For all the connectedness social media has delivered, for many there’s an all-too-familiar dark side: social media addiction. Here’s your very own guide to enjoy offline pleasures instead

You walk down streets, eyes glued to the phone screen instead of the path ahead. Your conversations are peppered with pings and notifications from your smartphone, and your voice trails off mid-conversation when you feel the phone vibrate in your pocket. Visiting a place is more about instantly checking-in, eating a meal is more about Instagramming it to your friends, and conversations are passé, replaced instead by updates, likes and retweets. There’s never a dull moment, when Facebook and Twitter are at hand for you to keep an eye on friends, acquaintances, strangers and enemies, in your order of preference. Sounds familiar?

For all the connectedness social media has delivered, for many there’s an all-too-familiar dark side: social media addiction. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you get stressed or anxious if you stay offline/ disconnected from social media for extended periods in the day?

2. Do you feel irritable when you can’t connect to Facebook or Twitter, and accessing these networks relieves the tension?

3. Do you stress about how to phrase that next tweet or FB update to get the most retweets, likes or shares, and upset when it doesn’t happen?

4. Is social media an escape you turn to when you don’t want to tackle something hard or challenging, and find yourself still stuck at the same place, hours later?

5. Have you tried to reduce your time on social media, and failed?

6. Do you prefer socialising online to family or social commitments?

7. Do you spend inordinate amounts of time online, either by staying up late or waking up early? Or worse still, check your social feeds while lying in bed?

If you’ve answered in the positive for one or more of these questions, then you, my friend, are prime candidate for a social media detox. Even if you didn’t, a social media detox is a great way to regulate your productive usage of social media, plus you give your brain some much-needed downtime to recoup and rejuvenate.

In either case, help is at hand — we’ve dug deep to bring you some easy ways to give yourself a social media cleanse without having to run away into the wilderness!

1. LET GO: The first step is to let go of the need to know everything and stay on top of everything. Don’t be miserable for what you could possibly miss out on — also known as the “Fear of Missing Out” or FOMO, a social anxiety where one is compulsively concerned that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, profitable investment or other satisfying event. The sooner you realise that everyone and everything in your social media life will continue to exist whether you see their updates or not, the faster your detox plan can begin.

2. DELETE SOCIAL APPS FROM YOUR PHONE: Next, attack the root of the problem, where you check your social feeds the most -- your phone. Remove apps for Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Sure, you can always use the browser to check, but the additional step of logging in will hopefully be the deterrent you need to mindlessly scroll through your social feed at any given opportunity. Oh, and turn off email notifications unless your work requires it.

3. CURB YOUR SOCIAL TIME ON THE PC: If your job has you spending the entire work day in front of your PC, there are tools that can come to your rescue. Apps such as LeechBlock, Anti-Social and SelfControl will let you blacklist all of the known social sites for a set period of time. Alternatively, rather than defining a period of time for which these sites are off-limits, you could pick a tool such as StayFocusd, which allows you to set a period of time to indulge yourself. Think 30 minutes a day is sufficient for Twitter and Facebook? These apps can help in the same vein as the limited TV time we had when we were kids. Want some fresh air? Apps such as Freedom will block Wi-Fi on your computer completely, forcing you to step out.

4. UNFOLLOW YOUR “TIME PASS” FEEDS: At least twice a year, comb through your following list and friends list to see which of your online mates are particularly noisy — the kind who constantly update about their lives, or those who share news and links as if it’s going out of fashion. Unfollow these noisy channels — trust me, you will you be a lot less distracted when you quickly log in to check your notifications and not end up spending hours poring over these huge time sinks.

5. USE LISTS: Facebook and Twitter let you segment groups of people into streams called lists. Using lists, you can segregate friends and family and use lists to quickly see the latest from the folks who you actually care about without all the other clutter that comes with logging onto these networks.

6. STAY FOCUSSED WITH RSS: If there is a list of blogs or sites you need to stay up-to-date with, use an RSS reader such as Feedly, Feedspot or NewsBlur to pull down site updates and new posts and read them offline, without the distraction of going online.

7. PHONE A FRIEND: If you find the going tough and your willpower just isn’t cutting it, find a friend who you can trust to change your Facebook or Twitter password for a set period of time. No password, no access. Simple. Of course, you also have the ultimate option — Facebook lets you delete your account for a set period of time, or permanently, if you’re up to the challenge!