Come on over, it is beautiful out here.
Here are five precious gifts I’ve acquired over the past 30 months without social media. It has been a slow and deliberate deprogramming, but I feel, at last, a sense of openness and relief as I am finally far enough away to see what I left behind.
In November 2021 I deleted Instagram—my last remaining social media account--permanently. This has been a life affirming, joyful decision I have not regretted once.
I wish everyone would quit social media, and I know we—people, families, friendships, global communities—would be better for its absence. Most people, I believe, feel this in their bones, even if they can’t yet articulate it. From the inside, when I was on the apps, there was always a nagging sense that something was deeply wrong with this model of tech-mitigated human engagement. And I know I was not alone in my disquiet.
After leaving, however, years later I can say that social media was not my life. It doesn’t even come close to resembling this lived, real world connection, let alone a web of interconnected supports.
I began using social media daily in 2017 after illness cost me my job—as a working mother of three I did not have time for social media until I became sick--and while the obligation was always a challenge, it came with the promise of connection, something I desperately needed due to the isolation of my illness. But because my activities were limited by disease, time spent on social media meant I did not have energy to seek out friends or support groups in my local community. Again and again I chose social media for engagement, telling myself that the ease and convenience outweighed any negatives. I became more isolated, which meant reliance on social media for friendship, work and information.
Without social media eating at my days I have been able to reclaim time, space, presence, privacy and joy in my real life.
So, yes, I’ve found that life is better out here in the real world, but the purpose of this essay is not to preach about why you need to quit social media, too. You likely already know all the reasons, and if you don’t I’ve written about them extensively elsewhere.
No, instead I wish to entice you with the blessings, joys and powers that have become so evident as a result of eliminating social media from my life. The further out I am from social media the more visible the gifts have become.
First, a definition for clarity:
Social media is, to me, any for-profit algorithmically driven platform that encourages so-called “social” engagement but whose actual purpose is to increase advertising revenue and maximize data collection.
Many platforms, including ones I still use, have community features—message boards, posts, conversation threads-- but I do not consider these to be “social media” because they are not algorithmically driven, do not collect and sell user data and are not riddled with advertising, influencers, “sponsored posts,” etc.
So Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, X, are all, by this definition, social media. My school on Teachable, with message boards, a private student Mighty Network and my personal Patreon, are not. Substack—which hosts my quarterly newsletter—is in a bit of a murky area as the somewhat new “Notes” feature uses an algorithm, and could thus cross over into the social media definition, but the platform does not yet employ predatory advertising and data collection and I don’t use Notes. The original newsletter service on Substack is all I currently employ.
I’ve also already written quite a lot about personal choice when it comes to social media. But after watching people struggle with the “stay or go” conundrum, it seems right to follow the golden rule:
If I was still on social media I would want someone to convince me to step away.
May this be your blessing, your calling, your permission.
#1. The Gift of Time
One of the things I hear most often as a writing mentor and educator is how people wish they had time for creative work. They want to write, create curriculum, make music, paint, draw, and they want to do these things in a substantive way, to craft a legacy and make something tangible from their efforts. But they get overwhelmed by the scope of a large project, like a book, and often look for the “perfect time and place” before they will begin creating.
I have learned there is, not ever, a perfect time and place. There is only now. If you are a worker, a caregiver, a parent, a patient, a partner, you will likely never have boundless time to complete a large creative masterpiece. Instead, I suggest folks use micro practice techniques that can be integrated into nearly any busy life, and prioritize creative work, even if it is just a little bit every day. From these seeds grow dreams.
But any practice, however small, does require some discipline and the enemy of creation is distraction. It is therefore unsurprising how quickly people will abandon even a micro practice for the comfort of their social media feeds. It is the perfect way to self-sabotage intentions by eating up any free time we might have, and to thus confirm/affirm the constant mantra that there is no time for our creations.
