Letting Go of Social Media Is Easier Than You Think

Why and How I left Social Media almost 9 months ago. And never looked back (or down) since.

I think by now everybody agrees on how badly social media has been designed and how stealthily it has worked to destruct our social fabric. Ironic, considering that their whole agenda when starting out was to “connect people.“ And yet, I do miss the old Facebook, the old Instagram and the fun-but-addictive Snapchat streaks. The core technologies that made Big Tech remain a way to interact and meet new people. Many small businesses were built on Facebook, real-time events were captured on YouTube, customers reached via Instagram, and new supply chains built.

Unfortunately for us, all that comes with a heavy and unseen toll. When these companies whole heartedly dove into the Advertising Business Model their main “customers“ naturally became other businesses (mainly enterprise) and Ad Generation their guiding star. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and even TikTok are insidious in the way they portray themselves as B2C when they are clearly B2B companies. While the common people who spend endless hours scrolling through their products are merely “users“ and “eyes“ and “leads“ and “targets“.

Source: The Value Engineers

When human beings are no longer treated as human, chaos is sure to ensue. The only thing Zuckerberg has so far left untouched, Whatsapp, is also set to be transformed into a torpedo for ads. All in the pursuit of growth and making wealthy shareholders even wealthier.

Multiple whistleblowers, policy makers, tech-for-gooders, and journalists have been raising the perils of using social media over the past several years. The first resource that exposed me to the Dark Side of Tech was The Social Dilemma, which horrified me and I swore to myself that I would never work for such greedy and exploitative companies. But.. beyond that I didn’t do anything. I continued using Insta and tried in vain to push content for my own small business. I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. But in 2021, as I continued working on creating solid content and timing, timing it all, there came a point where it felt increasingly futile.

If you’re a business, there is a small growth period allowed by the algorithms that enables you to attract new followers and establish a somewhat meaningful presence. BUT after a few months, unless you buy into their Ad programs, your content will strategically not be shown to your followers. Interactions were dying down no matter how much I tried to push content at the right time and right places.

Frankly, I was confused. I was publishing posts on female health and how to better take care of own’s body. I knew my content was good and I used Canva to make it look good. And yet, Instagram did not care. This made me dive a little deeper into what was going on and I found that Instagram made money from Ads, which from a business-as-usual point of view makes sense. One can’t get anything for free after all. But it also made me realise that the posts we see are heavily tailored, we are being tracked, we are analysed, we are stuffed into user profiles and shown content that benefits some company or product. Not the user.

The platform was clearly not concerned with sharing useful information or helping the community beyond a certain point. Maybe this is okay. I don’t know. But it didn’t sit right with me. I stopped using Instagram to promote my page, and focused on local word-of-mouth instead.

The other reason I veered away from Social Media is a BIG one. I felt that social media was making me slow. If you’ve read “Stolen Focus“ you may have some idea of what I’m talking about. But experiencing it myself, hit hard. I wouldn’t have been able to write this post two years ago. I had lost touch with my ability to create or think deeply. And I knew it. You maybe know what I’m talking about as well - there is a weird mental fog that can envelop your brain and prevent you from delving too deeply into any subject. I realised that spending hours scrolling on social media and multiple news apps was a big part of the problem.

Moreover, using social media was not good for my wallet. I was clicking on ads and buying clothes, bags, pet accessories, stuff that I did not need. It was merely adding to the physical clutter on top of the mental ones. Big Tech is big on Consumerism and no amount of green-washing can hide that fact.

My final inflection point came when one day I was traveling on the Red Line back from work. I got into my fairly packed subway and looked around for a seat. What I found instead was a sea of bodies craning their necks down to look at their phones. Some sitting down studiously ignoring the people around them and others hanging onto the hand-holds in one hand and clasping their phones with the other. Since I get motion sickness if I use my phone while traveling, I was safe from my phone’s alluring gaze. I looked around at my fellow commuters and felt a rush of sadness. Commuting used to be a social experience - a smile here, a seat offered there. Maybe even a chance for an organic conversation. But now here we all were, doomed by our phones. Ironic that technologies that promised connection was instead making us all lonelier and less open to real human connection.

A typical scene in a subway (Credits: Canva)

By that time, I had already set App Limits on my phone. And enabled screen time notifications. But more often that not I would ignore these little prompts, and tap that inviting green button that says “Allow for 1 minute“, which slips into “Allow for 15 minutes“ and which slide into the bottomless “Allow for 1 day.“

One good thing from using these tools was that I slowly got used to moving away from social media. My usage was reducing. And thoughts of opening up Instagram were fewer and far between. All this helped when ultimately after that day on the subway, I unceremoniously deleted all the social media apps from my phone. Even LinkedIn. Now if I want to use any of these platforms, I log in from my desktop. And I added in another cumbersome barrier - I didn’t save my passwords.

Now after nearly a year, the result is that I hardly think about social media. The times I used to click through stories and tap next, next, next, feels very much in the past. I’m also grateful that I was not on Instagram these past few months while being laid off. (IYKYK)

In Conclusion,

Even though the problem is tied to our capitalist and consumerist system, waiting around for a system-wide solution or even a company level solution is not going to help us individually. At this moment. We have to each recognise our role in these ecosystems and moderate our own usage. We owe these companies nothing. Our lives can go on, our business can still thrive. It is a fallacy to think that we need these apps to “live“. Maybe some do. But I want to believe that most people do not.

More importantly, its time we look around and take advantages of the connections and community available right around us. The feelings derived from actual physical interactions with people (and animals) trumps social media ones any day. Besides, our brains deserve a break.

Enough context switching, enough infinite scrolls, enough click baits.

And don’t even get me started on how bad Social Media is for our mental health, especially women. When Zuckerberg knows and is willingly pushed forth tools that harm our mental health, his apps deserve no more of our time, energy, mental health or money.

Apologies for the rant. If you want to shut down Substack and take a breath, please, do.

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More Reading if you’re interested:

1. Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig.

2. Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

3. The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher

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Thanks for reading this post! As usual I appreciate any comments or feedback that you may have.