During high school, I accumulated over a thousand followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. As time went on, I realized that I didn’t care about what other people were doing. I got sick of seeing narcissistic selfies of people I didn’t know on my timelines. Nonetheless, I
didn’t understand why so many people followed me but never even bothered to talk to me in person. As I began to unfollow accounts and posting about things I was really interested in, my followers began to drop.
I began to feel like an image or brand; nobody knew who I really was, but people only liked the idea of me. Finally, the day after my high school graduation, I deleted all my social media accounts, falling off the grid.
One of the first things I noticed after quitting social media was how much time I spent on my phone. As young adults, we spend hours on our phone looking at social media, messages, YouTube, Netflix, etc. You can go to any setting and find people on their phones. Apple recently added a new feature that allows users to track how much time was spent looking at the screen, which helps people finally notice how much time is spent. I was able to finally focus on the things I wanted to do. I was actually paying attention in school, and ending the semester with really good grades. It felt so liberating to stop looking at my phone constantly and checking how many likes I got on my Instagram posts.
Social media doesn’t allow us to live in the moment, causing us to essentially lose memories. People want to share every fun aspect of their lives online, whether it be what they’re eating, parties or any other kind of event. Personally, I see that every day with my parents who constantly say, “Ponlo en el Face!” People experience events such as concerts behind a screen, recording the moment for Snapchat. Many musicians, such as Childish Gambino, are now supporting a no phone policy for their events for this very reason.
People are growing up with these high expectations that have been created by Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. Social media is telling people how to look, how to eat, who to talk to and it affects our well-being. Social media is known to cause anxiety, depression, loneliness, low self-esteem, envy and other serious effects to young people, according to an article on Forbes magazine. We see all these people post about their wonderful lives, but do we really know them? We only see a select few images of people’s lives, but we don’t experience their true nature. Fyre Festival was promoted on Instagram as a materialistic getaway with beautiful beaches and models, and many flocked to the event for social media clout. The event turned up to be a depressing beach with old FEMA hurricane tents, being nothing as it was promoted on Instagram. This festival has become a metaphor to what some social media users are, just falsely promoted brands.
Every like, share, retweet, snap, is a release of happiness to many people around the world. These apps were created to be addicting, making it a digital drug. After quitting social media, I finally started to enjoy myself and the things around me. I built new friendships, shaped tangible memories and was able to do the hobbies I wanted to do.