With social media I felt the constant tug of obligation leading me away from the reality of life before me—my family, friends, creative work--and back into the tether of my phone and its imaginary, filtered worlds. Even without notifications the siren call of the app would pull me away from other tasks. I would tell myself it was “for work” and therefore somehow necessary. But the amount of time and energy I poured into social media was completely disproportionate to any outcomes “work” required.
Without social media, however, I find I have time to read, write, practice guitar, garden, play with cats, call family members and sit in the sun—all of this on a micro level could fit in the two hours a day most people my age spend on social media[1], and could spaciously fill the nearly five hours a day the younger crowd invests in the platforms.[2]
Life is made of time.
Time, in this life, is finite.
This is your life.
How do you wish to spend it?
What do you want to be remembered for?
If this were your last day on earth, what would you be doing?
At two hours a day, in an average life span, you will have spent two and a half years of your life on social media.[3]
Take how long you think you might live, and subtract two and a half years devoted to apps.
Without social media I have the gift of time in my days for practices that enrich my life and bring me into alignment with my personal goals. And, even more precious to me, is the incredible spaciousness I have in my brain, created by the absence of all of the things seen, heard and demanded of me on social media.
Which brings me to the second gift.
#2: The Gift of Space
The discomfort of social media was always present with me, but I convinced myself engagement was necessary, especially because I am a writer, self-employed, ill, etc. The unraveling of my illusions was at last undeniable in 2020. I am a very deliberate person with a neurological disability, meaning I like to think, deeply, and must consider, slowly, the things I am seeing and hearing. For me to formulate an opinion on a complex topic requires a lot of research, questioning, long walks and conversations with trusted friends.
But my natural thought pattern was no match for social media, especially in the dredges of the pandemic. There was no time to think—the sound bites and demands for performative action and expectations around what side of the algorithmically generated conflict you fell on, an insistence on slogan level declarations, the refusal to consider any different points of view or even ask questions—all occurred at a speed that was, to my brain, impossible.
I fell into any number of fallacies, arguments and corrections, felt tremendous pressure to be and act a certain way in alignment with things I hadn’t had time to investigate fully, and so much of my thinking during those months was anxiously filled with the thoughts, words and images of people I didn’t even know who were declaring with certainty what amounted to their opinions on social media. These people often professed to know “the truth,” without any substance or quality data behind their claims, and shamed anyone who questioned them or asked for clarification. There was no room for nuance, patience or deliberation.
Since being away I have returned to patterns of slow inquiry and curiosity, and because I am not constantly blasted with other people’s high pressure opinions, I can again cultivate my own. I read, a lot, and write (because that is how I figure out what I am thinking), lean in to difficult conversations with friends and family not in a spirit of shouting (which is always the volume I associate with social media) but in a loving desire to hear their perspectives. I can once again tolerate divergence in opinion, will not “cancel” people for thinking differently from me. And, as a result, I am also circumspect in how I express myself, knowing that those I care about might not share my perspective. I am able to hold opposing ideas gently, and am willing and open to changing my mind should the evidence warrant.
In the past two years I have changed my opinions about many issues where, on social media, I was once defiantly beyond doubt. It is a humbling and enriching experience, to realize I know so little about so much, to dust off critical thinking and research skills, to spend time with topics that matter to me.
My intention in conflict now is not ever to change someone’s mind, but to find, together common ground. This is a skill my grandfather taught to me, imparted over years of—sometimes intense—conversations together when I was a radical, opinionated teen. I learned from him that, as humans, most people care about the same fundamental things even if they disagree on the “issues.” There is little room for this alignment in social media, in fact, studies show that the most divisive content is promoted for clicks and we are quickly and intentionally siloed by the algorithms into impenetrable ideological camps.[1]
Recovering space to think about issues away from social media has meant admitting I was wrong about a lot of things, re-learning to trust my intuition and support my arguments with quality evidence. This has required getting out again into the real world, talking with neighbors, family, friends, grounding into the variations of real time human interaction. Having space to think and talk to others in real time has repaired my faith in human capability, and made my life more joyful, too.
