Why I’m not active on social media.
I joined Facebook in 2008. At the risk of sounding “old”, Facebook (and the other socials that existed then) was a very different vibe back then. It was exciting to reconnect with peope from the past. I get the same dopamine hit when I work on my family tree on Ancestry.
Over time, social media has become something different. Overall, for me, it became a place were I would spend way too much time mindlessly scrolling and marveling at the posts and images that others were posting.
When The Social Dilemma came out on Netflix in 2020 I was reminded of this quote from Maya Angelou:
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”
It took me nearly four more years to actually take action and “do better”. One day, I listened to a podcast episode where the guest talked about leaving social media and in that moment, I deleted all social apps from my phone and that was that. I haven’t felt one minute of FOMO (fear of missing out), which is how I know it was time and I was ready.
I still have an Instagram and a Facebook page because I know that an online presence on social is important to many people. In a way, it helps some people feel that a business is legit. You are welcome to check the Insta page out as I have some resources there you can review and hopefully benefit from, but you will see I am rarely active on the page.
I do maintain a presence on LinkedIn and Pinterest. The former because I consider it a professional networking platform and the latter because it’s a search engine and drives web traffic to this website.
That’s that. It’s pretty simple, and I can’t even imagine what steering clear from doom scrolling and fomo situations has done for my presence and my mental health and wellness. It is my hope that everyone eventually gives a social media detox a try.
