Screen Time is Money. Literally.

Can you have a healthy relationship with social media if it’s your livelihood?

Social Media Manager Kalina Phillips is also a family-friendly micro-influencer on TikTok. She runs @babyyodawiggie, a glammed-up baby yoda doll with a following of 89k. Phillips said she probably spends around 10 hours a day on social media, either finding trends on TikTok that she can use for her account or brainstorming ideas for her job at a skincare startup. A junior at NYU, she believes that spending so much time on social media glues her to her couch for hours, preventing her from getting any schoolwork done. “It's actually awful,” Phillips said. “My productivity is through the floor. I'll just go on my phone for like, one second, and then all of a sudden, it's been two hours.” 

But instead of reproaching herself for so much screen time in the moment, she justifies her usage as work-related, telling herself that she’s just doing trend analysis. Phillips has made attempts to compartmentalize her usage, creating a mental note of when she will use social media for her job, when she’ll scour Tiktok for content ideas, and when she’ll simply use it for leisure. But that’s only getting harder. “The line between what is personal and what's trend analysis and research is not even there anymore,” Phillips said. “When I'm on social media, I’m on it looking for stuff to do for my company, looking for my own account, and looking just for my own enjoyment all at the same time, all the time.”

Phillips is one of many social media professionals that view success metrics – likes, followers, comments – not only as a source of personal validation, but income. Social media jobs are booming in the U.S. and it is expected that they’ll continue to do so, as 91% of companies use social media for marketing purposes. According to monthly finance magazine Money, social media manager positions are increasingly sought after, as job postings for such roles have increased by 1000% in the last decade. On LinkedIn today, there are over 958k U.S. based social media job postings. While the volume of social media professionals increases, the job description fairly stays the same.

These typically include creating and scheduling content for different platforms, competitive analysis, copywriting, brainstorming ways to increase user engagement, sourcing and managing influencer relationships, and keeping up to date with social media trends.

One minute offline can increase feelings of FOMO, the fear of missing out. While regular folk may miss out on celebrity breaking news or their friends’ Instagram posts, social media professionals missing out can hinder their performance. Their responsibilities require a heightened active presence on social media in what can feel like they are on call 24 hours a day, mainly for the sake of timeliness and to ferociously keep tabs on competitors.

For Sophia Derlon, an NYU junior and Social Media Intern at SAP Software Solutions, competitive analysis is part of Derlon’s day to day responsibilities, which requires her to look at her own social media projects for SAP and compare them to what other software companies are posting on their channels. With no access to her competitors' plans or knowledge of the next big social media trend, she couldn’t fathom a detox. If she did, she fears she would have to answer to her boss with empty hands. “You're trying to find constant answers on the use of social media, but social media is always changing,” Derlon said. “Algorithms are also always changing, so trying to keep up with your competitors' strategies does end up burning you out.”

If you look up “social media and mental health” on Google, a Greek chorus will appear singing of the former’s detrimental effects on the latter. Studies have shown that social media can accelerate self-esteem issues, depression, loneliness, and anxiety. These downsides are accentuated by burnout, a sense of crippling fatigue and irritation that comes from too much time on social media. In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) considered burnout an occupational phenomenon that occurs from “chronic-work related stress that goes unmanaged.” Not only are professionals more vulnerable to the dangers social media can pose to their mental health, but anxiety from the pressure to never unplug. When Derlon is done with work, she unwinds by using social media. While she considers this form of social media overuse as mindless, Derlon’s use of social media for leisure can easily slip into professional use. “I am just too much on social media,” Derlon said. “I’m getting to a point where in my personal account I look at things related to my job.”

Phillips acknowledges that her social media usage is out of hand. She feels a sense of withdrawal, a symptom of a social media addiction, whenever she’s not on TikTok. Social media addiction is behavioral in essence, producing an excess of dopamine that stems from the rewarding nature of engaging with others online and continuously finding something new in the golden age of content. Phillips admitted she had one and that her job only fuels it. “Your work becomes like a source of dopamine,” Phillips said. “So it's like, nothing else will ever feel as good as working in social media.”

What makes a social media addiction can’t be quantified into a specific number of hours, but identified by the severity of its symptoms. Bailey Parnell, CEO and Founder of #SafeSocial, a platform that raises awareness about the negative impacts of social media on mental health, compares a social media addiction to that of other abusive substances, like drugs and alcohol. Parnell created a self-assessment quiz where users can identify how deep their addiction runs, their symptoms measured on a scale from 1-5, where five signals an addiction.

