When I post my memes every month or so I will normally include a little snippet about how years ago I left all traditional social media including and especially FB and IG. I feel that for the most part my mental health improved dramatically once I went off the grip so to speak, and I believe other people will as well. I believe that social media, and addiction to it, is a massive bane on the mental health of all people these days, especially the young.
There were three key moments where I realized that it would be a good idea to step away, and then I eventually made the step.
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Your data is not being used for your benefit
I once worked for the US Federal government and the amount of data that we had on basically everyone was a bit crazy. Even though I was working for these organization, I was often quite appalled about how we were spying on everyone. I quit that job for a number of reasons, but this was one of them. I also became a bit more aware about how seemingly tiny details about your existence, should you decide to share it, will be compiled and used in ways that you would probably not prefer.
When social media first started, I would be willing to bet that it didn't have nefarious intentions but it certainly spawned into an organization that is constantly gathering data on the users and profiling them for certain things like advertising, which seems harmless enough because they are a business that needs to make money.
The way I feel about anything that is free, is that there is no way that it truly can be "free." There has to be a catch because outside of a few charities here and there, everyone and every organization is in it for financial benefit. FB and IG in particular, gather a ton of information about you, anything that they can. They then sell this information to anyone that will buy it. Many people justify this in their own minds by saying that they have "nothing to hide." Well, that is all fine and dandy until one day something in your life actually is something you want to hide. I don't really do anything terribly illegal in my life, but I do value my privacy to the point where everyone I know is well aware of the fact that they should NEVER knock on the door of my apartment. So for me, allowing all of my personal information to be publicly available, is something I really shouldn't do.
Wasting time and losing real friendships
This mostly pertains to politics in situations where I have seen people that I know in real life completely throw away a friendship that they have worked on building over the course of decades because of a political difference of opinion. This reached its apex during the Trump/Clinton election and I will admit that I even participated a little bit. There were people that I blocked during that time as well so I am not claiming some sort of moral high ground here. I just realized it was affecting my own life and just stopped looking at it altogether. In worst case scenarios, I saw people publicly denounce their parents and then the mob of people that agreed with them would chime in congratulating them for doing so. This is just an absolutely horrible thing to see happen and all of it was over something on the internet.
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Even worse things are said about strangers of course, and when i would see this happen with people that I know it was particularly embarrassing because I know fully well that these people would not behave this way in a face-to-face, ever. The internet has turned a lot of us into fake bullies and it isn't a good look. I avoided making things personal but most people didn't. The lengths that people would go to in an attempt to humiliate strangers, friends, and even family was just outrageous. I'm sure there are still a lot of people out there that engage in this sort of thing and honestly, it is one of the stupidest things a person can do with their time. Honestly, has anyone EVER changed their political views because of a shouting match on social media? I seriously doubt it.
The secondary factor of this is that people would spend what appears to be entire days and night on the internet engaging in this dead-end conversations and shouting contests and just think about how much they could accomplish to benefit their own lives if they had used this time to do literally anything else.
It seriously damages your mental health
This was the big one for me even though the others are pretty damn important. I had just gone through a rather tough breakup and was slowly working towards getting my head back on straight. One of the things that I did, and I am a bit embarrassed to admit this weakness, was to post things in my life that were - as i can see it now - an obvious outcry for attention. These posts were designed to make me look as sad as possible, although I am not so much of a dick that I actually called the girl out in any of them. When I would post, some people would respond with attention towards me and even send me private messages to see if I was ok.
At first, this little rush of attention and care was something that I enjoyed, but then I started to realize that by doing so with these clearly seeking attention posts, I was actually keeping the emotional wound fresh. By constantly talking about it and dwelling on it I wasn't allowing myself that oh so necessary time to heal and self-improve. Every post that I made that was loosely about my emotional state regarding my long term partner, it just reopened what little bit of healing that I had done.
At least I was able to recognize the problem and do something about it. I was one of those guys that made a post about how I was going to be leaving IG and FB and I cringe now thinking about it. It was just one last attempt and getting some sympathy but I justified it by saying that "if there are some people out there that want to stay in touch with me, to give me another way outside of IG and FB for doing so."
Once I did that I got to work on deleting all of my photos, many of which were of me and my ex together. It was the digital version of taking all of your ex's stuff into the yard and burning them. As cowardly as it might sound, it was actually very difficult for me to hit that button that was going to delete all of those memories.
There are other examples of social media damaging one's mental health such as the fact that everyone that has amazing photos of them or the things they do in their life, is lying to a certain degree. Their lives are not that good and they are using filters or just outright lying
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Here's a pretty famous one. I have no idea who that is by the way. People who are fishing for compliments aren't just doing themselves a disservice but they are also making other people who are susceptible to depression more likely to feel it. When you look on your feed and it seems like EVERYONE is just having an amazing life and your life is mundane and sad, you are looking at it wrong. These people that are posting airplane wings and feet in the sand are not living in the moment at all, but are merely participating in the banal online conversation of pretending that their life is far more dramatic than it is.
I participated in that a bit, and it didn't do anything good for me. When I left social media, I locked the door on the way out.
I stuck to my word and haven't been back on either of those platforms ever since. My new phone doesn't even have the apps. I'm afraid I wasn't able to completely get rid of FB messenger because there are businesses and friends of mine that refuse to communicate through any other means. That is the last tie I have to mass social media and it is one that I use as infrequently as possible.
If you've made it this far in my diatribe, congratulations and thanks for reading! The bottom line here is that I feel as though social media is one of the worst things in society today and it leads to the deterioration of real relationships, it doesn't actually enhance them. You might think they do, but they do not. Ever since getting off social media I find that I am more attentive in public, and I will also leave places and friggin go home when I am bored, rather than sit in public wasting time doing something that I could be doing from home.
Social media has succeeded in making all of us less social and that just seems kind of backwards, doesn't it?