Also, now that I am grounded in social reality my brain is no longer full of other people’s carefully curated images, sometimes hundreds a day, the edited mental candy of gorgeous vacations, worthy accomplishments, delicious meals, expensive clothing. My feed was not of real friends and students (though I followed many of those, most did not post regularly). It was other business owners, sponsored posts, influencers and algorithmic recommendations that filled my scroll. These accounts all embodied the purposes of advertising: to trigger pain points and provide solutions that can be clicked on for profit.
Because I am not immersed in the glossy world of Instagram perfection I am so much more satisfied with my life, as it is, however messy and imperfect. I am grateful for what I have, instead of feeling constant grief, compounded envy or dissatisfaction. There is nothing visual for me to compare myself to in the radio news program, the Willa Cather novel. I feel fortunate, blessed, even amid my limitations and challenges.
In spaciousness is simplicity, and it is a sweetness.
#3: The Gift of Presence
Some of the concerns I’ve had and heard around leaving social media:
I will miss out on events, announcements and engagements.
I won’t have an audience for my creations.
My business won’t survive without social media.
More is better and social media gives me more access, more people, more reach.
Leaving social media has required me to put my faith in Spirit, to trust that the people I am supposed to reach with my work will find me, and if they don’t then maybe this isn’t my work after all.
Within this faith, I know everything I need is provided and I will not miss out on anything vital.
It is such a relief to let Spirit be in charge, to really exercise surrender, letting go of external expectations, metrics, stats and opinions.
Not only this, but my life is no longer curated for public consumption, and I am no longer spending my days crafting messages and images to entice the consumer. I don’t see my life through the lens of a camera any more, or think about how each piece of writing will be received by, not just my ephemeral audience, but the algorithm. When I create now it is devotional, my offering to divinity. And I am not looking at my life constantly through other people’s eyes or seeking their approval in the form of engagement.
There is an authenticity in presence that does not transmit when we are putting ourselves on constant view, thinking always about how others are perceiving us. In the beauty, the shabbiness, the strangeness of our days, there is an intimacy that cannot be captured and exploited for likes. It is one we share with our beloveds, but also that we share with Spirit. When we allow ourselves presence with the day to day, by the view of our own eyes, the touch of our own hands, even the most ordinary thing—washing carrots in the sink while sunlight plays on the water--may be a source of gratitude and contentment.
Ethically one of the primary issues I had with social media was that my content, the creation of which I poured hours into, was being used by the companies to keep my followers on the apps as long as possible, so they would be exposed to the most advertising. My lack of presence in my own life was bad enough, but I was pulling people out of their lives and that became unbearable to me. I didn’t want the staged version of my imaginary world (which is what photos mostly are) to keep anyone from the power of the real world: sun on their faces, a child’s hand in theirs, wild roses in bloom, a cat curled in their lap, all of it in real time is better than anything I could post. I could not let my work be used to keep people from their own sweet, sacred lives.
#4: The Gift of Privacy
The fourth gift of social media absence is a return to a natural privacy, in the form of more intention and boundaries around what I reveal to strangers on the Internet. I still use online platforms to share writing and art, but compared to daily social media posts my current content is less laborious and more fun to create. Because my life is more my own, my work has slowly become less reactionary, and—at least in the process of creation--feels more authentic. As I have reclaimed my thoughts from the daily influence of the feeds, I have become quieter and more discerning.
I also love the privacy I have concerning other people’s lives, too. It makes my relationships deeper and richer when I don’t know what everyone is up to all of the time. On social media the sharing was swift and easy to miss or misconstrue. Now my online interactions are with people I am actually connected to—students, patrons, supporters, friends. Offline, my community’s activities, and mine, are revealed in conversation, letters or art, moving at the slower pace of true connection.
I am naturally a private person. I grew up in the woods and am from the last generation to make it through high school without home computers and cell phones. I was well into adulthood when social media took hold, and when I did finally get past my discomfort of revelation, I used social media for my work. Which created no end of challenge for me, as many of the people interacting with my posts thought that I was my feed and expected me to engage as a very different sort of person than who I actually am.
