Social media can be seen as a boon or bane for most people. For the most part, social media, as well as the internet as a whole, can be seen as beneficial. It allows you to gather a large amount of information that is good for your prepping. It also gives you a sounding board for any questions you may have as well as a large group of people supporting you in your efforts.

You can talk to a lot of people about what prepping problems you have or how you should do something. You can get a lot of great ideas for prepping and projects. You can follow a lot of bloggers, vloggers, and writers for more information and ideas.

All-in-all, social media is not a bad thing. That is if you use it well and wisely. The problem with social media can be a problem for anything in your life that distracts you from getting your work done or away from your loved ones. Social media can be very addicting. You can spend hours online mindlessly scrolling through social media sites hoping to find something to pique your interest.

Suddenly, that same beneficial social media has become a huge time suck. You start falling down a rabbit hole looking for information or anything to distract you from getting your work done. When you are prepping, you want to avoid being the armchair prepper. You may know a lot of information, have researched everything you can that relates to prepping, and you don’t really do any real prepping. If all you do is spend time on social media and don’t do any real prepping, an armchair prepper is what you become.

The other biggest downfall for social media is that there is a wealth of bad information and advice out there. Don’t get me wrong – there is more good information than bad on the internet. Many preppers really know their stuff and are more than willing to share good information. There is also some really bad information and advice too. When you are reading comments and asking questions, don’t be afraid to question the advice and do your own research. You will be saving yourself some hardship and time.

How do you make social media work for you? There are some simple things you can do:

1. Set a timer. If you set a timer for how long you want to be on the internet/social media, you can manage your time. Say you have a half-hour after lunch to relax and want to scroll, set a timer on your phone for 30 minutes and start scrolling. You want to research food storage, but you only have an hour, set the timer for an hour and go. When the timer dings, you bookmark where you are at and go onto the next thing. This way you have done what you wanted to do and are managing your time as well.

2. If you see an idea that you like or a project you may want to tackle, do the research. Never just take anyone’s word for the idea or project work. Something that may work in mild climates may not be a good idea for someone in the upper Midwest. Gardening is a prime example of this. You may want to grow citrus, but you need to have a long growing season or use a container to move it in. However, you saw where someone said you could grow it in Iowa. Doing your research will tell you that Iowa gets too cold for the trees to survive unless they are inside.

3. If you ask a prepping question online, be prepared for good and bad advice. If you feel that someone is giving you bad advice, you should again do your research. If you feel that the advice given is bad, feel free to question the advice and provide your own information. Most people can handle some friendly advice, questions, and debate. There are a few who can’t and you should probably not engage them when you find them out. And, again, realize that what may work for one person may not work for you.

4. Join some prepping online groups and forums that are a good fit for you. You will find some prepping groups online in places like Facebook and MeWe where everyone is pretty friendly and adhere to the rules of the group. You will realize that those groups have your people in them and you may find out that some of those people live close to you too. Prepping friends online is great, but in person is even better.

You may also join some prepping groups where some of the people in the group are highly critical, know-it-all jerks. If you can’t handle the criticism or think you have better things to do with your time, you should leave those groups and continue to find your own prepping people. Trust me, there are out there!

5. Pay attention to the hashtags. If you want to cut through the bombardment of information on social media really quick, click on or do a search with hashtags. For example, #prepping and #preparedness will bring up any public posts with those hashtags in the description. You can then just click on those articles and use your time more wisely.

6. Use the search bar to your advantage. If you are looking for a specific topic, most social media, like internet browsers, have a search bar. You will then find any public posts relating to your query. This is also a time saver because, let’s be honest, social media can be overwhelming and a huge distraction from the first moment you hop on the page. You can cut through the extra stuff in a hurry using the search bar.

Quite frankly, prepping would not be as far advanced as it is without the internet and social media. So many more people have been introduced to prepping because of the internet and social media. The wealth of readily available information has made prepping easier and even normal to do. Before social media and the internet in general, prepping was done from books and what you learned from your neighbor or your uncle. Some people had the knowledge handed down to them from parents and grandparents. Some people remembered what they did for shelters in the Cold War. However, prepping wasn’t mainstream and certainly wasn’t easy to find information about it.

Now, it is easier than ever to be a prepper. All because of social media and the internet.

What do you think? Is social media helping or hurting your prepping? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading,
Erica

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