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Introduction

There’s no doubt that technological advancements, especially the internet, has made the world a better place. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have made the world a global village where online social interactions occur. We can now have friends in nations we’ve never been to and may never visit. It also provides endless opportunities for trading and business expansion. Therefore, social media is indeed a blessing for interpersonal and professional relationships.

Nonetheless, this blessing is a curse for many people. Social media isn’t evil; however, its abuse, just like medications, can be disastrous. Many people are battling social media addiction today, such that they are anxious when they don’t have access to their phones. Some people cannot imagine not using their phones for a day.

Meanwhile, social media platforms are full of disturbing content that affects people’s mental health. So, it’s vital that you’ve control over your social media use. What you need is a social media detox.

Unfortunately, many people that would’ve loved to regulate their social media use don’t know how to execute this plan. If you’re one such person, you’re reading the right material. This book is a complete guide that explains social media addiction, its ills, and how to control it. Therefore, you need to pay attention to every page while reading because this book has the potential to be life-changing. You’ll find quality information that’ll enable you to disconnect to reconnect. Are you ready to get your life on track? Here you go!

Chapter 1 - What is Digital Detox?

Activities such as yoga and meditation are gaining more prominence because they help people to attain inner tranquility. More people need them because it’s becoming more challenging to focus in the modern world, thanks to the myriad of devices and fancy toys we possess. It’s difficult to find a teenager in the 21st century without a mobile phone. Access to the internet is increasingly easier and cheaper. Indeed, it has many advantages. Nonetheless, its negative impacts are also numerous.

One of the ills of social media addiction is a lack of focus. Meanwhile, you cannot have maximum performance when you’ve issues with attention. So, it’s critical that you’ve control over your use of social media, and that’s why you need a digital detox. This chapter will explore how social media use can go wrong and how you can reconnect to your true self again.

Stats on Social Media Addiction

Indeed, social media platforms are parts and parcel of the modern world. We all want to be connected to people in other parts of the world through these mediums. However, when you don’t control the time you spend on these platforms, it will affect your productivity.

Social media addiction is a severe issue that’s ruining many people’s potential. Many people are immersed in the digital world such that they struggle to get to grips with the real world. Some people have friends on these platforms but struggle to commit to or maintain quality interpersonal and social interactions.

The stats regarding social media use and abuse are startling, if not terrifying. For example, the Nielsen Company reported that the average US adult spends around eleven hours interacting with media daily! This duration includes reading, listening, and watching videos.

This analysis shows that an average US adult spends almost half a day in the digital world! Meanwhile, many people spend around fourteen to sixteen hours interacting with digital devices, especially during holidays. Instead of using leisure periods for building a robust bond with loved ones, many people spend them in the digital world.

Moreover, this statistic is mindboggling because it reveals that many people only have around twelve hours left to sleep, eat, work, and interact with loved ones. Many people claim that they don’t have time for social activities, hobbies, and regular exercise. Besides, some people also struggle to have sufficient sleep because of their social media activities.

Meanwhile, the Sleep Foundation recommends that you should sleep between seven to nine hours a day. So, such people will not be able to have enough rest for optimum performance in their daily tasks. There’re many reasons you need to consider giving up your phone and devices for a while. For example, you may want to enjoy more personal time without interference.

You may also feel that your device use is becoming excessive and increasing your stress and anxiety level. According to a poll conducted by Common Sense Media, 50% of teenagers admitted that they were addicted to their mobile devices. This report also revealed that 78% of the respondents check their digital devices every hour.

The Dark Side of Social Media

Despite its multiple benefits, there’s a dark side to social media use. Indeed, these platforms aren’t evil, but people can misuse them to hurt others and also hurt themselves. The unpleasant results of social media abuse are as follows:

Insensitive Comments due to Anonymity

Social media platforms allow people to register without using their real names. This anonymity empowers people to say insensitive things that can make others depressed. Many people don’t realize that Twitter followers or Facebook friends have many reasons for associating with them. Some of these people you meet online don’t care about you or how you feel. Many people say things online that they will never dare to say to you in physical interaction.

Body Shaming

If you’re not careful, the media can make you feel horrible about your body shape, especially if you’re fat. It’s becoming increasingly embarrassing to call people “fat” because of the barrage of media abuse associated with the word.

Moreover, plus size people are often the butt of many jokes in movies and social media. So, you may feel bad about yourself and feel rejected. It’s okay to lose weight to look fitter and avoid obesity. However, it’s an issue when you’re losing weight to be accepted by your loved ones. Friends who make you feel worthless because of your physique aren’t worth your time.

