5 Easy Steps to Keep Social Media from Wrecking Your Summer Fun

You started summer with one goal: keep life calmer, lighter, less chaotic. Then you scrolled for two minutes and suddenly your summer looks underwhelming compared to someone else's perfectly curated highlights. Your nervous system is dysregulated, your confidence is shaken, and you're convinced everyone else has figured something out that you missed. Let’s fix that.

• Click here for this episode’s blog post with links to sources and even more content.
• Stay connected: Get reminder emails!

Summary

Your real life matters more than content, even when it doesn't photograph well. A meaningful summer doesn't require a curated feed. It requires protecting your attention and refusing to absorb other people's chaos as your own. This episode shows you how.

—

You Need This Episode If...

• You feel tense, anxious, or "behind" after scrolling
• You're scrolling for relief when you're tired but ending up more fried
• Your feed makes you feel like you’re sucking at summer

—

What You'll Get

• Why your brain reaches for social media when tired (and why it backfires)
• How algorithms actually work—dwell time is the algo-impact you didn't know about
• Clear signs your feed is dysregulating you
• 4 practical boundaries that fit real mom life (ex: “shower before screens”)
• A self-check question to stop spiraling and return to what's actually real

—

Your Host

Caitlin is the host of Not Quite Grownup and a content marketer who knows her way around an algorithm. She's also the woman who will pry Threads from her cold, dead hands, so this isn't about quitting social media—it's about protecting your peace within it.

The best support is a rating and a share.

Love,
CK & GK

Transcript

E207_Sane Mom Summer: Internet Issues

Caitlin 0:02

I think one of the hardest things about trying to have a sane mom summer is that the internet exists. And the internet is constantly making you feel like you should be doing summer better. Like your entire purpose this summer is to keep life calmer, lighter, a little less chaotic. And then you start scrolling for like two minutes. Suddenly you're behind, you're underwhelming. You're an inferior because someone else's summer looks better than yours. Maybe it's more organized. Maybe their kids are reading every day because I'm guilty of that. Mine's not reading every day right now. But the point is that that's what I want to talk to you about today is that the internet is now responsible for dysregulating you. You've let it dysregulate you. And it's not your nervous system. Welcome back to Not Quite Grown Up. This is the podcast from moms who are just trying to keep it together. Sometimes we're doing that by the skin of our teeth, and we have a watered-down iced coffee with us because motherhood. This is my sane mom summer series, which is basically a permission slip to myself and, of course, to you to stop treating every day like some sort of performance and start making this season more livable. It's hard enough, right? Episode one was about lowering the bar for summer, just letting summer be less performative, more relaxed. And last episode was about confidence because performing summer, once you stop doing that for everyone else, you have to trust the decisions that you make so that you don't second guess everything and then start performing. But today I want to talk about one of the things that steals that self-trust, that steals that confidence, which again is the internet. If you're trying to have a sane mom summer, but your feed is constantly telling you that everyone else's summer is calmer or prettier, whatever it may be, they're better at it than you are. That's a problem. So I want to get into it.

Why Social Media Hits Us So Hard

Caitlin 2:24

Why do we turn to social media? That is not what I'm here to solve because I'm not a psychiatrist and none of this is therapy, and I'm not qualified to tell you what to do with your life. All I'm gonna say about it is that social media is a lot of fun in some ways, but when you're already tired or overwhelmed or overstretched, it's a rough place to spend your time. When you are those things, tired, overwhelmed, overstretched, and you start scrolling, your brain is actually looking for relief, but instead, it's getting stimulation. It's getting news thrown at it, it's getting opinions, it's getting comparison, it's getting perfect solutions from people who don't live in your house. It's getting there's 20 milligrams of protein in listening to this podcast. That's a lot. It's getting endless content telling you how you should be better, be calmer, be more productive, be more intentional, be more stylish, regulate your emotions, be more everything. Like, no wonder people feel completely fried by social when they are scrolling a lot. And you feel fried, you know, burnout, but that's like a lot of that is just too much input in the moment. And when you are in sane mom summer mode, the last thing that you need is a feed that keeps convincing you that your life should look more polished than it is. Then we get back to that performative stuff. We're not doing that.

Curating Your Feed is Self-Respect

Caitlin 4:11

So let me teach you a little something about social media. I I'm not a guru in any way, shape, or form. Uh, I mean, just look at my following in my feed, right? But I do know a thing or two about it as someone who works in content marketing. I hope you know this and you may already, but did you know that your algorithm is actually trained by more than just your likes? No, it's not like just the listening thing. It's trained by cookies, it's trained by likes, follows, and something you may not have thought about, which is called dwell time. This is real, okay? Dwell time is the amount of time you spend looking at a specific piece of content. Okay. If you are on Instagram or LinkedIn and you see an overly complicated graphic that you have to stop and look at, it's done like that on purpose because you have to dwell on it to see it. Okay. Carousels, dwell time. Videos, dwell time. All of that is designed to make you stop and look at it. And as you stop and look, that dwell time trains your algorithm. And that makes sense, right? Because you don't have to like a piece of content for it to show up in your feed again and again and again. I'm sure you've noticed that before. But

