SilentFootPrint (hereinafter, SFP), born in the need of escaping the internet life for a while, getting on track on what truly matters in life and set aside shallowness and constant comparison
The main idea is to reduce (or remove) a big part of online presence, which translates on limiting the impact that social media and online platforms have on our mental health.
It’s known that there is a strong correlation between social media usage and depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. I guess it's due, in part, to the superficial and materialistic nature of much of the content that is shared online.
Even if you haven't ever felt anxious or depressed, I'm sure you have been unconsciously become a person dependent on what people think, and your preferences in many aspects have been shaped by what you see on social networks.
Furthermore, you might also have stopped thinking about yourself, and have given more importance to what people expect of you.
Social media emphasizes the perfect and curated aspects of life. The rise of them (and other online platforms) has led to a culture of instant gratification, where users expect immediate results and constant stimulation. As a result of this, now we decrease attention to what truly maters and we struggle concentrating on tasks that have no instantaneous reward (a.k.a. everything that requires sustained effort).
This doesn't stop here, as it is now also affecting relationships and how people just get tired so early of partners, and it's definitely changing the way we communicate and relate to others as society...
Additionally, the vast amount of content available on the internet is overwhelming and lead to decision fatigue, making it difficult to prioritize tasks and stay focused. The constant notifications and alerts from them are also distracting as hell and disrupt concentration.
Moreover, social media platforms and other online platforms employ algorithms that are designed to keep us engaged by providing an endless stream of content tailored to our interests. Results in behavior resembling addiction and made it challenging to disengage from the platform
Well, SFP might be a solution to these issues by helping reduce these effects and limit access to “cheap dopamine” and distractions, allowing focusing on meaningful tasks and improving concentration. By selectively disabling accounts on social media and other online platforms, we will avoid the constant distractions, comparisons and shallowness that disrupt concentration, real-life experiences and true happiness... It is definitely worth it.
We can’t provide any totally effectively guide, as we all have different ways of seeing social media, and we use them in different ways. But we surely can give out ideas on how to stop depending in social media if you are struggling with them, as mentioned before.
The first step to get started is to have clear which online accounts we have, and which ones are a problem for us.
Start by noting down the accounts you have, it can be a Google account, Instagram page, etc.
INFO: It can be difficult to have every ever-created account under control, but try your best to localize all your online presence. Check password manager, or google linked websites, they can discover you pages you didn’t even know you registered.
Once you have (almost) every account or online profile under control, is time to remove or delete those ones that you don’t use (e.g.: that account you created to edit a single photo).
Once we cleaned the "useless" accounts, it's time to delete the serious accounts, the ones who