We don’t actually have to be on social media, even if society makes it seem that way. I’ve been living without any social media accounts for around ten years and it has been fine. Let me tell you how my experience has gone.
Why I Deleted My Accounts
Much of what we know now about social media’s impact on our mental health and society at large, we already knew ten years ago. I experienced it first-hand.
Joy-Sucking Comparisons
I could be having a perfectly good morning but suddenly feel sad all because I signed in to Facebook and saw what exciting thing someone else was up to. My pleasant morning at home reading a book suddenly felt mundane.
But here’s the thing—I love to read, and if you ask me to define my definition of the good life, it would involve a lot of reading. Checking a social media feed made me feel sad about doing what I love.
I could be out with friends, exploring a new city, and having a blast, but that was not enough to counteract the envy that comes from comparison. I’d glance at my feed and see that someone else was exploring an even more exotic place. There’s no winning.
Insults and Arguments
As a writer for the web, I have a professional incentive to have a social media presence. I was brought on board at MakeUseOf because someone reached out to me via Twitter. Yet I found the act of promoting myself online anxiety inducing. I spent so much time deliberating over what to put in 140 characters. The stakes felt high when anyone in the world, at any time, could leave a comment saying something cruel in response to what I said.
I also grew tired of having arguments with high school friends that I frankly would have lost touch with had we not been friends on Facebook. I could have entire weeks ruined by an unnecessary argument over our opinions, politics, or whatever else. These arguments sting even deeper than cuts from strangers, because the person on the other end, at least at one point in time, knew who I was. We may have become strangers, but that hasn’t always been the case.
My Mind Is Now Much More At Ease
I noticed an immediate improvement once I deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Without Twitter, rather than thinking about how to promote my work, I could focus on the work itself.
That has worked out fine for me. I’m not an independent content creator. For the sites I write for, it’s someone else’s job to promote what we write. I just focus on them having articles worth promoting. I’m not the only writer here who, at minimum, has seen a productivity boost from not having social media apps on their phone.
Without Facebook, I have lost touch with those people from high school that I wouldn’t have kept in touch with anyway. That’s okay. Part of living a good life requires the ability to forget, to grow and expand beyond the people we were before we became adults.
Part of what makes families difficult is the comparison between who we are today and who we were in our adolescence. Part of what makes friendship so endearing is that our friends know and like us for who we are right now.
I now feel less envy towards others. When I wake up and go spend time in the garden, I don’t have a feed showing me that someone else has an even more beautiful one. When I buy a car, I’m not immediately shown that someone I know bought the one I would have gotten, had I been able to afford it. When I decide I like my wardrobe, I’m not surrounded by the most glamorous people I know, showing me how mine could still be better.
I Don’t Feel Uninformed
FOMO is a big part of what keeps people on social media. It’s how many people get their news. It’s how they find out about events. Yes, if you delete your social media accounts, you will miss out on some of the things you only see on social media. The inverse is also true.
By prioritizing social media, you’re likely missing out on the alternative ways of finding out what’s going on in the world. Time spent browsing a social media feed is time not spent reading a higher-quality magazine. Finding out what neighbors are doing online can make you feel connected enough that you don’t bother going to the local library and finding out what events are going on a few minutes away. Social media can make it hard to separate group think and perceived truth from the reality of how things are.
Rather than getting my news from social media accounts, I’ve signed up for newsletters. Plus, we are living in the golden age of podcasts. Anything you would experience through your own social media accounts, you can find out by listening to podcasts for news. Considering how it seems X has gone downhill, you might say they’re doing you a public service.
I Still Have a Thriving Social Life
My social life is better now than at any other point in my life. I have a set of friends that I regularly see every few weeks to play board games. I have people that I sometimes meet up for hikes or the occasional kayaking trip. I have people I meditate with, logging hundreds of hours on the cushion. For years, I practiced karate, sparring with people who felt like a second family.
I didn’t discover any of these groups through social media. I meet many friends through existing friends. Other friends I meet by venturing out into the world and engaging in activities that I enjoy, being delighted to find people who love the same thing.
I’m a parent. I have a wife and kids. I have parents of my own that I have a good relationship with. Life is good. I’m glad that I can focus on this without feeling compelled to post it online, only to walk away depressed that my social media profile may only have a few hundred followers or that I’m not getting enough likes and shares. I know there are people with thousands of followers whose actual day-to-day social life is smaller than my own.
I’ve Managed to Continue My Career
You’re reading these words. I’m still writing them. I haven’t lost my job since deleting my accounts. While it’s true that having a social media account makes you easily accessible for job offers, it’s also the case that quality work speaks for itself and deeper connections still matter more. Only a minority of us get jobs through social media anyway.
Social media platforms are just that, media platforms. They’re a way to get your own creations in front of others. They are spaces that make sense for influencers and artists. Professional use is arguably the type of social media use that makes the most sense.
Yet, you still have to weigh the pros and cons of the impact on your mental health. If you’re too depressed to love your art or to do your work, if the anxiety from doomscrolling is bringing down the quality of your overall health, then it’s worth taking a step back and finding another way to be. I won’t deny that there are probably opportunities I have missed out on, but I’m also happy with my life as it is.
Making any kind of big change comes with its upsides and its downsides. Social media absolutely has its bright spots, but many of us have looked at social media’s impact on our childhoods, families, and communities; and decided the net benefits just don’t outweigh the costs. Nor do we want our words being used to train the platform’s AI. Even if you don’t opt out entirely, you can benefit from limiting which social media platforms you use.
