One of the great ironies in my life is that, despite not having any personal social media accounts, I am the social media coordinator as part of my job. Also oddly enough, I volunteered myself for the task because, quite frankly, I thought I could do a better job than the person who was doing it at the time. That was three years ago.
Once upon a time, though, I did have a personal social media account or two. Facebook for awhile, then Instagram. LinkedIn was in the mix for a brief period, too.
Facebook was the first to go back sometime around January 2011. LinkedIn followed suit later that year. I opened an Instagram account in 2012 when I finally got a smartphone and was living in Kenya; posting pictures was an easy way to keep the family informed. I deleted it sometime after I got back to the States, but reopened it again in 2014 and then deleted it for good in 2015. For the work-related content, I use a co-worker's login info, so even though I need to manage social media pages for my job, I still don't use personal accounts to do so.
I don't miss any of them. In the twelve years since I first deleted my accounts, there's never been a moment when I have wavered and regretted shutting everything down. Not once. I'm honestly not sure what circumstances or amount of money would ever convince me to open personal accounts ever again.
When I first started deleting accounts it was essentially because I could see the writing on the wall - me and social media just weren't going to mix from an emotional and mental health standpoint. I spent way too much time wondering if anybody liked my posts, commented, or followed me. It was unhealthy and I could see what it was doing to my self-esteem and self-worth. I was becoming obsessed with checking notifications, and the good Lord gave me enough sense and self-awareness to see that it just wasn't going to end well for me if I stuck around. It is the same reason I likely won't ever do online dating. If someone told me I had to choose between online dating or being single for the rest of my life, I'd tell 'em I would gladly go to my grave single without question. Burial plot for one? Yes, please.
So, goodbye social media. To this day, I still believe it is one of the smartest things I have ever done in my life.
I recently revisited the reasons why I kissed social media goodbye when I read the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. I highly recommend it. I rarely buy books anymore, but instead make use of the public library (more to come this month on my love of libraries). But this one - this one was so good that once I finished it, I went and bought my own copy because I wanted to re-read it and mark it up. There were so many insights and aha! moments about how my own brain and my attention have been hijacked by technology and the environment in which we live. It was profound to me what he wrote about and it affirmed my inclinations to avoid social media. (I also read Jaron Lanier's book Ten Reasons to Delete Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, which is a little bit more of a rant, but he provides some interesting points to consider nonetheless. The Social Dilemma is also worth a watch.)
Hari interviewed James Williams, a former Google strategist, and one day Williams "addressed an audience of hundreds of leading tech designers and asked them a simple question: 'How many of you want to live in the world you are designing?' There was silence in the room. People looked around them. Nobody put up their hand" (123).
Yeah, I don't particularly want to live in the world they're designing either. I'm not here to say that social media is the devil, but I think it's getting harder and harder to argue in favor of its benefits over the harm it's doing.
So, if you ever ask me if we can be friends on Facebook, the answer is no, the same as it was over twelve years ago.
But real-life friend requests are definitely still acceptable.
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