Life Without Facebook, Instagram, or X

I believe I deleted Facebook on Martin Luther King Jr. Day - but it could’ve been the day after. Before that, I’d already rid myself of Instagram, Twitter (X), WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and so many other social media pages. Facebook was the last and most difficult, only because many of my current friends and acquaintances use Facebook as a planning tool, event space, and group hang-out. All that’s left is an anonymous Reddit account where I search intermittent answers to problems I am having, a BlueSky account which I limit to less than 20 minutes per day on my laptop, and a YouTube channel in case I decide to start sharing video content; although, I’m quickly gaining a growing disdain for Google products as well.

Surprisingly, I don’t miss any of the sites.

Interestingly, the last months of me binging and observing taught me some valuable lessons about self worth. Until I began this journey, I never realized how anxiety provoking social media spaces have become. Despite understanding that my inherent worth isn’t tied to likes and follows, there is a deeper subconscious aspect to relating on the internet in 2025.

I found that I was consistently down and more anxious on days where I’d accessed Facebook versus days when I did not. Ignoring the dopamine spikes from likes and comments, it goes deeper; I began to realize that there were several people that I’d thought of as ‘friends’ or ‘colleagues’ who, at the end of the day, wouldn’t give me a second thought or throw me a ‘like’ if I wasn’t popping up in the middle of their doomscrolling. People who I’d even considered relatively close friends have yet to reach out and ask how or what I’m doing. Without being on Facebook, to about 90% of those people, I no longer exist.

It’s a wild concept being erased because you decided to no longer participate on a website somewhere in the ether of the world-wide web. How strange it feels, not only to me to be erased, but that a solitary website has the power to do such a thing in our culture. After I got over the ego-centricity of realizing that most of the people on my ‘feed’ don’t necessarily care about me (they care more about their own entertainment), an ever harsher, more devastating reality hit: the majority of people are now content with watching other’s lives through a computer screen and calling it relating.

The new generations feel as though that if they’re ‘keeping up’ with you on social media, that they’re somehow fulfilling the tenet of friendship. This is a ruse drummed up by the social media sites. They have a vested interest in convincing us all that we only need to follow in order to be friends. Follower does not a friend make.

Relationships are based in communication, intimacy, vulnerability, and shared humanity. Relationships are also two-way streets. If I’m just periodically checking up on you and you’re periodically checking up on me, a relationship it is not. A stranger could check up on me on the internet periodically. Does that make him my friend, or a stalker? Or just the average American using the internet?

Friendship, to me, is seeing your face. Admiring the new physical changes that come with age and fashion. It’s a warm cup of coffee on a brisk weekday morning, discussing everything from beliefs to feelings to our simplest pleasures in life. Friendship is being there for you when you need someone close. Friendship is a shoulder to lean on when things get hard. Friendship is energy, talking, touching, hugging, laughing. Looking at your photo on Instagram is not the same as smelling your scent and hugging you close.

Maybe I’m too sentimental; or maybe, the world is slowly losing its humanity. Clacking at these keys, I sometimes even wonder if I should be writing. Am I making a difference in sharing my stories? Maybe to a few. Would that time be better spent working with my hands? Digging in the dirt? Swimming in a lake? Playing in the snow? Birdwatching with my children? If humanity is slipping through the cracks, should I do everything I can to preserve my own? Maybe that’s taking it a little too far. But lately, I’m questioning what is right. I’m starting to realize that there may be no ‘right.' Only, maybe, what is right for me.

My new phone should be here by the end of March, as its release has been delayed. So far I’ve not missed the anxiety of notifications dinging, or the emptiness I felt because my large social circle turned out to be an illusion. It’s allowed me to focus on the people who are still here, the ones invested, for me to really invest in them as well. Winter is always long because of all the illness (my youngest spiked a fever, again, a few nights ago) but in the Spring I come alive again, ready to reconnect with those I love most. This year, it’ll be made all the more sweeter now that I won’t have the phone, and Facebook, as a distraction in my hand.