Reasons to delete your social media
Dear Instagram followers, Facebook Friends, Whatsapp Pals and my favourite uber drivers: I deleted my social media.
Yeesh, that sounds dramatic.
But let me explain: Instagram was my happy place. It was my imagined online diary where I could share my best memories. It was a wholesome place where I could share a snapshot of my life.
Five years after uploading my first photo, I had begun to realise that the app, and my relation to it, was ruining my life. I already had an on and off relationship with instagram in the run up to this blog. For example, in my teens, I would uninstall the app, or temporarily deactivated the account whenever I felt my anxiety had ran too high. When I had calmed back down, I would happily re-install the app and navigate around Instagram for hours in one sitting. I somehow knew that my anxiety was deeply connected with this piece of technology and became to realise that social media had become more of a hinderance than a help in my life.
After reading (and re-reading) '10 arguments to delete your social media right now' by Jason Lanier, I had finally realised that I needed to ditch the socials, and live a different path of life. Even when deciding to do this, I felt the pang of letting go of something that society values to its highest degree. It still feels like some sort of social suicide to write an article on 'why I don't have social media', or mention it in conversation when someone whips out their phone to add you on Facebook.
The book I read was fascinating and gave some brilliant reasons to delete Social Media, but I found some of my own reasons when pondering the book that I wanted to share here.
Without further-a-do, here are my top eight reasons as to why I deleted my social media:
Why did I find myself checking how many numbers of follows I had each day? The number of people that want to follow me on an app doesn't represent their love or care for me, nor should it represent the happiness that I could have in my life. It doensn't add any meaning. What adds meaning is the emails, messages and phone calls I recieve instead. I was giving myself less-value by letting myself be judged on how many followers I had.
You think you're using social media for the better, but it's probably making you worse.
I truly believed that because I had social media, I didn't have to contact people as much because they would always be 'there' to answer a message if I messaged them. Therefore, I felt discouraged to contact anyone! The idea that everyone has to be 'online' and ready to recieve and reply to messages all the time is absurd: gone are the days where you can take some time to yourself and be alone.
It [Arguably] doesn't further your career. [unless you're a social media influencer]
This doesn't go for every social media. For example, I still use linkedIn to create well established connections that could lead to new job opportunities. However, for most people, Social Media decieves you into needing it for a particular purpose. For a long time I accepted the fact that Social media would elevate my career into some sort of 'high realm'. Turns out, since deleting social media, I am more focused on my career than ever and feel more optimistic about it. I am beginning to create more content for my Youtube Chanell and have even created the blog you are reading!
You're comparing yourself to yourself.
Many people argue that comparing your low-lights with other people's highlights is detrimental to other people's health. Whilst I believe this is true, what is less discussed is the idea that you compare yourself to yourself. Did you look happier last year? Did you take better pictures with more likes? The pressure to create the best self-image you can and keep up with 'good' likes is frankly de-moralising. It's something you don't need in your life.
We've all heard about how Facebook gathers your data, which you consent to by using the service. When I first heard about how instagram is using your data and camera-phone to look at your face ..I began to worry. However, this is only one part of the reason I left. I left was because I was obsessed with who viewed my story and who MIGHT be viewing my profile. I'm sure we've all had this curiosity of who is watching us, taking interest and viewing us. This only encouraged me as if I was in a race to try and present the 'coolest' 'sexiest' me I could on Instagram. Who even is that? Nobody, probably. It was toxic, and I'm relieved it's over.
You're not focusing on long term projects where you could be shining
If you're spending hours unconsciously scrolling through instagram in a week, you could be using those hours to do something brilliant and productive. You could be investing your time into a huge project that takes a long time to do that gains you high-value, instead of posting a photo for the short-term value.
Social Media Apps encourage a short attention spam
Need I say more? You've probably felt it happening, the yearning for more videos on Tik-Tok, more scrolling on Facebook and more likes on Instagram. And what does it mean? Nothing. The funny thing is, I didn't even know how short my attention spam was until I left social media. The feeling of being bored is also not felt anymore, since we never have to feel bored due to the vast entity that is the internet.
You should know yourself without social media, atleast for a few months.
I learned from Jason Lanier's book that Social media changes the mind, but not all at once! It encourages changes in small ways by using selected adverts, groups, and more. This last point feels so personal that I almost cannot describe it. But what I want to say is: I want to find out who I am without any external influence for a while. I want to analyse how I behave in a natural environment without interruptions from my phone and live a life like it used to be lived before the wave of social media.
This list is in no way saying 'I am better' than anyone else for deleting social media. People tend to think about this nowadays, which I disagree with entirely. We need to have people off social media to have people on social media. We need the opposites. However, through these reasons, I felt compelled to delete my social media, and write a blog post to help others with the decision, too. There are so many more reasons to delete social media, and I implore you to read more on this topic.
Elise
x
Comments
Post a Comment