I Deleted My Social Media Over Five Years Ago

On February 13, 2019, I deleted my social media accounts. I didn’t just change my password or stop logging on; I destroyed the data they contained forever. As a young millennial, I’d never lived without social media, and I cast myself into the deep end.

For those of you who are considering deleting your social media, here are my thoughts.

“Was it worth it?”

Oh, hell yeah, it was.

I’ve saved 9,130 hours, or over a year of my life, by doing this. Instead of my brain being filled with stupid internet shit, my brain is filled with the 308 books I’ve read in that time. Not to mention my wallet is lined from the results of the work I was doing instead of scrolling, I’m much healthier than I was as a social media user, and my relationships are deeper and more authentic than ever.

Gun to my head, if you asked me, “What’s the #1 thing someone can do to make their life better,” I’d always say, “Quitting social media.” Getting that shit out of the way makes room for everything else.

The conversation about social media online seems to be dominated by the ‘digital detox’ or ‘mindful use’ mindset, wherein one takes 30-day breaks every year or sets weekly limits on their use and commits not to go above those use limits. Having been social media-free for over five years, my first thought is always, why would someone want to use social media even moderately?

I’m not a monk. I drink alcohol, use marijuana products, play video games, and binge-watch reruns. But these vices at least have the advantage of feeling good. After you binge-scroll social media for four hours, how do you feel? Nauseous. You spend four hours indulging in one of the worst vices the modern world has to offer, and you don’t even feel good after.

Trust me. Even if you quit social media and replace it with binge-watching TV while chokeslamming an entire party-size bag of potato chips in one sitting, you’ll still feel better than you did as a social media addict because at least you’ll be having fun.

Another reason I recommend people take up binge-eating junk food and Netflix over social media is because social media is insidious. Eating potato chips for dinner and sitting in front of the TV for six hours is unhealthy, but you can’t do that while on the bus to work, waiting in line, or getting ready to see a friend. You either make time for those addictions, or you don’t indulge in them.

Social media, on the other hand, disguises itself in your life. If you plan to shower, eat breakfast, and hike with a friend, you still do all those things when you’re a social media addict, but they take ten times as long, and you never realize. Instead of your schedule looking like this…

1. Shower, do hair, get dressed
2. Eat
3. Drive to the trailhead

Your schedule looks like this…

1. Shower
2. Scroll for 10 minutes
3. Do hair
4. Scroll for 10 minutes while “waiting to dry off.”
5. Pick out some clothes, put them on
6. Scroll for 15 minutes
7. Make food
8. Scroll for 10 minutes
9. Eat
10. Sit after your meal and scroll for 30 minutes
11. Text your friend that you’re on the way
12. Scroll for 15 minutes
13. Drive to the trailhead

If your friends poke fun at you for being chronically hours late all the time, it might be because you’re addicted to social media.

In my experience, social media users find it hard to believe quitting can make that much of a difference. Even if their phones say they use 6 hours a day, they justify it to themselves by saying, “Oh, I was on the bus,” or “I was waiting in line,” or “I was just taking a little break from work.” They don’t see how these little breaks add to half their life. No wonder they can’t get anything done.

“Do you regret it?”

Overall, no.

I do not regret deleting Twitter (now X), Instagram, Snapchat, or any other platform, nor do I regret never making a TikTok. The one account I did regret deleting was Facebook. Why?

1. Facebook marketplace. Great place to score excellent pre-owned furniture for either a great deal or even for free.
2. After a recent cross-country move, I wanted access to local Facebook groups so that I could participate in local group hikes, wine nights, and other activities and make new friends.
3. Engagement announcements and baby showers. I’m in a phase of life where everyone around me is getting married and having babies. Even people who care about me don’t often take the time to contact me specifically with their news, so I need an account to keep up with the news in my social circles.

I ended up remaking one from scratch. But that being said, I am still glad I deleted it, took an entire four years off, and started from scratch. After four years, all my stupid Facebook habits were broken, and I started again by judiciously only adding people with whom I have an ongoing in-person real-life relationship — no parents of friends, no relatives I only see three times a decade, no coworkers I never speak to anymore. Facebook is quite a pleasant platform to use when you’re only interacting with friends who are actually your friends.

“What about work? Don’t you need social media for work?”

No.

I think the notion that one ‘needs social media for work’ is a myth unintentionally perpetuated by social media addicts. They can’t picture their lives without social media, so they imagine companies can’t function without social media either. But in reality, there is a world full of small businesses that reliably profit year after year without investing the slightest amount of time or money into social media advertisement.

As a writer, I’ve never needed social media. Amateur writers talk a big game about Twitter/X being a big career move, but I’ve never met a writer who broke through thanks to X.

I often help clients set up a basic social media strategy during my consulting work. But, cards on the table, I do this mostly because they’re convinced they need it, and arguing with them about it benefits no one. So, when it comes to social media, I do exactly what they ask me to and spend the rest of my energy on initiatives that will actually get results.

There are perhaps a handful of industries for which social media is a powerful marketing tool. Fast fashion and makeup spring to mind. But I work primarily in unsexy industries like financial services, cybersecurity, and healthcare. I have virtually never encountered a company in these industries of any size that has produced a sizable profit from social media marketing.

But even if I had, I wouldn’t participate on ethical grounds. I truly believe social media has an overwhelmingly negative impact on the lives of nearly everyone it touches. It would violate my ethics to participate in social media, even to benefit my work.

“But how do you keep up with friends who are far away or who live overseas?”

This is such a non-problem that it’s hilarious anyone even asks me this.

I use Signal to send texts and videos to friends who live thousands of miles away, but you could use Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, or any other messaging platform of your choice.

Your long-distance friends may initially be annoyed that you no longer want to use Facebook Messenger, but I promise they’ll be over it within an hour.

In Conclusion

Five years down the line, all the objections people give me about deleting their social media seem like lame excuses.

The reality is that people don’t want to give up their memes, fake news, and TikTok trends. Perhaps they arrogantly believe they can reliably identify fake news or stay educated from headlines alone, or they mistakenly trust emotionally dysregulated young adults on TikTok to deliver meaningful commentary on our culture. I don’t know. All I know is, people don’t want to quit, even when years of their lives are on the line.

If you’re considering quitting, please do yourself a favor and do it.

See you on the other side.