Symptoms include checking social media first thing in the morning, increased procrastination levels due to excessive scrolling, feelings of isolation upon a lack of social media access, and “blacking out” on the amount of hours spent. “Sounds pretty similar if you're actually talking to an alcoholic about alcohol,” Parnell said. “They think about it when they're not using it, it's causing physical damage in their life, it might even be harming their relationships, they may be blacked out.”

Dr. Argelinda Baroni, who specializes in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone, says that the tipping point occurs when social media use starts taking away from offline activities considered crucial to the individual. “Deep down, we know what is good for us. Do we truly enjoy using social media, does it enrich us via exposure to art or social support we would not have otherwise?” Dr. Baroni said. “Does it deplete us of attention, time, physical activity and sleep? Is it a choice or a compulsion?”

The solution to combating social media addiction and burnout may just be to reduce screen time. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that participants that drastically cut down on their social media reported decreased feelings of depression and loneliness. But for individuals like Derlon, who spends 6 to 8 hours on social media for work-related purposes, this isn’t as feasible.  “It's harder for them to just detox or do anything like that,” Parnell said. “It's almost like an alcoholic who works in a bar.”

But the answer isn’t to delete social media altogether, throw your smartphone into the sea and move to a cottage (although that doesn’t sound too bad). Addressing social media overuse is plausible, even if it's one’s livelihood. Parnell encourages users through #SafeSocial to question their approach to social media the way they would with other addictive substances. Deliberating social media consumption is one way to go about it – Parnell, for example, subscribes to a couple of news digest to be kept in the loop about social media trends, rather than manually seek out that information. Cutting down on personal usage and replacing that time with offline activities, sticking to connecting with others and sharing highlight reels rather than mindless scrolling, also works.

Vivian Santiago, a labor lawyer with 36k Instagram followers, abides by a strict posting schedule to moderate her social media usage. She treats her social media influencing the way she would a typical work week. “You have to learn how to use it properly,” Santiago said. She sets time apart at around noon to film and edit her content, which could take her up to two hours, to post 3 to 4 times a week. These videos are then promptly posted at 8 p.m., when most of her followers are online.

Despite her rigorous posting schedule, Santiago leaves a little wiggle room to also document her life as a wife, mom, friend, in addition to advocating for human rights on her Instagram account. “If I want to talk about women's rights and whatever, then I will do it,” she said. “If I want to record something funny about my life as a married person or as a mother, then I will do it.”

Santiago attributed her mindful social media usage to her age – she’s 39 – and entering the field with a well-established career and a stronger sense of self. Age and maturity levels play a part in how social media professionals can moderate their social media use. Not surprisingly, younger demographics have a harder time achieving a balance. 40% of adults in the U.S. ages 18-22 and 37% ages 23-38 reported that their usage resembles that of a social media addiction.

In the last fifteen years, younger Millennials and Gen Z’ers were on social media during their formative years. Social media has become so ingrained in their coming of age and their daily social lives that it becomes harder to use it mainly or solely for professional purposes. It can already be hard to separate social media from reality. “A 21-year-old and, in general, these young people on social are still in the identity construction phase of their life,” Parnell said. “My real advice would be that you got to get to know yourself offline.”

While individuals themselves have a final say in how they consume social media, companies also have a responsibility to ensure that their employees don’t tiptoe into social media overuse. In the United States, 92% of large companies and 71% of small to midsize ones employ social media for their marketing strategies, and this percentage is bound to increase. But despite the growing demand, a nine to five is no reason for the dangers of social media to pull your mental health down the drain. Companies, especially those that employ fewer social media professionals, should foster an environment where employees do not feel like they have to be connected 24/7.

“If you became a VP and you were leading a team of community managers, you would know boundaries need to be set,” Parnell said. “Even with my own team, I cannot be responsible for what you're doing on social media outside of working hours. All I can do is make sure that they know I don't expect them to be on.”

Phillips and Derlon wouldn’t want to continue in their line of work if they didn’t like social media. But they’re aware that they still have to moderate their usage, the way wine lovers may stick to one glass a day rather than three. While they haven’t experienced what it’s like to work a nine to five, they might as well imagine what that would look like if they already encounter social media burnout and addiction with a part-time job. “I be f— around on TikTok and it’s like, damn, where did time go?” Phillips said. “I feel like I need to establish some sort of boundary, for sure. But I haven't figured it out yet.” Dr. Baroni has a couple of ideas.

“We all spend a large amount of time on social media that is not meaningful or enriching,” Dr. Baroni said. “To have a more balanced social media pattern, people should establish healthy boundaries, for example never to use phones during meals, not to use social media before sleep, or during connection time with friends and loved ones. Of course, it helps to increase one’s awareness about how social media can be addictive.” 

Derlon and Phillips can check that last point from their to-do list.