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By Sadie Hunter

In The Loop

HUNTER: Spring cleaning, social media style

Mar 21, 2023 | 10:21 AM

THE SPRING EQUINOX, also known as the vernal equinox, came yesterday, March 20 at 2:24pm in the northern hemisphere. This is the moment the sun’s rays shine directly down on the equator equally on both halves of the Earth. The equinox is also when we have roughly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. (There’s some variation which can lead to us actually having more than 12 hours of daylight, but that’s more scientific than I want to get today.)

In Irish and Celtic tradition (I’m Irish), the hare is sacred to Ostara (the Spring Goddess) and a symbol for the moon. The nocturnal hare, associated with the moon which dies every morning and is resurrected every evening, also represents the rebirth of nature in spring.

There are a variety of traditions, meanings, beliefs, and symbolism around spring, but one constant is the idea of renewal. Health practitioners often look at spring for a time to refresh the mind and body by doing a cleanse. This appears to be based on Chinese traditional medicine which promotes the cleansing of different organs in alignment with five different annual cycles – spring focuses on the liver.

I’m not promoting nor discounting the value or efficacy of physical cleanses, the science and medical guidance around that practice is outside of my professional wheelhouse. I raise the idea of a spring cleanse and renewal in a different context – social media.

I think we’re all familiar with the concept of spring cleaning and cleanses. I’m suggesting we consider extending this idea to our use of social media. With recent news articles predicting an avalanche of content coming our way with the advent of ChatGPT, it seems like a good time to preemptively take control of our consumption and contributions.

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Text generated by an algorithm could very well infiltrate every medium we know, and feed back into itself as fact, making it almost impossible to discern fact from fiction. In a time where the truth is already hard to define in media and social media, I think it’s a good time to evaluate how we use various platforms.

I’ve found decluttering my online presence liberating and refreshing – taking back control over what I see and how much energy is put into negative content. I also strive to be mindful in what I share for content, whether it’s a blog or a comment on a social media post, always aiming to make positive contributions to the online community.

Some of the things I’ve found most helpful are:

• Unfollowing negative accounts: If you feel worse after scrolling social media (a.k.a doom scrolling), then retake control of what you’re seeing.
• Removing bot accounts or spammers from my followers: This helps reduce the number of random negative comments made on my posts.
• Not interacting with negative content: Social media works through algorithms. It will show you more of the content you engage with. This is great if you’re engaging with things that make you feel positive, but detrimental to your mental health if you’re engaging with negative posts.
• Follow positive accounts: Same idea as the above but in reverse. Despite what the algorithms might be showing us, there’s plenty of positive and good happening in our world and our community.
• Audit your social media accounts: How often do you use all of your accounts? Are they adding value to your life or drawing from your energy account? Is there a particular platform you find more negative than others? Personally, I find Facebook to trend negatively compared to Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Go on Spring Break: Take a break from social media — or even all media — for a couple of weeks and see how you feel. I normally do this twice a year to reset my relationship with social media. I always find it interesting to see how I feel once I start interacting online again. (Spoiler – it’s not usually positive.)

There are a lot of things taking a negative toll on us right now that are largely out of our control — inflation, war, a housing crisis, a healthcare crisis, a mental health crisis and an opioid epidemic to name a few. This makes it hard to stay positive and this inevitably soaks into our community consciousness and the way we treat each other. Let’s take this spring as a catalyst to regain control of the narratives we give our valuable time and attention to and renew our relationship with social media.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.