Break Your Addiction to Facebook Fighting Once and For All

Your guide to freedom from that nasty habit

It’s a familiar scenario for many of us — you’re mindlessly scrolling through your Facebook feed, enjoying photos of people’s pets and babies, laughing at relatable memes about humanity’s fierce need for coffee, and getting far too easily distracted by eerily applicable ads when suddenly it happens. Your Aunt Cheryl has posted an “article” detailing how Joe Biden was not actually inaugurated on January 20, 2021, and that Donald Trump will be sworn in for his second term on March 4, 2021. You can’t believe the absurdity of it. Your emotional barometer rises. But you remind yourself that Aunt Cheryl has never been the sharpest tool in the shed, so you roll your eyes and move on, despite feeling a little anxious about the frighteningly high level of impact conspiracy theories have had on current events.

You continue your scrolling. After a few more delightful photos of puppies, kittens, and babies, you discover your yoga teacher has put up a post about why burning sage and colloidal silver are more effective measures to protect you against Covid than vaccines, masks, and hand washing. You take a deep breath and debate whether to comment. You decide you must comment because if you don’t, then who in the world will dispel this catastrophic slew of misinformation?

Two and a half hours later you’re completely caught up in a downward spiral of volleying Facebook replies, unable to resist the compulsion to check your notifications every 90 seconds.

It began with your yoga teacher replying to your perfectly crafted, scientific, and rational comment with more of her woo-woo gobbledygook. She has enlightened you to the evils of Mainstream Media, Big Pharma, the elitist Democrats, various celebrities, and all things Deep State. She’s informed you that Covid “really isn’t that bad anyway and has a 99.9% recovery rate.”

In the past two and half hours, you’ve tried to reason, quote scientific fact, point out the logical flaws in her arguments, post statistics to refute her false claims, appeal to intelligence, and appeal to her compassion for people in more vulnerable demographics than her own white, perfectly fit and healthy, middle-class self.

None of it seems to get through, so in desperation and frustration you point out her character flaws, call her selfish, and tell her she’s been drinking the Kool-aid far too much and she’s in a cult whether she wants to admit it or not.

The back and forth has been spinning like a wheel that just won’t stop. And you’re not just arguing with her anymore. Now it’s her friends, her yoga students, her Reiki practitioner — all people you’ve never met and know absolutely nothing about.

You give up in despair, convinced the world is completely screwed beyond repair. You unfriend and block her.

You delete the app you used to use to register for her yoga classes. You vow never to engage in a Facebook fight again. You decide it’s high time to do a hardcore social media cleanse.

Four days later, you’re back on Facebook arguing with Aunt Cheryl about how Joe Biden did, in fact, win the 2020 election, and is, in fact, the 46th President of the United States of America, whether she likes it or not, so there.

And that’s when it hits you — you are completely addicted to fighting on Facebook, and it is actually a real problem.

Why You’re Addicted to Fighting on Social Media

Addictive behaviors don’t just create themselves in a vacuum. They are a complex amalgam of physical, psychological, and emotional factors. Understanding the underlying factors of an addiction to social media conflict can be a useful step in overcoming the problem. After admitting you have a problem, it may serve you well to do some introspective work.

Ask yourself, what exactly am I getting out of this unhealthy behavior?

Through personal reflection, I realized I was unexpectedly deriving some twisted benefits from engaging in the absurd flurry of ongoing melee that’s become an everyday occurrence on social media platforms.

Engagement in social media conflict provides a temporary relief from feelings of helplessness and offers a sense of control.

We are currently living through multiple historic crises. Whatever your stances may be on Covid public health measures, the current state of American politics, or the racial justice reckoning in our country, there’s a great deal going on that’s not within your immediate sphere of control. It’s normal to grapple with feelings of helplessness under the circumstances. “Doing nothing” in a crisis can be a deeply uncomfortable state of being. Taking part in social media battles can make us feel like at least we’re doing something.

The emotionally charged back and forth of a virtual argument can trigger a very real brain chemistry rush.

When you subject your psyche to conflict, even conflict on social media, the amygdala in your brain responds by springing into action and starting a complex series of physical responses in the brain and body that result in adrenaline and cortisol cascading into the bloodstream. This hormonal phenomenon can feel like quite the rush of excitement and energy, at least in the short term.

Intense, prolonged social media conflict offers intense, prolonged human engagement.

Because of the pandemic, many of us are feeling more loneliness and disconnectedness than we’re used to. Facebook fighting with Aunt Cheryl obviously isn’t the healthiest or most productive way to experience human connection, but it is a way to experience human connection.

Participation in social media clashes can make you feel you’re good at something, especially when you know you’re right.

