, I find that some of my most fruitful ideas still come from periods spent away from the internet.
The goal of step one is to recenter yourself in your use of the internet and social media. When our online behavior is dictated by notifications, #trending topics, and reflex, rather than our own internal interests or needs, we give up our personal agency. We are no longer using the internet – instead, it is using us for clicks and revenue generation.
So, how do you complete step one without just throwing your phone into the trash? Try this:
- Pick a 30-day time period to cleanse your feed and your habits. If you need to, make a post letting friends or family know that you won’t be reachable in the comments or your DMs for a while.
- Log off of all apps or delete them from your phone. (Don’t worry, they come back in Step Two.)
If you’re in a situation like mine that prevents you from completely checking out, try moving your favorite social media apps to a different page or folder on your phone every few months. This helps interrupt the muscle memory that our hands develop when tapping an app to open it.
Step Two: Engage with Passion
So, it’s been thirty days and you’re ready to hop back online. Your mind is cleared, your heart lifted. And the first thing you see when you log in makes you see red.
Pause. Think. But do NOT leave a comment.
This is one of the biggest mistakes that the average social media user makes (including me), especially now that most social media platforms have shifted away from chronological content feeds to systems based on engagement.
You may think that by expressing your distaste, you are letting Facebook, Instagram, or X know that you don’t like this content and that you don’t want to see more of it. Or maybe you simply want to comment and move on with your day. But unfortunately, what you’ve also done is signaled to the algorithm that this is exactly what it should bring to your attention.
To combat the rage bait, we have to engage with passion. This means scrolling past the headlines that make you want to scream, and instead:
- Share good book recommendations from your local library or bookstore.
- Tag your friends in upcoming events and make sure to follow-through off screen!
- Return to that old recipe that you saved, and share how it turned out.
Our actions now will (literally) determine what comes back to us. If you want your internet to be full of kindness, creativity, and useful information, you have to be a part of the process!
That is my guiding philosophy as a social media manager. In the early days of public media, journalists, producers, educators and others saw the gaps left by commercial media and sought to fill them with something meaningful. Their hard work created a valuable alternative to what we thought was possible and proved that unconventional or even unprofitable ideas are still worth pursuing. And I believe our social media should be no different.
