The Real Reason You Should Delete Social Media

Social media is always a hot topic.

‘Delete social media because of x y and z’

‘Social media is ruining your life and when I deleted social media everything went well.’

There’s all kinds of information on this same idea.

We hear this take all the time in, ironically, the internet.

However, today I wanted to give you a different reason why you should consider removing social media or stepping away from it in some ways.

I have/had quite an average relationship with social media.

You get into it and you try your best to make your life look good. To be aesthetic and to have as many likes and followers as possible. With time, you accumulate a lot of people in your timeline you don’t really talk to or actually care about anymore.

Social media is fairly new and we don’t know how impactful it is to have so much access to so many people, whether we know them in real life or not.

That’s why one of the main reasons you should delete your social media may not be the fact that they are distracting (which is a super important valid reason to consider).

It might also be, to avoid being mentally occupied with what other people are doing. That will also help you focus on your life and your goals.

It’s going to help you see clearer the people who are worth it and who truly care about you. I talk more about this topic in this article.

On December 22nd, 2023 I deleted BeReal and my personal Instagram account. It hasn’t been that long but the effects of not being connected and aware of what people are doing were evident.

Here are some things I realized:

I thought about what people were doing all the time.

Yes, even when I thought I was focusing on myself. This was one of my issues with Bereal.

On one hand, I loved being in touch with my friends abroad through the app. Bereal is way better for that. However, on the other hand, that led me to think about them every single second of the day.

I was always like, ‘that place is so nice’, ‘who are those people they are hanging out with now?’, ‘oh I wish I was there with them’ and a long etcetera. That was distracting me from my goals even if I wasn’t aware.

I had lots of useless interactions and conversations.

Replying to stories with heart eyes, sending reels or memes, sending faces to Bereals, writing or replying to IG notes… It’s all useless.

I also realized that many of the conversations that I had could only happen in the context of the social media platforms. That most people could literally forget my existence if I wasn’t active on the gram or if I missed my Bereal too many days in a row. That wouldn’t be personal but it’s true.

I’m still learning a lot and trying to navigate them. At the end of the day, these are corporations that are fighting for our attention which means more money to them. I love many aspects of social media but stepping away from it is helping me so much to grow and learn how to make them beneficial to me.

Thank you so much for reading.