Social media is an escape. At times, it’s an outlet to keep us updated and distracted from existing worries (not to mention some good old entertainment on the go). But it’s not a huge secret that it often does more harm than good. After long hours of endless scrolling through content, it’s inevitable to end up in a spiral of comparison and FOMO until you realize you need to do something about it before it gets worse.
I’ve never particularly enjoyed being glued to my phone (or social media for that matter), going so far as to remove all notifications from IG and Twitter, and challenging myself to lower my weekly social media usage records. Even so, Twitter was relatively huge in my life. It was my go-to news source, the first thing I woke up to, and the last thing I saw before finally going to sleep; strangely enough, even after heavy college-related all-nighters. In waiting lines, Twitter made time fly by faster, feeding me great memes, inspiring looks, headlines and mostly random thoughts everywhere. After a while, I realized that consuming so many snippets of information at a time actually drained me. Not because I was constantly experiencing an information overload, but because a lot of the tweets themselves were negative. For a social media platform designed to upload quick, often unfiltered, thoughts, it shouldn’t be surprising that a lot of the tweets on my timeline were complaints, ramblings, displays of immaturity, petty dramas and even tweets denouncing hateful attitudes, which nonetheless brought said attitudes to mind. Coming across so much of this content, and at times, unwillingly finding myself in uncomfortable situations on the platform, I came to a personal conclusion: if I don’t like negative people or unnecessary drama IRL, I shouldn’t subject myself to them online.
On another hand, the rest of the tweets that were neither negative, nor funny, or even interesting, were inconsequential details from people’s everyday life. Don’t get me wrong, the way we use social media is different for everyone, but the truth is that reading these unimportant snippets from other people’s life stood in the way of enjoying my own. The madness doesn’t stop there, though. When I wasn’t retweeting or liking posts, Twitter scrolling sessions often left me racking my brain wondering what or how I should tweet, which definitely didn’t do any favors to my already existing overthinking situation (and absolutely explains the slew of tweets that never made it to the timeline).
My relationship with Twitter was quickly gaining more cons than pros. Even so, the idea of deleting the app itself took some serious thinking over. I’d heard about people going on Twitter breaks when necessary, which sparked my curiosity for leaving the digital space. And so, after a lot of consideration, I decided to start the year from scratch and delete the app. I had been out of Instagram (my favorite social media platform) for a couple of days at a time, but my declining affair with Twitter needed a bigger change. So I decided to leave the app indefinitely.
At first, the change was not the easiest, as I rushed to mentally torture myself over all the information I was missing out on. Deleting the app itself was a strange process, but I quickly found more time on my schedule to do things I actually love. Probably as a direct result of that, I felt more inspired and creative than ever. Selecting the kind of content I’d be exposed to, when I wanted to, became an action of freedom, specifically against an app designed to keep you hooked. My mood in the mornings and through the day got better, and I no longer needed to experience social media anxieties through yet another platform.
Looking back, it’s been almost a month and a half since I made the choice of deleting Twitter. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it sometimes. I still get the occasional urge to tweet a thought in my head, and I still compose mental drafts of what I think would be pretty good tweets. But I don’t actually write them because I can’t. Wasting such a good idea on an unpublished tweet can be disappointing, but then I realize my creative energy can be refocused in other ways. More importantly, I think about how some aspects of my mental health and life in general have changed for the better. I can’t deny that I miss finding the occasional musical, fashionable or Twitter meme goldmine, but at the end of the day, one less social media platform is a weight off of anyone’s shoulders.
Through it all though, I can’t avoid my inner conflict, which begs the question: will I ever go back to Twitter? Maybe I’ll change my mind and go back in a month or a year; only time will tell. For now, and as my profile wanders about on an unused corner of social media cyberspace, I’ll focus on myself, my projects and the things that actually bring me joy, instead of quick fixes of false realities, spontaneous thoughts, unnecessary toxicity and meaningless content. And I’m actually more than okay with it.