A Month After Deleting All Social Media

Hello blogg-o-slipitidoo, (I kinda like that name. I'm keeping it)

To start off dramatically, I deleted my top two 'favorite' social medias; Instagram and Twitter... permanently.

Well, for Instagram I don't delete the app, I still keep the account for online-shopping and photography but I permanently deleted my main account and side account that have connection with people in real life. I basically don't have social-life in cyberspace now. Except when someone comments on my blog or YouTube videos, or replies to my random commment on YouTube. And, to tell you the truth, I am content with it. In fact, I am happy without it.

As the 21st century girl, a millennial, someone who has been in touch with the technology for nearly 2/5 years of her life, I must admit I REALLY love the internet. I think it has become basic necessity of my life now. I barely could stand a day without it. I know, I sound like a basic spoiled millennial. Well, maybe I am. *sighs* As an internet loving girl, I too used to love social media a lot. Until 2016, when the negativity of it started to sink in.

I have one special social media which I love since 2013, which is Instagram. It went from latte-gram, selfie-gram, food-gram, travel-gram, snapchatcopycat-gram and now it's all of that combined, with a lot of advertisements. I'm NOT saying that Instagram is crappy or anything. I admit I scrolled through it at least 2 hours per day. It was THAT addicting. But, was it really because of how fun it was?

To tell you the truth, I've been bothered by Instagram for a long time. Back in 2016, I permanently deactivated my main account once and created a new one just because I honestly felt I should get rid of many people on my timeline. Like.. I hated to see their update, eventhough I chose to follow them. I didn't even try to think what was the reason behind all of that. Then, I tried to keep my new fresh account as private as possible by only following my closest ones. At first it was really peaceful but then, those people that I didn't wanna see on my timeline followed me again. I was feeling too guilty for not following back, so I followed all of them back. And I ended up with a long list of people I didn't want to see on my timeline  as my following. I tried to keep Instagram away for a few times by temporarily disabled my account, uninstalled the app, reactivating my Twitter account, etc. In the end, I still got bothered by it, though I still scrolled through my timeline and checked everyone's instagram story.

I've never really thought about my continous hatred while I was using the app though. It wasn't until that night when Sule slept over we talked about this matter, that I began to think about it more thoroughly. The whole conversation was like a wake up call for me that I should get rid of social media immediately. For what reasons?

First of all, it is one of the biggest source of stress for me. The cause of it is none other social pressure. The posts that people posted nowadays have been filtered so much that it only shows the good side of their life at all times. Well, at least people on my timeline. People look happy on their Instagram, therefore I have to look like I'm happy to be "acceptable". We all know the drill by now. If you want to post something on Instagram, make sure it is "Instagram-worthy". What is Instagram-worthy, anyway? A well-taken picture, together with a bomb caption. Preferably something poetic. It was all staged, even those instagram stories were staged to make it seem like we're happy, we're enjoying our life. It is honestly so... fake. How many of you have research quotes on Google for a caption? Which doesn't ever correlate with the pic? How many of you have record funny situation, laugh the loudest, and stop laughing right after it stopped recording? If you haven't, I have and I hate to see myself being fake.

In addition to faking hapiness, comparing my life to others had become another behavior that Instagram facilitated me to do. As I scrolled through my timeline, I couldn't help but compare, why couldn't my life be like her? It's her 4th time of the year travelling overseas, while I haven't even once this year. Why is everyone so pretty and I'm still ugly? He has became a manager despite being so young, why can't I be like him? Scrolling timeline used to be a fun thing to do years ago, but these days it only made me miserable about myself.

I also became a hateful person because of it. I even made unnecessary hateful remkars such as, "What's this girl doing, honestly?", "He's really full of himself", "He's so pretentious", "She's so fake oh my god", and many more. It has gotten to the point where my friends knew whenever I played with my phone and groaned, sighed, and said mean things out loud, I must've been scrolling Instagram. I hated to see someone joking with their friends on instastory, couldn't you keep it to yourself? Why would someone share their feelings on instagram story? Attention seeker much? Those mean things always circulated through my mind at least once. It was that bad, and I despised that side of myself so much.

Before I deleted all of my social medias, I thought to myself, "Is it really necessary, Hany? Nothing is wrong with social media. Maybe you're just one hateful and insecure B". I could just be happy for them, console the sad ones, congratulate them... you know. But no, I couldn't. I tried to do it but it was so hard. I came to a conclusion that first, I need to be content with my life while staying true to myself. WHICH is really hard to do with social media around. I need to make sure that I live my life for me, not for the sake of likes in social media. So, at the end of the day, I deleted it all.

And finally, after a month without social media, I can  say, I don't miss it one bit. We all can live without it. Deleting social media also comes with great advantage. First, I can channel my time for scrolling instagram to actually do something that benefits myself, such as watching videos on youtube about film photography, writing a blog post, etc. Second, I don't feel insecure about myself on daily basis. Third, I get rid of like and comment based relationships. You know, that kind of relationship when someone claims to be your friend just because you follow each other but never talk 1-to-1. I also encourage myself to innitiate conversation more with people I genuinely want to keep in contact  with. 😆

At the end of the day, social media doesn't always influence people negatively. If you can use it wisely and doesn't get bothered by all the negativity, it's good for you. In my case, I let the negativity influenced me and I didn't use it wisely. To fix this, deleting all of your social media account is also not necessary. You can always choose to change the way you use it. But for me, I think getting rid of it is the best method. It doesn't cost me much, anyway.

So, interested in joining the #NoSocialMediaClub? :p

-Hany