I’m no longer on social media. I’ve permanently deleted all my accounts. Instagram. Facebook. Threads. All of it. Did I say permanently? Yes. Permanently. None of that pause temporarily bullshit.
The only account I still have is LinkedIn. I have way too many professional contacts to let that go. Plus, I nearly don’t share as much on it to make me concerned. The benefits far outweigh the headache of maintaining it. I couldn't say that about my other social media accounts. So..they're gone!
So why did I do it? No extraordinary reason. In fact, the reasons are so mundane that reading this post will probably feel like a waste of time. You know the reasons. We all do. By heart. Maybe, I finally understood the extent of privacy invasions and how little I was getting in return? These days there is little one can do to stop bad actors from harvesting every shred of data they can collect. There is no "I don't give you permission" button, only "I agree".
It’s been over 5 months now. I believe I made the right decision. But, there are some cons to it. The pros outweigh them. But, let’s evaluate. Maybe it will make you think of your own choices. Or maybe you'll just violently nod along in agreement. :)
Negatives -
Trends & Breaking News
By simply lurking on Instagram I'd automatically be aware of current trends and viral topics. I'm no longer able to participate in trends around meme sharing. I can't use that as way of connecting with others. I miss out on this and feel like an outsider when there’s a viral X post people are talking about. I have no clue what it is about and I find that even when it’s explained to me it never fully makes sense. It’s like an inside joke that you don’t understand unless you were there.
Do I have enough FOMO about this where I’m going to trade all the pros for this? Nope.
Cool Artists
Finding artists is much harder without Instagram. My social media usage mostly revolved around art and artists. Most of the original art I have purchased was a result of finding the artist via Instagram. It’s been hard to find someone cool just organically. Instagram allowed me to find artists all over the world. Missing out on this genuinely sucks.
I am not yet convinced that this reason alone is worth being on social media. It would take immense discipline to not do “other stuff”. The stuff that becomes an endless drain on energy, personal data, privacy, and time. But - if I ever do go back it will be for this reason.
Connection
Connecting with people over art. I miss this. So much. And, I’m horrible at being disciplined enough about connecting with people over art in person. On Instagram I had developed a little artsy community of roughly 500 followers - a small fraction of whom genuinely connected with my work and vice versa. It prompted meaningful conversations and I could tell my art touched someone positively in a tiny way. This was valuable. This is much harder to do in person. At least, for me.
But, maybe that hard work is worth doing? An intentional sort of connection, off social media, is probably deeper and more impactful. Perhaps it’s somewhat more real compared to the ephemeral kind we cling to on social media?
Positives -
Copyrighted Content
Anything that is publicly available on internet can never be 100% protected from theft but with only having content on my own website at least I can say I don’t give you permission to use my work without consent. Especially with rampant misuse of personal and copyrighted content via AI.
It feels icky to think of art I made from nothing to be appropriated without my consent by large corporations. And, for what? To generate khichadi (mixture) of AI drivel at a moments notice? No, thank you.
Time & Energy Drain
Now, I’m less likely to doomscroll through social media when I have nothing better to do. Waiting in line at the DMV? People watch. Sitting at a restaurant by yourself? Read a book.
Although, I will say this - I’m extremely prone to doomscrolling. After cutting off social media I’ve moved to Google News. Not ideal but at least it is not an endless loop of polarizing content. It’s still polarizing but it’s not endless. I find the bottom pretty quickly and then it’s just boring to keep scrolling.
Being Present
I didn’t realize how much of my time before was spent in thinking about what to share on social media. Maybe not everyone does this but I certainly spent a lot of time thinking of what pictures I could take, what articles I could share, what content by other artists I could share, going to events, cooking certain things, buying flowers, etc. All for sharing on my Instagram account. What for? To feed the connection starved monster with notifications instead of being present.
Now, did it give me pleasure to see people reacting to it? Yes. Did I capture some great memories on my phone accidentally as I took thousands of pictures just to share them on social media? Yes.
But, did I sometimes cheapen the moment by caring more about the appearances and the pictures? Did I get anxious about what people thought about what I shared? Did I try to portray myself in a super positive and forever peachy mood when it really was not like that? Did I overshare? Also, yes.
Privacy & Immigration
This last one makes me sad. I'm a brown immigrant living in US on a visa. Unfortunately, I no longer feel safe writing about this topic publicly. Hopefully, this will change one day. That I'm even questioning this worries me, but such are the current times we live in. Riddled in anxiety.
If I was being honest and I’m trying to be - that last reason broke my resolve to put up with the major data and content theft concerns I already had about social media. The equation is no longer balanced and so I’ve decided to drastically reduce my digital footprint. I will continue to post on my blog though.
Have *you* given this any thought?
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Sneha