Deleting Social Media: One Year Later
your life is bigger than the Machine
I was reminded recently that it is has been one whole year since my most popular essay to date was published: Why I Deleted My Social Media. Which means it’s been one whole year off all social media apps.
If you missed it, you can go back and read my why - that hasn’t changed. I was a heavy social media user who took frequent fasts and couldn’t control my logging on. I did all the things - the timers and the blocking apps and the only logging on once a day, once a week, and so on and so on. None of it worked. I was still thinking in captions. I was still thinking how I would post about something - a new job, a new baby even. What photo would be best? What will the caption be?
It’s embarrassing to write that, but it’s true. I think it’s true for most people online. We live with the peanut gallery in our heads. We feel accountable to them. Our life needs a narrative and a pretty photo or else it makes no sense. And goodness it needs some likes! How else do we create a self, an identity, a valid and cohesive sense of ‘me’? What is a person without a timeline?
As I wrote in my logging off essay:
“I want to live the kind of life that doesn’t have captions, or hashtags, or a like count.”
And I have lived it (sort of). I have gone one whole year without a single moment spent on Instagram or Facebook, two sites I logged onto multiple times a day for the last decade at least. That in and of itself feels like a big sigh - a big Thank God.
I add the ‘sort of’ because I think Substack has many social media aspects. I don’t like Notes. Never have, never will. I do not need another pithy algorithmic feed full of strangers. I also like to check notifications on here and that nice red dot letting me know that someone has ‘liked’ a post has the same dopamine hit as the Meta slot machines did. I don’t love that and I consider it a mild (but real) social media type universe I now inhabit.
Nevertheless, this platform allowed me to pursue genuine, thoughtful essay writing in an era of captions and 10 second TikTok videos. It connected me to intelligent, thought-provoking writers - many of whom I ended up interviewing on my podcast.1 It gave me space to develop ideas in concrete ways, to be challenged in debate and introduced to new literature and art. It has been valuable. It has also allowed me to make a not insignificant leap in readership and listenership for Born of Wonder, a passion project that has given me more opportunities than I could have ever imagined.
But generally speaking, social media is like sugar.
Hear me out. I had gestational diabetes with both my pregnancies. This means I didn’t have one bite of sugar until after my babies were born. I admit I’ve never had a huge sweet tooth so the cravings weren’t out of control, but when you consider I could barely have any carbs either things got a little extreme.
But you know the strange thing is once you start cutting out the sugar and the starchy carbs and all the rest, you stop wanting them. Your body realizes “oh I didn’t need that after all! What I actually wanted was protein and fat and that tastes really good now. Actually it tastes better than the carbs and sugar did (because it was a false substitute for the real need anyway).”
It works the same way with social media. Once I got over my twitchiness I stopped checking the news as frantically. I realized I didn’t need that either. Once my phone stopped being a source of endless dopamine hits, I realized I didn’t really like looking at it very much, actually I didn’t need to. So it more easily spent evenings in a drawer - I could read instead. And that’s what my brain and my heart actually wanted all along. Ideas, time, space.
As for ‘connection’ - that elusive and constant promise from Meta - I haven’t lost a single friendship2 and I’ve gained a few new ones. Moreover a couple friends who were ‘social media friends’ have become genuine close friends, exchanging WhatsApp memos and letters instead of likes and DMs. I call my ‘in real life’ contacts or flood them with kid photos in a text and ask for their vacation photos and baby photos in return. It’s fun. It’s a catch up. Maybe I’ll even go visit them, you know, in person. Maybe that’s what I wanted all along.
I know some people hate these kind of posts because they sound preachy, holier-than-thou, and like I’m bragging. I hope you are enjoying your life in the social media slums, my friends! I’m above all that now! Please know that is not my intention at all. I share this because I truly don’t know if I ever would have deleted the apps myself if I hadn’t read
’s testimony about logging off. I resonated with Tsh because she is a writer, traveler, podcaster, basically doing many things I do, or hope to do. That she was able to log off and continue with her work obliterated many of my excuses for staying on.So that’s why I’m sharing this update. In case you’re a writer, or you own a business (or just started one, as I did this year), or you’re a podcaster, or are leading a pilgrimage abroad, or are trying to share the beauty of your faith, or connect with like-minded people - I can tell you, as someone who would put myself in all these categories, that you won’t miss out.
Logging off social media has not hindered my ability to do any of these things. In fact it has expanded my opportunities and my focus.