Curate Your Feed

Caitlin 5:36

why did I tell you that? Because I want you to be picky about what you consume, and I want you to redefine what consuming it actually means. Unfollowing someone or muting an account isn't petty, taking a break from a platform isn't dramatic, it's all a good thing because it's a sign of self-respect. It's where you're putting your attention. If certain content makes you feel, I don't know, smaller, anxious, um, more scattered behind, don't keep feeding yourself that content. And in the past, you may have just looked at it for a few seconds and then scrolled past it. And that's fine, but I'm gonna encourage you to go even further and actively tell the feed that you aren't interested in that type of content. Block the person, mute them, curate your feed the same way you curate your home and your calendar and your energy. I'm serious. Just stop looking at stuff that immediately, if it makes you feel some type of way that isn't positive, get rid of it. It's it makes so much sense. I was looking at threads the other day and somebody was like, Do you block people if they're rude? And one woman was like, Are you kidding me? I block people if they're rude to other people. I don't need that in my feed. And one of my favorite memes is one of Kim Kardashian scrolling, and she's like, See, what we're not gonna do is come onto my phone and make me feel uncomfortable. And that's the energy you need to have with your feed. So

Signs Your Feed is Getting to You

Caitlin 7:16

here's how you know if it's bothering you. If your feed is getting to you, just look for a few things. If you feel tense after you scroll, that's a problem. If you see someone else's life and you're like, oh, I love that, but you keep doing it over and over again, stop comparing your life to strangers. That person is not good for you. If you keep saving content you never actually use, and that would be me, that's a problem. If you feel like everyone else has figured out something that you somehow missed, that's a problem. Think about how your kids are if they've been on too much screen time and how irritable they are after that. If that's you, that means you're looking at the wrong stuff. It means your brain is doing what brains do when they get overloaded, they get grouchy. And I'm not gonna tell you that the solution is to go touch grass because it's so much easier said than done. And honestly, that would be really hypocritical because I like social media. And you know what? It's really hot outside. I get eaten alive by mosquitoes. I'm not going anywhere, so buzz off. Like, I'm staying on threads. You can pry that app out of my cold, dead hands. So the solution is not to go touch grass. Rather, it's just to be more intentional about what actually gets your attention. That's protecting your peace. That's how you help yourself have a sane mom summer.

4 Things to Limit the Impact of Screen Time on your Sane Mom Summer

Caitlin 8:49

So, what do we need to do in order to curate that feed? Make it calmer. Follow people who leave you feeling informed in a healthy way, encouraged, genuinely entertained. The guy on TikTok who like starts with a very peaceful, serene moment, and then he kind of pops into the feed from the side window or from the angle. Oh my God, it's the best. That guy's amazing. Find him. Curate your feed with stuff like that. And then set a few boundaries with your scrolling. Maybe there's no scrolling first thing in the morning. I used to have a shower before screens rule, as in, I cannot go on to LinkedIn or Threads or whatever it may be, Instagram, before I take my shower for the day. That means that I have to get up, go brush my teeth, get dressed, go for my walk, come back, feed the dog, all of those things before I get to look at any social media. And by then, I'm like, oh my gosh, if I stop now, I'm totally gonna just be off track and it's gonna be a mess. So that one really works for me. Maybe you stop an hour before bed. Or, you know, 15 minutes, whatever. If you're gonna do before bed, put your screen on that night mode so it doesn't bother your eyes. Maybe you keep your phone out of reach during certain parts of the day. If you have an iPhone or if you have a phone that has some sort of like focus setting where you can tell it what apps you get notifications from during that time, do that. I, if I turn on focus mode, if I turn it on, I do not get any alerts from any social media at all until I turn that focus mode off, and then it will all come back. It helps. Because then you have like nothing to check, right? So we've made our feed calmer, we're gonna set a few boundaries, then we're also going to ask ourselves a little question when we feel a little bit activated. We're gonna stop, self-reflect. Is this actually about my life or is this about what I just saw? What I just consumed on social? Because that might actually help you help you not spiral unnecessarily. And also, I the fourth thing is like remember that your real life actually matters a lot more, even when it doesn't necessarily photograph well, right? And literally nothing about your life has to go into a feed for anyone else's consumption for you to have had a meaningful summer. So if sane mom summer is about making this season more livable and enjoyable, that means one of the biggest things we can do is refuse to let the internet tell us how we are supposed to feel, how our life is supposed to be. We have no reason to go around absorbing everyone else's curated chaos and make it our own. We're gonna protect our attention, we're gonna get comfy using those unfollow and mute buttons, or we're gonna go for a stupid little walk in the stupid heat and get some stupid sunshine with some stupid fresh air, put down the device, and do something that creates a little bit more quiet in our own head. I bet you're saying mom summer really needs that.

Closing

Caitlin 12:57

Next time we're gonna talk about ADHD in summer mode because structure has disappeared from my home, and my brain is feeling a little extra wobbly on top of the already wobbly summer. And I think that that conversation belongs here in this series. As always, thank you so much for listening. Please subscribe to this show. Please follow us on social at not underscore quite underscore grown up on threads and on Instagram. Visit our website if you need to. I wrote a blog post about this. Hopefully it helps. Love you mean it. Bye.