How to control and limit possible triggers from social media use.

Hello all,

As I'm sure you are aware, social media can be a pretty big trigger in many circumstances (and in general is a big time waster). Just today a girl on my Instagram posted a picture that triggered me and I was thinking about relapsing all day ( luckily I didnt). Ive tried to majorly cut down on how I access social media and when. I also have tried looking for things to replace social media with. Here are few tips and I am also looking for input! I need more strategies for my personal life since I am still having issues.

I would highly recommend deleting apps if you can. That said, I personally can only connect with my dance friends through Instagram and I get why you also may only be able to connect with certain friends through an app. If you can maybe try and delete just one that you use the least? Deleting Snapchat helped my life so much since I stopped seeing the world through a screen and started just appreciating experiences for what they were.

Tips for using social media and avoiding triggers

• Unfollow/unfriended any girls that post excessive amounts of sexually suggestive posts!!!!! This is critical! I understand you may want to try and keep friendships, but these types of people will be huge triggers!! Be very careful! Definitely don't follow models or people that you don't need to!
• Try and limit time spent on the app. The more time you spend on social media the more likely you are to stumble upon something sexual that triggers you. For instagram I have deleted the main phone app and instead I only look at my feed on the desktop webpage and use a dedicated Android app by Instagram for the messaging functionality. For Reddit I deleted my account so I don't get caught up in replying to people and looking for new subreddits that could have questionable content. Browser extensions that set a time limit on sites also may help.
  
• Remove content suggestions that often are triggering. A lot of times I would open up the "explore" tab on Instagram and would immediately be confonted with tons of posts of very skimpily dressed women and models that Instagram wanted me to shove in my face. The desktop webapp does have the explore feature, but it is MUCH less prominent and you won't be randomly looking at it. Snapchat features a number of magizine ads (that OFTEN feature sexual stories) that you can hide by holding down on and telling the app to never show you the brand again. Facebook allows you to hide people and brands that are posting content you don't want to see.
  
• Use built in tools to hide sexual content. Many third-party Reddit apps will have a setting to totally hide NSFW content and won't even tempt you with that blurred thumbnail, it just hides the post altogether. Google has a safe search setting that hides search results that may be suggestive. YouTube also has a safety setting that hides a lot of innapropriate content.

Apps and content to replace normal social media use with.

• Books I definitely have to start reading more, but you can find many cheap, great books to read in your spare time! Much better for your brain and will improve your personality. Id mainly recommend the classics, modern day books that have moral/philosophical implications (I'm trying to get into Phillip k. Dick right now) , or a book that covers an interesting subject in your field of study/work or another field. Many classics are even available for free through the Gutenberg project and you can print them out.
  
• Hacker News. This is mainly for Computer Science and engineering people, but really anyone can appreciate it. It is a reddit-ish site/app that deals with many interesting CS, political, and technology articles that are usually discussed from a STEM point of view. Pretty much no explicit sexual content.
• Dev Rant. Another reddit-ish site but only focused on posting Computer Science memes, discussion, and rants. On occasion there will be a sexual joke/meme but it is not often.
• Podcasts. You can learn a lot from podcast and they are a great thing to listen to. They might not fully replace social media, but I wanted to put them on the list because they will definitely improve you as a person.
• Product hunt A curated site that features new technology projects and apps. Might be interesting if you are looking to try out new software or tools.

Again, I would love more suggestions! I am mainly looking for other sites and things that say, someone could do on the toilet or something like that. Nothing with a big investment, just something to relax and do while avoiding triggers and 100% wasting brain space.