Cyberbullying

If you’ve been a victim of cyberbullying, you’ll never be a party to it. It can be devastating to be the target of numerous verbal attacks from different people around the world. It can ruin the individual’s self-esteem and lead to suicidal ideation.

Unfortunately, many people face several backlashes online every day because of one reason or the other. The margin for error is slimmer in the modern world thanks to many destructive critics out there. They prefer to humiliate you rather than help you grow.

Social Comparison

Social comparison is inevitable when you’re exposed to many extravagant people who like to display their wealth on social media. Unfortunately, many celebrities are fond of this ludicrous behavior. They forget that many people aren’t enjoying the same privileged positions. Some of them do it in the guise of motivating others not to give up on their dreams. Nevertheless, these images paint a picture of life being devoid of happiness without luxurious lifestyles to many people. Meanwhile, this perception is a vague assessment of the meaning of life.

Digital Detox to the Rescue

Based on the DSM – 5, mental health experts don’t regard tech and device overuse as a mental disorder. Nonetheless, it’s evident that it’s a behavioral addiction that can pose psychological, social, and physical health problems. So, you need to regulate the rate of your interaction with the digital world. You need a brief period when you refrain from using tech devices such as tablets, computers, television, video games, and social media. This process is called digital detoxification.

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Chapter 1

Earning A Comfortable Living From

Adsense Reviewed

Technically, there is only one way to earn money from AdSense. You create a website, and paste the AdSense code into the pages. You then drive traffic to that site, and you earn money when people click on the ads that are being served by Google. That sounds easy enough, right?

It is easy, but it takes more thought and effort than that. What you must remember is that you only earn a few cents when someone clicks an ad, for the most part. That amount can be as little as three cents, and on up to five dollars. The most successful AdSense publishers are targeting keywords that pay the most amount of money.

These AdSense publishers use a variety of tools to find out what the high paying keywords are. These tools include keyword research tools, such as Word Tracker and Keyword Elite.

They spend a great deal of time researching those keywords, finding out what the top keywords are, in terms of number of people searching for them, and what word combinations are being used. These are words and phrases that they will target in the content of their sites.

Next, they determine which of those top keywords topics pay the most money per click. Those who have been in the AdSense game for a while are not going to build sites that target keywords that only pay three cents per click!

They are making a living, and three cents doesn’t go very far in reaching their goal.

These AdSense publishers use the tools that Google provides to help determine which keywords are paying the most to the publishers. Unfortunately, you won’t find these tools inside your Google AdSense account. You need a Google AdWords account for this.

You see, Google has two programs: Google AdSense and Google AdWords. Those two programs work together. Business owners use Google AdWords to promote their products and websites. When you publish Google AdSense ads on your site, the ads that are being displayed are those that people using the Google AdWords program have paid Google to run.

Fortunately, it is free to set up a Google AdWords account. You just set it up, and get in there and start using the tools that are there to see how much bids are for the keywords that you’ve discovered using keyword selection tools such as Word Tracker and Keyword Elite.

By doing this, you have access to the same information that the people who are paying for ads has, and this helps you to build more profitable AdSense websites.
This is a secret that Google won’t tell you about, and few AdSense publishers will share with you. Having a Google AdWords account is the key to finding out which keywords are going to pay you the most amount of money per click.

Choosing the right high paying keywords, however, isn’t all that there is to it. You also must have the traffic. Low traffic sites won’t make you a full-time living. This is why most publishers have more than one website.

They find the top keywords in terms of number of searches, figure out the keywords from that list that pay the most amount of money per click, and then build sites accordingly.

A successful AdSense publisher may have sites on topics such as fishing, weight loss, video games, making money, and more. When you have multiple sites, you can make a nice living with a mid level amount of traffic to each site.

If you have hundreds of sites, which some publishers do, you can make a living even with low traffic. So, here is some food for thought: The more traffic you have per site, the fewer sites you will need to earn a living from AdSense.

Chapter 2

What Is AdSense, Really?

In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussion and information concerning Google’s AdSense program at http://adsense.google.com. There have been numerous E-Books and articles written on the topic.

But in the grand scheme of things, it is a profitable program that still gets overlooked by many who are just coming online to start a business, as well as those who have been around a while.

First, let’s take a look at exactly what AdSense is and what it is all about.

