That friend-of-a-friend who’s deep in the MLM ecosystem

You can count the number of times you’ve hung out together on one hand, and suddenly this person wants to meet up for coffee to “just chat”. You show up, looking forward to spending time with a potential new friend, and turns out they just want to know if you’re “open-minded”.

Sounds familiar?

Go block them. You know you want to.

 

Fake news accounts

It’s getting harder and harder to spot the difference between real and fake news. As soon as you spot fake news and verify that it’s fake (THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: don’t just call it fake because you don’t like what the news is reporting), look at the page’s history to see if it has a pattern of sharing fake news. If so, report the page and block it. There’s more than enough misinformation in the world.

8 Online Tools You Need to Filter Out Fake News from Your Life

8 Online Tools You Need to Filter Out Fake News from Your Life
Kyzia Maramara | Jun 09, 2017

 

“Inspirational” Instagram accounts that only make you feel like sh*t

Scrolling through Instagram sometimes feels like self-flagellation. Full of perfect-looking people with perfect-looking lives, Instagram can be a slippery slope from feeling pretty good about yourself to feeling like a warty potato. While there isn’t something inherently wrong with these aspirational accounts, if they make you feel like you need to beat yourself up so that your body looks a certain way, or that you need to spend more than you can afford so you can keep up with your peers, then that ain’t healthy.

 

Your ex

This should be a no-brainer, but too many people still maintain contact with their exes for many reasons. There could be residual feelings. Or maybe severing the connection completely feels too drastic. Or maybe they just want to keep tabs on their ex (which, btw, is never a good idea, at least not when the wounds are still fresh).

Yes, exes can be friends eventually, but here’s the thing. Right after the breakup, it’s just not a good idea to stay in contact. Maybe in a few months you can un-mute your ex, but when seeing his/her photos on your feed feels like a punch to the gut, the healthiest thing you can do is give yourself some space.

And if your ex was a toxic scumbag who treated you like garbage, you shouldn’t even think about it. Block that asshole now and don’t look back.

 

Your ex’s barkada and family

When you break up with someone, you also break up with their group of friends and their family. This really sucks, especially if you’ve grown to love these people. Sometimes, breaking up with the friends and family even hurts more than breaking up with the ex.

If it hurts to see your ex’s friends on social media, especially when you think about how you’ll probably never have the same relationship with them again, there’s no shame in unfollowing for the sake of your mental health.

 

Toxic relatives

You may not be able to choose your family, but you can choose how much you see of them via social media. Can’t stand your cousin’s pa-intellectual political rants? Had enough of your tita sharing fear-mongering tabloid “news”? The unfollow button is there for this very reason.

 

Basically, anybody/anything who has caused/is causing you pain

You don’t need to be in contact with that boy who bullied you back in grad school / your former officemate who stabbed you in the back / that rando on Twitter who called you out because of your taste in cake. Why keep them in your life?

How to Know It’s Time to Break Up with a Friend

How to Know It’s Time to Break Up with a Friend
Cristina Morales | Aug 29, 2019

 

To end: some food for thought

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to understand which accounts you should unfollow. If an account is causing you emotional pain and stress, consider unfollowing and blocking. You may end up with a Following count of 0, or take a break from social media altogether, and that’s okay.

But take this as an opportunity of self-reflection as well. If your high school friend’s photos of her vacation to Europe makes you feel like crap, unfollowing her could be the way to go. But also ask yourself why you have this response to your friend’s photos.

You Need to Stop Being Jealous of Your Friends’ Successes—Here’s How

You Need to Stop Being Jealous of Your Friends’ Successes—Here’s How
Cristina Morales | Nov 05, 2019

Turning inward and looking for the root of these negative emotions can help you understand what else you can do for your mental health. This could be a long process, but for now, understand that there’s nothing wrong in whittling down your social media contacts so at the very least, your time online can feel safe and positive.

 

Will you be unfollowing some people this holiday season? Why/why not? Tell us all about it below!