#goodbyesnapchat

I recently deleted my Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook accounts. Instagram and Snapchat were easy for me to let go of. Facebook, on the other hand, was a different story. Then Paris happened.

After the attacks in Paris on November 13th, I logged into my Facebook account and was nothing short of appalled. Man, the ignorance of some people. I quickly began to understand how group hate happens and it became so clear that although social media can be a great tool for reaching out to long lost friends, it’s also a prominent tool for the spread of emotional contagion.

Although I was disgusted, I couldn’t help but read through the word vomit every few hours. I needed to be updated frequently. I couldn’t help it, I was hooked! It was oddly entertaining to watch friendships torn apart by opposing views and to read through fake articles about the situation. As the days passed by and articles of WWIII and such continued to surface, I felt myself losing control of my sanity. I started to suffer from a disconnection to my everyday life which debilitated my ability to focus at work and function as effectively as I normally would. Strangely, I couldn’t put my finger on what was causing me to feel so out of touch with real life.

My final decision to cut myself off from the monster of a social media platform that enslaved me happened very suddenly. It came about as a friend of mine stepped into my office to tell me about a new Facebook war-of-words between a good friend of ours and a mutual acquaintance. It was at that moment that I had an epiphany. I realized that as soon as she walked in and went on and on about the Facebook discussion, my heart started to race. I started to feel short of breath and I wasn’t quite sure how to put my words together. My response to her was something along the lines of “you know what, I’m done talking about this. I don’t need the stress and I really couldn’t care less about who is disagreeing with who on Facebook”. She stood in shock for a second before realizing she should probably leave my office. At that moment, I turned to face my computer, opened Facebook and proceeded to deactivate my account with the following message to whoever reads those things:

In light of recent events in the world, there have been too many ignorant and nonfactual posts that I disagree with on Facebook. Over the past few days I have seen a side of people that I do not care to see.This country is being divided and social media has become the platform for spreading negativity from fear and prejudice. Sure, I could contribute to the madness with my own opinions but I'm smart enough to know that it's not going to make a difference. I am also aware enough to realize that I cannot control the opinions of others and I find it to be a waste of time to argue over the internet (a hobby many people find amusing). Being on Facebook has never improved the quality of my life and has, on the contrary, recently caused unnecessary anxiety because of the sheer ignorance I've witnessed from multiple people. Since I can only control myself and my actions, I am choosing to opt out of the platform.

Hope that was a good enough reason!

Just like that, the anxiety disappeared and the weight of my life’s stress felt so much lighter. Ever since I eliminated those 3 social media platforms from my everyday life, the quality of my life has improved. Seriously.  

I can go on about the amount of stress and social pressure we all go through by submitting ourselves to these new norms but I’ll save that for another post.