The Ryan Leak Podcast - A Healthy Relationship With Social Media

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

In this episode, Ryan unpacks what it really means to have a healthy relationship with social media. From the latest data on screen time to the emotional whiplash of a single scroll, he shares practical shifts that helped him move from reactive to intentional. Whether you’re a creator, a consumer, or somewhere in between, this conversation will help you evaluate your time, curate your feed, and take back control of your attention.

What's going on, my friends? Welcome back to the Ryan Link podcast, where we'd love to keep things short and sweet for you each every week. We always want to have an episode that we believe it's going to have value to your life. Today I want to talk to you about something that I believe is something we all have to navigate in the world that we live in. And I want to talk to you about how to have a healthy relationship with social media.

How to have a healthy relationship with social media. I've heard this stat, floating around for years that roughly 80% of people on social media are just consumers. They scroll, they watch, they observe, and then the other 20% are creators. They're the ones that are posting, curating, building platforms. Now, the exact percentages will shift depending on the particular platform that you use so the percentages can change a little bit here and there. But the patterns hold true.

You have a small percentage of the... users creating the majority of the content and the vast majority consume far more than they are producing. So whether you're a consumer or creator, you have to decide what your relationship with social media is going to be. Some people have made the decision to break up with it all together. I've been there. Yeah, I've gotten to a place where I went, I'm just going to be off this thing completely. And then I've swung to the other side where I've been. on it nonstop. And some people, they live there.

In fact, the latest global data shows that the average person spends around two and a half hours per day on social media. Just think about that for a second. That's about 17 to 18 hours a week, nearly a thousand hours a year. It's a lot of time. That's a lot of attention. That's a lot of emotional energy. And it's interesting because social media can put you in a very weird headspace. You can be happy.

One swipe, you're having a good time. And then you're just one scroll away from being angry at the world. And then you just swipe again and you're laughing at a real, your friend sent you. And then you swipe again. And then somehow you're jealous of that friend. And then you swipe again. And then you get ads for shoes. and next thing you know, you've purchased the shoes,

and all of that happened in under 60 seconds. You know the amount of emotions you experienced? Just in 60 seconds? It's interesting. I just did an event for Keller Williams called Social Mediacom, and a friend of mine was speaking there. Her name is Jazeel Ugardi, phenomenal communicator, by the way.

And as she was speaking there, she shared this idea that has stuck with me. She shared it with me actually years ago, but hearing her talk about it again, just actually reignited me wanting to do an episode on it. I've actually had her on the podcast in a different format years ago, but she talked about this idea of not being so sucked into social media that it controls your whole day.

But also not being so disconnected from it that you don't even know what's going on in the world around you. And she presents this idea just so well. She says, well, what would it look like for you to have a healthy relationship with social media? And that language has stuck with me for years, a healthy relationship with social media. Because the conversation is usually extreme, right? either delete it all or consume it all. It's like either you're completely off the grid

or you're like building a personal brand 24-7. But what if the goal isn't obsession or isolation? What if the goal is healthy? Yeah, what if the goal is to say, I want to have a healthy relationship with this tool that I believe really can, add value to your life. And for me, it's certainly been a journey.

I don't know if you know this, but recently, my company actually started a social media arm of our business. And we actually now help influencers and leaders grow their platforms as my accounts have steadily grown over the past couple of years. And so my relationship with social media has looked different in different seasons. There was a season where I actually would actually be on social media only on Sundays. I know it sounds so weird, right? But yes, I would only be on social media on Sundays. I would schedule all my posts on Sunday afternoons. And I called it posting and ghosting, right? So I would

download the apps Sunday morning, get on my content ready, schedule everything. And then I would delete it all off my phone. And then throughout the week, if I wanted to leave the comments or check messages, I would then just use Safari to do that. And I can just tell you this, social media platforms are not nearly as addictive or even user-friendly in a web browser as they are in an app. And so that small layer of friction made a huge difference for me. It allowed me to still be connected to people that are following me and staying connected to my, content, but it didn't consume my time. And understand this, these platforms, I don't think they're evil. Some people might think that's true, but I don't. These platforms are designed to keep you there.

They are designed to have you scroll for infinity and beyond. Consistent notifications, algorithms that know you better than you know you, and send you recommendations. If your back starts hurting, tomorrow morning. I don't know how. I don't know why. But the curvature of your vertebrae somehow sends a signal to your phone that all of a sudden you're going to start getting ads for physical therapists and chiropractors and gadgets that somehow make your backst. It's insane. It is engineered for our attention. So sometimes you don't need to delete it forever. I think you just need to create friction. Another shift for me, and this was big in just having a healthy relationship with social media.

I stopped following people who made me consistently angry, upset, or insecure. Like a big shift for me was curating who I followed. And here's the humbling part. The people that were making me angry, upset, or insecure were not the problem. I was the problem. I don't know if you know this. You actually get to choose the people that you follow. It's called a news feed.

Okay. And so this is something that's. something that is feeding your mind. And if you're constantly following people who make you angry, upset, or insecure, you are literally feeding your mind junk food. And so I just started asking myself simple questions. Does this account inspire me? Does this account educate me, make me better, or does it just fire me up? Can I just encourage you with something this week? Every voice does not deserve access to your mind. Not every voice deserves access to your mind.

My friends know this. Social media is not neutral. It shapes you. It shapes your thoughts. It shapes your mood. It shapes your perception of reality. I even think it shapes your worldview. And so if you follow 500 accounts and 50, of them are constantly making you feel less than if they are somehow agitating you or distracting you. That's not random.

That's design. And that's not Mark Zuckerberg's fault. That's design that you opted in for. And so I'm just going to encourage you to do two things to have a healthy relationship with social media. evaluate your time on it, not from a place of shame, but from a place of stewardship. Two and a half hours a day is not automatically evil, but I do have to ask, is it intentional? Are you consuming because you chose to or because you're bored?

Because you're inspired or because you're avoiding something? And secondly, to have a, I believe, the thing I think you need to do, to have a health, relationship with social media is you have to evaluate the people and the accounts that you're following. If your feed is your mental diet, what are you eating every day? Is it nourishing? Is it stretching you? Is it grounding you? Or is it just noise? A healthy relationship with social media means it serves you. You don't serve it. It informs you. It informs you. It doesn't control you. It connects you.

It doesn't consume you. You don't have to be at war with it, but I do think you need boundaries. I don't think you have to quit forever, but I do think you need clarity on what your relationship with social media is going to be. Make a decision as to what social media is going to be for in your life. Make a decision as to when you'll use it. Maybe you do weekends or maybe you do. weekend or maybe you just do it at night. Maybe you go back old school. You remember the time we had you know daytime minutes nights and weekend minutes with our cell phones. I mean you may want to go to

doing something that somehow puts a boundary up for your attention because your attention is one of your most valuable assets. Here's what I can guarantee you. Social media will always be there. your time and your mental health will not. And so at some point, you and I have to make a decision about what our relationship with social media is going to be. And my hope and my prayer is that it is one that you are proud to call healthy. My friends, thank you so much for listening to the Ryan League podcast. If today's episode inspired you or helped you in any way,

I would ask that you would share it with a friend. And hey, it would mean the world to me if you would take a moment to rate review and subscribe. Your support helps us reach even more people with the short and sweet nuggets of inspiration. Thanks for being a part of the journey and we'll see you next time.