In my battle against pornography, I have found success by removing the things that seem to trigger me: R-rated and some PG-13 movies, broadcast news, and time watching TV.  

A recent study found that over 20% of envy feelings were triggered by Facebook. Envy feelings decrease life satisfaction.  

One of my triggers for pornography is feeling inadequate or an inability to meet expectations. I turn to porn to feel better. Envy would be an obvious sign of this trigger.  

The study listed five options to combat Facebook envy feelings:  

(1) avoid friending people you envy  

(2) unfriend these people  

(3) engage in self-promotion  

(4) hide friends you envy  

(5) avoid passive Facebook use 

Options (1) and (2) are unpopular since they are counter to the point of social networks. Option (3) can actually make envy worse. The study described a self-promotion-envy spiral. As your self-promotion increases, your friends may increase their self-promotion even more leading to even greater envy.  

I tested option (4). I monitored my feelings from others' Facebook posts. I hid people that produced a negative feeling (i.e. anger, frustration, sadness, envy, etc.). I noticed an improvement in my feelings.  

I decided to test option (5). I started tracking the minutes I spent active on Facebook (posting, commenting, & liking). I divided that number in half and limited my passive Facebook use (consuming) to that amount of minutes. It was tedious to monitor but I found this was twice as effective as option (4).  

I decided to go even further. On a Sunday, I would not do any Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. I was amazed at the results! Since then my mood has improved a great deal and the overall amount of time I spend on social media is much less without even monitoring the time. That was only quitting for one day.  

What about you? Can you stop all social media for twenty four hours? Would you if it improved your life satisfaction and made you less vulnerable to pornography? I dare you to try.  

(Krasnova, H., Wenninger, H., Widjaja, T., & Buxmann, P. (2013). Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users' Life Satisfaction? Wirtschaftsinformatik Proceedings 2013, Paper 92. Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/wi2013/92)