A stream of interpersonal problems cropped up for me on social media, most often with people who I did not know and had no interaction with elsewhere. They would get mad when I didn’t respond quickly enough, or in the right way, when I didn’t post the right things at the right times, or when I didn’t participate in something they thought I should. I experienced this anger, along with crossed boundaries, creative theft and invasions of my personal life in ways I never have in the real world. It was stressful and exhausting. Because I had a public presence in this public space some people seemed to feel like the typical rules of human relationships—respect, kindness, checking in—did not apply.
I also felt the deep neediness at the root of these transgressions—for affirmation and attention—which fueled constant, revelatory posting: callouts, nudity, angry tirades, exploitation. People are so hungry for connection, but the algorithm rewards extremity. Bearing witness daily was a grief—because what I would wish is that we could all have circles of real friends in real time, people who love us unconditionally and would give us real reciprocal focus. But in the absence of these relationships (or, occasionally, in the presence of them) we have dozens, hundreds, thousands of anonymous followers we push revelation to and demand response from.
I remember how small a circle of real world friends—colleagues, students, classmates, relatives—could be. I remember the gentleness of how information would pass between us: the excitement of phone calls, the anticipation of a letter. There was a great thrill when separated from a friend for a while in not knowing their business, and readying to share mine. I remember a specific lunch when I was in my twenties where I hadn’t seen my friend for several months due to her traveling, the joy in catching up, in choosing what to share because it would not all fit in the day.
One of the weirdest acceptances from social media is that everybody is in everybody’s business all the time. The assumption being that we share our “true selves” online in the same way we do in intimate, real world friendships. This is blatantly not accurate. Yet how many conversations begin, “I saw on social media…”
Returning to natural privacy has grounded me in my real-world relationships, and brought a level of nostalgic anticipation to each conversation. It has also quieted my days, protecting me from conflicts and drama, helping me to realize that most of my life is not for everyone else.
#5: The Gift of Reality--A Sacred Everyday
The final gift leaving social media has given me is a return to reality, the simple joys of real life.
There is no longer reality on social media. It has become impossible to tell what is real and what is fake, and any fragile distinctions that remain will not become more obvious in the months or years ahead thanks to the widespread use of AI technologies and continued economic incentives for fakery.
In my personal spheres I became troubled by the carefully curated spiritual posts. I had a looming sense that to make these things visible, to charge money for spiritual information, to fill a feed with constructed spirituality was out of integrity. Because an audience who is spiritually starved could easily mistake Instagram fakeness for sacred reality.
So I did research, which supported my disquiet, adjusted my own values and removed things not in alignment—but I still felt an imbalance.
After stepping away from social media I know the root of my unease: My spirituality, which I sought to share, is not able to be contained in a photo or caption. It is a living, breathing part of my everyday existence. And while photos of prayer, ceremony and ritual tools can perhaps inspire people to their own practices, they can also—even more powerfully—delude people into believing that spirituality is an Instagram feed: Endlessly beautiful, totally entertaining, full of things you can purchase that will make you whole and connect you with God.
In my experience, and in witnessing many other seekers, this only drives people to deep dissatisfaction, to spending dollar after dollar on classes and books that are never completed or read, objects never used, because the next shiny thing comes along promising even more connection/power/happiness/love/authenticity—for a price. The spiritual diet of social media is like cotton candy, which you can eat and eat while slowly starving.
Satiety comes from reality.
From prayer, practice, structure in the living breathing day.
From community in the parish or neighborhood and conversation over tea with kin and friend.
Satiety comes from work, commitment, daily engagement with time tested traditions, philosophies and rites. This openness to real life means admitting ignorance, embracing imperfection, changing course and trying new things. Lived spirituality applies gifts only found in the real world—including those mentioned in this essay--and it is hard—I still do not wake up every day ready to pray, I still have periods of confusion and doubt. But I know that lived spiritual practice enriches my life and strengthens my relationships. I know it is a process and not a product. And I know this process is not for public consumption—in no small part because the rhythms of lived spirituality, in contrast to social media commodification, are not photogenic.
