There are three feelings that can cause a deal of stress, especially among younger people who use a lot of social media. These are:

Insecurity: Your entire Instagram feed is full of perfect bodies, happy group photos and lots of other great stuff. We spend hours looking at them but tend to forget that these are other people's highlights. Their lives are not perfect. We are in fact comparing our mundane lives and personal struggles with other people's best moments.

Inferiority: We all want a lot of likes, comments and shares because that's how you know your photo or tweet was good, right? If you take hours to take a photo and build up the confidence to post it, but when that photo doesn't get many comments or likes you can start to feel you aren’t good enough. Social media users have all taken down photos at least once because they feared it wasn't good enough.

FOMO- Also known as fear of missing out on something. This expression is so well known among young people that it has become normal. We even joke about it. What we don't realise is that when we don't have access to social media, this feeling can quickly turn into social anxiety and can cause withdrawal symptoms. This can be accompanied by fantasy vibration syndrome, when you then feel your phone is vibrating even when it isn’t.

There are apps available to help you cut back on your social media use:

Space; After downloading the app, you will take a questionnaire about your phone usage to help you determine your goals. In addition to statistics, the app will also give you an insightful picture of your screen time.
Moment; Moment focuses on social media use. It works differently to a screen-time blocker in that it makes you much more aware of your behaviour. You will also get daily exercises suggestions from a personal coach.
Freedom; You can install Freedom on your iPhone and iMac, as well as in Windows and Chrome etc. You can set time limits for specific apps and websites and turn these on and off whenever you want.
Forest; In this app you plant a virtual tree which keeps growing as long as you stick to your time limits. Break the limits and your tree will lose branches and might even die. Clever gamification of real-life problem.