If anything, I hate to say, I’m a bit more extreme about it all. I don’t think social media is a tool. And even though I used the sugar comparison, I think it’s more akin to heroine than to a chocolate bar. I think it is truly addictive and truly detrimental to our society, on the personal level, but also on the wider level of social trust and cohesion. (It’s really hard to trust anyone when you can’t get them to look you in the eye because they’re too glued to a screen and the viral fake news AI meme lighting up X).
I really resonated with Erin Loechner when she shared this in an interview with
of when asked if there was a healthy way to use social media:“I know the more palatable answer here is to speak of digital well-being and balance and how to successfully navigate the algorithm in a way that we can consume the good without the bad. But we can’t. Just like any mind-altering drug we might ingest, social media makes it so we are not in control of the experience we’ll have immediately after. And I can no longer see any potential reward in delivering our God-given brains to a tatted group of tech bros in Silicon Valley.”
And though I’ve been very aware of my own tendency to use social media to ‘post’ and ‘narrate’ I think it can be just as insidious, sometimes even more-so, for the many ‘lurker’ type users. It is incredibly easy for this type of person to spend whole days, whole nights, scrolling, scrolling, ingesting ideas about who or what they should be.
And ultimately what they end up becoming is a consumer, not just of media, but of ads, that tell them that if they buy this product they will be like the influencer they’ve been admiring from afar. It’s a constant loop and it makes it hard for anyone to develop any genuine interests. You need time to be bored, to daydream, and you can’t do that when you’re in a scrolling loop. You can’t buy an identity, no matter what Meta says.
Yet, sometimes I do think about logging back onto Facebook for the groups or for Marketplace or some other ‘benign’ use. All equestrians are on Facebook and I’m soon to be entering a new equestrian discipline and I could really use some connections via groups. But I know myself and I know the app. It can never be ‘just’ anything. It will stay there, a blinking notification, an open possibility in my head. It’s not worth it.
Many things have happened this year and particularly in the past few months that have made me feel very rooted to the place and the land where I am. To this particular patch of sky and this particular family of mine, here and now. I don’t know if I would feel this way if I was lost in a digital other-world.
You see, I want to know these flowers and these woods and these fields. I don’t need to stare into the 2-dimensional glare at someone else’s far off place. I want to look into my own children’s wildly beautiful faces, to dream into my very own sunsets and sunrises, and evenings and mornings.
This past year off social media, life has been difficult and beautiful and wild and surprising. There is so much to do, so much to be, so much to read and hope for and pray for.
I don’t want to miss a single moment lost in a life that isn’t mine.
My life, in all its complexity and contradictions, is just too beautiful to give up to the Machine.
Yours is too.
And while I have you here…
Come to Ireland with me and Christy Isinger in October 2024! Our Lady of Knock, sheepherding demonstrations, traditional music, High Tea at a castle, St. Patrick’s Holy Mountain, the Rock of Cashel, ancient monasteries, a literary pub crawl… and most importantly, kindred spirits ready to pray, wonder, laugh, and learn together. Let’s buck the trend and do some real-world non-online life adventuring together.
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I have lost a few ‘aquintance-ships’ - people I would occasionally DM with on social media with shared interests, kids with similar ages, etc. I miss their updates sometimes, wish them well, but I wouldn’t consider this a lost friendship. Maybe another side effect - you realize what friendship actually is (it has nothing to do with ‘likes’).
The irony is that I scrolled through your (quite lovely) photos whilst pondering in my mind your words about ‘a life that isn’t mine’.
Which is kind of why I read Substack (and other things)… for inspiration, to allow myself to drift, to ponder, to imagine—-it may bit be algorithmically (sp?) driven, or full of ads, but its still some kind of dopamine hit, otherwise I wouldn’t be lying here — I’d be up enjoying the cool air and sun light in my own lovely yard, in my own simple life.. right? Maybe it’s not social media at all, or only, maybe it’s this stupid smartphone. Most of us, of a certain age, have only had these things in our hands/pockets/lives for, what, when did I get my first smartphone, 2014 maybe? It’s a crutch. At least I remember a life before it. Im not saying all of what it’s brought is ‘bad’ —- I certainly ‘enjoy’ it. But let’s not kid ourselves. Even without social media, it’s a time suck.
This is such a timely post! I read Ruth’s interview with Erin and ended up driving down to the store to get her book! Been wrestling with the idea of hopping off SM and even wrote about it for my upcoming Monday post. Great stuff here and very encouraging ❤️