Sometimes the best thing to do, to get the most of our time online, is go through the list of people we follow and our subscriptions to reorganize them. Make sure everyone we follow and subscribe to has some positive impact on our lives, besides just useless entertainment. Unfollow or unsubscribe to any account deemed useless, while also making sure to follow accounts and personalities, which produce beneficial content, like how to learn a new skill or honest news. During this phase, of trying to improve our use of internet time, it’s important to pay attention to what we take in, and actually consider how useful the content we take in actually is.

The next step is to find ways to enjoy your qualities content and subscription in a more efficient way. For instance, if you watch an educational video, make sure you actually process the information, and remember it. Not only are making notes and documentation of what we learn important but also acting on that information is as well. If we wanted to learn how to bake a certain type of dish, it would make sense that we would go online to either get some recipes or watch some DIY cooking/baking videos. If we don’t take that actual knowledge and apply it to real world scenarios. Even if we do spend time watching videos, take time to reflect and possibly take notes, as to keep alert and focus on learning, instead of using educational marital to zone out to. Zoning out to educational material instead of learning from it, is just as useless as watching something educational to zone out to.

To live a positive life, one needs a healthy network of friends to build their social lives on. It’s the foundation of communication. It’s how we live as humans, with each of us having to interact with each other, to both survive and thrive. If we choose to cut ourselves off from other people socially, not only will we be lonely and depressed, but it won’t negate from formal negative interaction we already have regular interactions with. If one wants to not only just live, but also thrive as human, building healthy connections that we can network and build relationships with. Building social relationships is the first step in any other type of relationship. The internet makes the initial steps of building these relationships so much easier.

There are many different groups out there online, with different types of themes and communities, where people can meet people with related goals and interests. Most of the time these groups are there, and they act very leisurely, but it’s amazing how useful these social media groups can be to someone who knows how to use them. Even online groups such as 4chan have been able to solve mysteries, that others struggled with, such as the Portland protest shooting.

The internet can be a vice, but it can also be a very powerful tool.