AdSense is a program for webmasters which was implemented by the famous Google some years ago.

Essentially, a webmaster (a person who owns and builds one or more websites) signs up for an account with the program, and once they are approved, they paste the Google AdSense code into the pages on their websites.

Google then starts serving ads to those websites, based on the keywords that it finds in the text of the page. When a visitor clicks on one of those ads, the webmaster earns money – usually a few cents for each click. However, when a site has a great deal of traffic, and when the webmaster knows which keywords are the most profitable to target, there is a lot of money to be made.

It sounds simple enough, but it’s not really that easy. First, you have to be approved – and Google is picky. The good news is that once one site is approved, you have a Google AdSense account, and you do not have to seek Google’s approval to use AdSense on any other site that you own, as long as that site is within the Google’s terms of service guidelines.

Once you are approved, you have to know which keywords to target – the ones that will make you the most amount of money per click, and how to write (or have written for you) content that draws those high paying ads. Often, this is the hardest part for what are known as ‘AdSense publishers.’ When we get into this, the secrets will start unfolding.

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SET UP A WORDPRESS BLOG

Here’s how you set up your WordPress Blog on your URL (domain).

The first thing you need to do is to make sure you have a hosting account created. Your hosting account must include:

PHP 4.3 (or higher)
MySQL 4.0 (or higher)
Mod_rewrite Apache module

You do not need to worry about what these features are, it is just important that you make sure you have them. Try to get hosting at the same place you set up your domain.

In your hosting account you will find a control panel. In your control panel find the Databases option and create a new database. You will be asked to give the database a name and create a username and password. Keep this information in a safe place. This is your MySQL database that will store all of your blog postings.

INSTALLING WORDPRESS

Once you have the hosting set up and the database created it is time to install WordPress. Some hosting companies have a quick install option. If they do not all you have to do is download the latest software at: http://wordpress.org/latest.zip (for Windows or Mac).

Unzip the files on your computer. They will be unzipped in a folder called “Wordpress”.

Within the unzipped files you will find a file called wp-config-sample.php open it the file (it will open in any document editor). You will find instructions in this document. Change the text as needed in your editor (you will be adding the name of your database, username and password. Save the file and rename it “wp-config.php”.

Move each folder and file within the “wordpress” unzipped folder you created (do not copy the folder itself) onto your website host company’s server (your hosting company will give you directions, it is very easy).

If your blog is the entire site put it in the root directory.

Otherwise you will want to create a subdirectory for the blog.

You may want to create one like:

http://www.mydomain.com/blog or blog.mydo-main.com.

After the WordPress files are on the server go into your web browser and type www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php (or if you did it on a subdirectory you type www.yourdomain.com/blog/ wp-admin/install.php.

The software will then guide you through the last few steps to installing your blog on your server. WordPress makes it quick and easy to install a blog. Take your time and go step-by-step and you should have no problem installing and starting your blog.

SET UP A BLOGGER BLOG

Setting up a blog on Blogger is quite easy. The first thing you want to do is to set up a Google account for the blog. You can do this by going to Blogger.com and then following the link in the resources section.

It takes about 2 or 3 minutes to set up a Google account. If you already have a Google account you can use it if you wish.

After you have set up your Google account you should go back to Blogger.com and sign-in using your Google account username and password. Your username is typically the e-mail address you used when creating the account.

You can set up your account so it remembers your username and password. Only do this if you are on a non-shared computer.

Look for the “Create a blog” option on the dashboard of Blogger. The dashboard is the page you go to every time you log onto your Blogger account. You can manage several blogs from the same dash-board if they were all created with the same Google account.

You will be asked to name your blog. You want to create an easy to remember, easy to find name that makes it clear what your blog is about. Try not to have a blog name that is too long. It will be the first part of the web address of your blog. For example if you name your

blog
“Teds Tidbits”
your
URL
will
be: http://
[email protected].

The next thing you need to do is to choose your template. Blogger has a number of templates to choose from. You do not have to agonize over which template to use because you can change the template at any time.

Write your first official blog post using the template Blogger provided. Feel free to add a picture, etc. Once you submit that first blog posting you will be able to view your new blog, edit the posting, etc.

At this point you can personalize your blog so it stands out. Many different aspects of the blog can be changed, moved around, etc. Click on the “Layout” option and start to make your blog stand out from the other blogs out there. You can undo virtually anything that you do so do not be shy to experiment with different layouts for your blog.