Maybe Facebook fighting makes you feel a little like you’re Wonder Woman, with your powerful conspiracy theory deflecting bracelets. Your wit is so quick, your facts are so solid, your arguments are so logical, and your writing skills are so much better than Aunt Cheryl’s. You really would win this argument if it had anything to do with rational thought at all!

Overcoming Your Addiction to Fighting on Social Media

You’ve admitted that you have a problem, you know why you’re doing it; you want to move past it, but where should you begin? Start at the beginning and go from there.

Start with a social media cleanse.

Remove yourself from the trigger. This isn’t a permanent solution, but it is an important first step. I’m not saying you have to abstain from social media for the rest of your life, but give yourself some time away from it.

Find other ways to get the benefits you were deriving from social media.

While you’re fasting from Facebook, you’re going to have some time on your hands. Use it to discover, or rediscover, what you can do to productively attain similar benefits to the ones you were deriving from your social media savagery.

Provide yourself with a healthy sense of control. This could involve researching social justice organizations and making a monetary donation, or a donation of your time and talents. Maybe now is the time to get involved in local grassroots politics. Gaining a healthy sense of control may be as simple as taking a walk while listening to a podcast on an issue that matters to you.

Replace the chemical rush in your brain that you may get from your social media smack-downs. Exercise fulfills that need for many people. Creative pursuits can as well. Pick up that paintbrush again, or dust off that guitar. Instead of flooding your system with the fight-or-flight adrenaline and cortisol brought on by conflict, engaging in exercise and creative endeavors will cause your brain and body to be graced with mood-elevating, feel-good hormones such as serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins.

Find ways to address your feelings of loneliness without virtual sparring matches to fill the void. The good news is that with the Covid vaccine on the verge of becoming widely available, isolation may be less of a problem moving forward. In the meantime, it’s important to put in the effort to connect with friends and family in less traditional ways. Phone calls are not as popular as they once used to be, and may feel a little awkward at first, but pushing through that awkwardness can be well worth the benefits of human connection that a phone call can provide.

Regular texting with friends is always a great go-to. Although you may have had your fill of video conferencing at work, FaceTime and Zoom can help you feel connected when you miss your friend’s face. And there’s always old fashion letter-writing. If you enjoy writing, it might be fun to go old school and draft a letter to an out-of-town friend or relative. Another way to address pandemic-induced loneliness is to find a good distraction. Make something, read something, or put on those walking shoes — anything that you find engaging.

Now that you’re no longer wowing the virtual world with your argumentative prowess, provide yourself with new opportunities to feel like you’re good at something. Truth be told, you probably already know something you’re good at, or many things that you’re good at. The obvious answer is to do those things more, especially the ones from which you derive joy.

Social media is such an easy default for your time and energy, but what’s easy isn’t always what’s good. It may take more time, commitment, and energy to develop your talents, or to explore to find new ones, but chances are there are plenty of pursuits you’ve been putting on the back burner that would tap into your talents. Take them off the back burner. Develop them. Develop yourself. You’re worth it and you’ll feel good about yourself if you do.

Practice Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques.

At some point, you will probably return to social media. Those posts claiming that the Covid vaccine has a microchip in it are still going to be out there. When you see them, pause. Notice how your mind and body respond. Is your heart beating faster? Is your breathing become more shallow? Is your train of thought starting to barrel down the tracks as it comes up with all sorts of brilliant replies to that offensive post you just read? These are all pretty good indicators that your amygdala has been activated and the adrenaline is kicking in. This is the time to intentionally counteract this stress response with a relaxation technique.

One of the most effective relaxation techniques is deep abdominal breathing. It’s a simple but effective practice.

Put your hand on your belly. Breath deeply and slowly through your nose while expanding your abdomen, as if you’re breathing into your belly. Hold the breath in gently for a few seconds, and then slowly exhale, feeling the belly going back to its neutral state. Gently hold the breath out for a few seconds. Repeat the process a minimum of two more times. Other relaxation techniques that can help are visualizing peaceful scenes, prayer, and repeating a calming word or words in your mind such as peace and tranquility. Ideally, spend time practicing mindfulness and relaxation techniques when you’re not in the emotional thick of things. Apps such as Insight Timer can be very useful for this.

Controversial, offensive, and upsetting social media posts are likely going to be a part of life for the foreseeable future. But you get to decide how to respond to them and how much of your precious time, energy, peace of mind, and health you want to sacrifice to them.

Once you’ve become the master of your own reactions, you will have the choice to reply rationally and move on, or not reply at all.

Then you can continue happily scrolling through other people’s family photos, silly memes, and ads for things there’s no way Facebook should have known you were thinking of buying.