Muting people on social media is fast, free, and will change your life

I In general, don’t believe in life hacks. As much as I’d like to imagine that one simple adjustment could resurface my life like it’s a cracked tennis court, time and experience have taught me that positive change usually comes slowly and incrementally.

But there is one hack that I fully believe in. This one is quick and free and will instantly change your life for the better: just mute the people who annoy you on social media.

The process is different for each platform. Typically, you go to the offending poster’s profile page or one of their posts and tap ‘mute’, ‘snooze’ or ‘unfollow’ – but that’s it! This digital dusting will leave your social media spick and span, or at least less grimy than before. They have disappeared from your timeline, just like the various minor irritations they brought with them. And, unlike unfollowing or blocking someone, the muted party has no idea that person has been silenced, so you don’t risk any discomfort or drama.

I muted a handful of people. A few of them are people I don’t want to unfollow. Others I unfollowed, but I also muted them because someone else might repost them and taint my pristine timeline. One is a semi-famous person who was rude to me many years ago about something at work; another was rude to my friend. There’s also an ex and someone who constantly humbly brags in a way that makes me want to bang my head on something hard.

These people brought out the worst in me. When I saw their messages I felt angry, petty and small. I wondered how much it would cost to buy billboards along major highways, printed with bullet points showing how terrible they really are.

Luckily, I hardly ever think about these people anymore because I muted them on all platforms. Unless someone brings them up in conversation, I usually forget that these people exist. They have been weeded from the lush garden of my brain.

But don’t just take my word for it.

“Muteting accounts that repeatedly upset you is setting digital boundaries to create a healthier digital environment,” says Bailey Parnell, founder and president of the Center for Digital Wellbeing. This lets you avoid disturbing content without cutting connections, she says — a solution to those confusing situations where a relationship with someone is important to you despite their annoying online presence.

“This can maintain your mental well-being while maintaining social or professional networks,” she says.

This may seem like obvious advice. Still, it can be difficult to follow. The irritation we feel when seeing someone’s bad posts can be accompanied by a satisfying rush: look at them! Be annoying!

“There can be a dopamine rush on the back end of big emotions,” says Monica Amorosi, a licensed trauma therapist in New York City. We may start to crave the adrenaline rushes that come with content that makes us feel shock, anger, or disgust.

“When we live mundane lives, when we are understimulated, when we are bored or disappointed, consuming this material can become a form of entertainment or distraction,” says Amorosi.

Amorosi emphasizes that it is important not to create a “space of ignorance” on our feeds by avoiding different perspectives or disturbing news about current events. But this doesn’t mean that social media should just be a place where you can access disturbing information. Our feeds “can be used for healthy, positive education, connecting with like-minded people, seeing nuance and variety in the world, checking out information, learning new hobbies or ideas,” she says.

As such, muting is perhaps most effectively used against those who annoy you in a boring, mundane way – a pompous colleague, for example. Not seeing a humble brag pretending to be ashamed of yet another professional success won’t limit my worldview. Instead, I get back five to ten minutes that I might have wasted taking a screenshot of their message and complaining about it to my friends.

To be honest, I haven’t done anything with the time I’ve saved by not badmouthing the people I muted. But how nice to have days that are at least five minutes more pleasant.

So mute freely and often. And if you don’t agree with me? Just mute me. I’ll never know!