Yet they have transformed my life, opened me to possibilities, and I do feel like sharing our stories and practices is important. But true stories are hard to find in a scroll of imagined realities that make us feel ever inadequate to the task of our own practice.
For a few years, online reality was the funnel through which we were required to engage. Covid lockdowns, fear of contagion, political strife all drove us to online connection at the expense of the real. And for years I bought in, thought it was a good thing, it could grow my business, save me energy, and I did connect with some fabulous people around the globe, for whom I have real affection.
But the costs have been devastating.
Prior to my health collapse in 2016 I had multiple circles of friends in the city I called home. Many were from classes I’d taught, or classes I’d taken, some from my children’s schools, the local grocery store, the neighborhood.
When I became sick most of these connections fell away and I was critically isolated.
During my disease remission in 2019 the first thing I did was get a job as a front desk clerk at a yoga studio. I was desperate for in person interaction and enjoyed every aspect of that job. I also started volunteering in the pediatric oncology unit at the local hospital, for the same reasons. I wanted to be around people after so many years of forced solitude, I wanted to offer my skills in the service of others. I made plans to return to school and change careers, to help other chronically ill people.
Then the pandemic hit. Online became not just a supplement or choice of life, it became life, an escape from the smallness and insecurity of our reality.
And because the apps and patterns we engaged with then are now ubiquitous and addictive, we have become a story wherein that virtual reality is preferable, still.
It can be challenging to transition back to the real. Real-world lived reality, especially in the beginning after being away for so many years again, has been difficult for me. In person interactions are messy and awkward and require a lot of energy and attention that I sometimes pay for physically. Internet interactions carry an illusion of ease—anonymous protection, curated content, speedy interaction and passive consumption are all more comfortable than in-person connection.
But reality, with all of its discomfort, has been better for my health. Returning to the world consciously, daily is a wholeness, a restoration that is healing and rebuilding what I have needed these many years: a web of living support.
And, in spite of the physical consequences, it is totally worth it to drive fifteen minutes to visit my counselor’s office each week, to see my doctors in-person, to meet a friend or former student for tea. It is worth more, for sure, whatever the consequence, than the flat screen glitchy challenges of endless Zoom calls. It is not the people on the other end that are the problem—I hope many of my online connections continue through letters and in person visits--is the devices that separate us, and keep us from the people of our places.
My intention with this essay is to inspire, and also to share this vision:
Of real lived experience, in real experiential community.
Of a commitment to reality, eschewing AI intervention in favor of human creation by human hands.
Of real social experiences that recommit us to our locality, to the visitation of the sick and disabled, to decreasing human loneliness and honoring our shared places on earth.
Of remembering life before social media, telling stories of that life (my kids were especially inspired by the life adventures of their nonagenarian great-grandparents) and helping those who don’t remember—anyone born after 2010, or those older with tech induced amnesia—to have the option of this experience now.
Reality is a life our grandparents would recognize, and their kin before them, and theirs before that. We are in a lineage of time and space, of lives and deaths, and this awareness can make us hold our own life as a precious and uncertain accumulation of hours.
Your ancestors might remind you that death is always at the edge of our short lives, and being so near to death (even if we don’t wish to see it), we might be tempted to ask each other:
To what will you devote the hours of your day?
By this and every effort may the balance be regained.
With love.
[1] Wong, Belle J.D, "Top Social Media Trends and Statistics of 2024." Forbes, May 18, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/social-media-statistics/
[2] De Angeles, Tori, "Teens are spending nearly 5 hours a day on social media. Here are the mental health outcomes." American Psychological Association, April 1, 2024. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/04/teen-social-use-mental-health
[4] SMITHA MILLI, MICAH CARROLL, YIKE WANG, SASHRIKA PANDEY, SEBASTIAN ZHAO & ANCA DRAGAN, "Engagement, User Satisfaction, and the Amplification of Divisive Content on Social Media." Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, January 3, 2024. https://knightcolumbia.org/content/engagement-user-satisfaction-and-the-amplification-of-divisive-content-on-social-media
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