Why I Want to Quit Social Media

I was born in March 1996, putting me in this weird space between Millennials and Generation Z. Actually, in the movie I watched last night, the main character referred to herself as a "zillennial." Maybe that's what I am. Either way, I cringe at the thought of fitting myself into an era-specific box where I can only like certain things and hold specific opinions.

I wanted you to know this before diving into this piece because I don't really remember a time without social media. It's crazy to think that the internet and social media have been around for that long, but MySpace was founded in 2003, just seven years into my existence.

Now I have to be honest with you and tell you that I never used MySpace. I spent a lot of time on the computer and internet from a pretty young age, but I didn't get into social media until Facebook came around. It was launched in 2004, and I joined in 2007. By the end of high school, I had all of the accounts — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube, Snapchat, etc. (yes, I even had Vine).

I feel like I expressed myself differently on every single one of those platforms. On Facebook, I was family-friendly. On YouTube, I expressed my creative side by posting singing videos. Snapchat was where I shared some of my most intimate moments. I felt like a mosaic of a person — not completely whole, but composed of different pieces and parts that someone else might want to love one day. And if you knew me at all when I was young, you knew that I just wanted someone to love me.

It's not like I didn't get love and affection when I was young. I honestly don't really know what happened, but somewhere along my journey of growing up, I began to love myself less and hate myself more. Social media helped because I could post a pretty picture on Instagram and have people like it, maybe even compliment me. It was instant gratification. If I didn't have a picture, I had my words. At any point, when I was feeling lost and lonely, there was always some way that I could show myself to the world and get a few snaps from the audience. So I began to doubt all of my own decisions and choices, because if I didn't do it in a public arena, why did it matter? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it even make a noise?

It may or may not make any noise, but it still makes an impact. I have consistently failed to realize that every single choice I make helps to define my messy mosaic of a life. The leaves will still rustle as the tree hits the ground, the other trees will still sway from the force, and the falling tree will still feel itself break away from its roots. Social media is not my life, and every moment of my existence does not need to be defined by likes, metrics, and algorithms. So if that's the case, why do I spend so much time trying to think of something clever and enticing to post online?

I was born in an era where posting our lives online became second nature. The era of the content creator. Some people refer to the early years of social media as the Social Media Revolution. If you grow up in any kind of revolution, you will be influenced. I don't really remember a time where I didn't have a Facebook acount, and that kind of makes me feel sad. That's why I want to change things.

After years of trying to gain popularity online, I finally want to step away. Since around the age of 12, I have joined almost every social media platform that I could find and tried to make a name for myself. The only thing I made that reached (semi) mass popularity was a blog that I ran anonymously.

I don't even want to consume content anymore because every time I go online, I walk away feeling stifled, sad, or screwed. Stifled because I don't have the dream life. Sad because there's so much evil that happens in this world. And screwed because if I keep up these standards, I'll probably never be good enough. Ever.

I don't remember who I am, and I hate that. I feel like I've been influenced by so much over the years that I could just explode, but where would that leave me? By stepping away from social media, at least temporarily, I can give myself a chance to let out some of that pressure that's been building up inside of me ever since I started using the internet.

A social media break gives me a chance to truly find myself, this time among all of the chaos that is my life. But chaos propels change, and I've always believed that a happy person is someone who is always learning and growing. My brain is bogged down by shameless selfies of strangers I've never met, annoying advertisements for whatever the latest trend is, and the bad and terrible news that this world is truly going to shit. I just can't stand it anymore.

Every fiber of my being wants to delete all of the apps and move on, but I can't even type out that I'm going to actually do it, probably because using social media is one of the most consistent ways I've been able to protect myself, even though it has burned me.

I know so much of me will miss it, which is why I'm having such a hard time letting go. But I need to get a fresh perspective and get back to my life, and the only way to do that is by making a big change. Can I really be the change that I want to see in the world? I guess we'll see.