Eknoor Soni and his brother Arsh have millions of followers on the likes of YouTube, Snapchat and other apps, but the siblings, from London, recognise the pitfalls of technology
A social media expert who helps manage influencers who get over 100 million views a month has shared his top five tips to stop wasting hours of your day doom scrolling. Eknoor Soni, 21, has been obsessed with social media since he was 16 and has gained millions of views with his older brother Arsh, 28. The University of London business graduate has since set up an agency that manages the Snapchat accounts of creators including YouTubers Jake Sweet (12.9 million subscribers) and Jamie Nyland (15.6m subscribers). And while creating and helping others create content is his passion, he also believes that people can spend too much time on it. He said: “Social media has been designed to keep you hooked and trapped on your phone. “The rise of short form content from platforms like TikTok has kept people, including many from younger generations, glued to their phone watching an infinite amount of videos without realising hours have passed. “While there’s nothing wrong with watching some videos, if it’s sapping your productivity so much that you’re not getting things done you should address that sooner rather than later. “I wouldn’t recommend going cold turkey and completely cutting yourself off, but if you think your social media usage is too much I’d recommend following some of the following tips to reduce it to more manageable levels.”
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Here are Eknoor’s top five tips:
- Use social media for a purpose: One of the first ways to avoid wasting time on social media is to use it with intention. For example, if you are focusing on the gym and have a goal to build bigger muscles, then use platforms like TikTok to tailor your algorithm to only provide you with gym content. You can simply tailor your algorithm by liking, commenting, sharing and engaging with gym content which results in TikTok showing you similar content. Suddenly, the for you page becomes a free personal trainer instead of a distraction allowing you to reach your goals and benefit from social media.
- Clean up your social media feed: A simple way to do this is when you see content you don’t like or want to see then you can press on the video and an option will pop up saying ‘Don’t recommend me this content’. This will let the platform know not to show you this content allowing you to focus on only watching valuable content that doesn’t drain your energy or waste your time.
- Create content: One of the best ways to stop wasting time on social media is to flip the script, so instead of just consuming content, start creating instead. Rather than doom-scrolling, use that time to make content. So many people have built careers simply by documenting their lives, sharing their favourite food spots, or showing their personality online. Short-form content has levelled the playing field allowing people to get millions of views on the first video they have posted. If you’re already spending hours on these apps, why not use that time to build something, make money and provide value.
- Turn off notifications: Social media apps are constantly pining you with likes, tags, stories and random updates to get you back on the app to consume content. By turning off everything except the essentials, you’ll reduce distractions and be able to focus on the things you are actively doing. The less you are interrupted by valueless notifications the more you can focus on things that actually matter.
- Set time limits: This is one of the most effective ways to stop wasting hours on social media as most phones allow you to set daily screen time caps. This means if you cap yourself to one hour of social media scrolling a day it can help you become aware of how much time you are spending and how fast it goes. Once you hit the time limit, treat it as a signal to log off and do something productive. This way you can create healthy boundaries so social media works for you, not the other way round