We live in the age of connection…Or do we?
There are more ways of interacting with people today than ever before, and yet so many people feel alone. I was quickly becoming one of them. I scrutinized every photo I dared consider posting on Instagram, I hid every semi-unattractive photo of myself on Facebook from my friends’ view, I weighed the consequences of every retweet.
But as I came to realize this summer, I have a choice in all of this. I do in fact get a say in whether or not I feed into this social media culture. I chose to take myself out of it. Here’s why, here’s how, here’s where I am.
Why
When people ask, I always begin by telling them that I deleted my account because scrolling through Instagram made me feel really bad about myself. As I type this, I’m considering ending the article with simply that. Because really what need is there for any other reason? But I’ll elaborate.
I was incapable of seeing a picture of another girl and not thinking about how she might be prettier than me. I was always jealous of all the likes and comments others got. One picture of a group of friends could make me feel like a nobody. I was never as good as the people I followed.
In addition, I’d check the app upwards of 10 times a day. Not only was I investing time into something that brought me no happiness, I was investing a lot of time into it.
Beyond Instagram, I deleted Facebook because it just wasn’t something I used anymore and more of something I kept out of some kind of unspoken obligation. As if I owed it to the world to have an account. Twitter was simply the app I opened when I wanted to procrastinate or waste time--both things I want to do less of.
I noticed I didn’t use the apps because I enjoyed them but because I felt I had to put on a display for other people. I didn't want to be that person anymore. I wanted to live my life in reality happily, even if that meant sacrificing the virtual life I had become so accustomed to.
Lastly, I wanted to maintain a certain level of humility as I embarked in early September on what will be a year of volunteering abroad - beginning with three months in Madrid, Spain. I neither wanted to exploit the program I'm working with or the beauty of this country by focusing only on what would make the perfect post.
How
Deleting Facebook was my first (baby) step, and after, I felt a wave of clarity. It was like there was a closet in my mind packed full of boxes and I had just thrown everything out. I wanted to clean more.
So, a month later, I deleted my Twitter. Still fairly easy, but a bit more challenging because I knew it meant that in situations where I’d normally use the app as a social crutch (scrolling through it while waiting for my friends at the movies so I didn't look like a total loser, for example) I could no longer do so.
Finally, a few weeks later I began the process of deleting Instagram. This one was hard. I felt like I had put so much into it the last few years. I was in deep - I spent time picking a color theme, orchestrating posts, planning layouts - everything. And how would I know what my friends were up to if I no longer had my account?
But something very important occurred to me - almost all of the photos on my Instagram were ones I posted with the intention of gaining praise from other people, not because they stood for very remarkable moments. In fact, the only occasions I would have time to set up a shot worthy of my Instagram were the ones that weren't that exciting or enjoyable - during the times that were I never acknowledged my phone.
In addition, I'd like to emphasize something: I seriously wondered how I would know what my friends were doing without the aid of social media. I had come to terms with no longer seeing posts from my acquaintances (or worse, people who I followed that I didn’t know at all) in fact, I didn’t want to. But my friends, that was different.
In reality, though, if I don’t know what my friends are doing without seeing their posts, how good of friends are we? And if their Instagram accounts are anything like mine, how accurate of a depiction of their life was it anyhow? So at first I only scrolled through once every day or two.
Then I deleted the app off my phone.
Finally, I called it quits on the whole thing and deleted my account from my laptop. The immediate relief was indescribable. I couldn’t believe I hadn't done it sooner. It was like I had taken back the fullness of my life by only being in the present and not having an internet trail behind me.
Where I Am
As a disclaimer, I’m not totally disconnected. I still use Snapchat with my closest friends, I share photos from my life on VSCO (which I love for its lack of follower/like count or commenting ability) and follow less than 50 people. I use Pinterest to browse mainly for style inspiration, and I check Tumblr (which no one but four friends knows my username) every once in a while.
Still, most of my friends think what I did was crazy. But I’ve also gotten some really positive responses too. I’ve had people tell me they experience similar feelings when using social media or have shared stories of people they've known that had flawless posts but were miserable in real life. One friend even told me she wishes she had the courage to delete her own accounts.
Social media life isn’t real life. I was so scared to admit that for so long. I thought it made me sound like I was trying really hard to sound grown up or like I was bashing my generation.
To be clear, I’m not. I had a lot of fun with my social media for a while. Sometimes we simply outgrow things. Keeping the apps solely because I felt like I needed to in order to be a “normal” person of society would be senseless.
I do understand their usefulness. Instagram and Facebook and Twitter are great for some people - they use them responsibly and do great things with them. I’m no longer ashamed to say I was not one of those people. In fact, the majority of people aren’t those people. If we can own up to it, we can change it.
It can be very difficult to separate what something appears to be from what it actually is. I no longer had the energy to spend my time trying to do just that with social media. So I got out. And life is clearer and more interesting than it was before. Now I don’t get sucked into wasting hours of my life obsessing over my online appearance. I can spend my time doing things that will help me improve myself - which will be especially important as I enter a new stage in my life.
Yes, I deleted social media. No, I'm not looking back.
