I recently read a news report that revealed that the algorithm that runs Meta – that’s Facebook and Instagram – is up to some pretty terrible things. Ensnaring young boys, for one, by addressing them in a “romantic, sensual” tone. The same article mentioned that for Instagram users, friends’ posts make up only 7% of their feed, the rest being taken up by ads and promotions.

There’s much more but those two jumped right off the page at me. The first one actively contributes to making things worse and harder for young people and that, in my opinion, is unforgivable. The second one means that the whole reason many of us spend time on social media is being deliberately foiled so that Meta can “influence” us instead.

An hour later, I deleted my Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts. I didn’t just delete the apps. I deleted the accounts. I’ve had enough.

I remember when all this started quite clearly because I wrote about it in February 2009 in a blog post (My Space Book):

In the last few weeks I’ve taken the plunge and joined MySpace and Facebook. Consequently, I have been plunged into a whirl of social networking much like the tornado that carried Dorothy to Oz! I’m enjoying it, though I do sometimes find myself wondering what it’s all about.

Even then, I had questions:

  • What is a friend, really?
  • Does high school ever really end?
  • Do people change?
  • Does the hunger for acceptance ever abate?
  • What am I hoping is going to happen with all this typing?
  • What CAN happen?

And guess what? Nearly 16 years later – gracious! – I still don’t have clear answers to those questions but enough is enough. I figure I’ve spent more than enough time on this experiment and overall, it’s a wash.

I emerge with two very clear convictions:

  1. In exchange for the time I’ve spent on it, social media has not improved my world sufficiently and has detracted in some important ways.

Yes, I enjoyed catching up with old friends, seeing their kids and grandkids and pets. But my real friendships – the ones that take place live and in-person with friends who know the intimate details of my life – were not fed by social media. If anything, the opposite. I wish I had spent the hours I scrolled, liked, validated, and cheered on acquaintances with my actual friends instead.

Nor was my career helped. FB, in particular, holds out the promise of “connecting with your audience” but what that really means is creating more content to keep people on the platform. You can spend years trying to build something that will never help you create a sustainable livelihood and that was never intended to. A never-ending and exhausting treadmill. No, thank you.

  1. I enjoy my life less when I’m tied up with social media.

I create less. I spend more time on screens and less time doing real things in the real world. I’m more prone to think I have a problem I don’t actually have because one of the “influencers” suggests it and then markets their solution. There’s also the problem of comparison and I fell prey to that sometimes as much as anyone. I would see the triumphant pictures of some old friend and feel glad for them, but also kick myself that I wasn’t doing better. What was wrong with me? I know I’m not alone in this, and I think it’s especially hard on young people.

For a long time, I saw alarming and terrible news in my FB stream, and so rather than proactively choosing to read the news at a time when I could handle it, I would experience fear and shock and dismay at random times of the day and night. The world as portrayed by social media is darker and harder than the world directly around me. Overall, I wouldn’t say that social media is much fun, really. It doesn’t add to my sense of excitement, peace, aliveness, or joy.

I’m 56 – nearly 57. I don’t want to spend my life scrolling or being the good girl who makes sure to wish acquaintances a happy birthday. This is a sobering and necessary piece of clarity.

What am I doing instead?

I’m diving deeper than ever into the REAL.

Real meetings with real friends.

Real creating, writing, and music-making and the sensual delight of pens and notebooks, wood and strings and keys. My home. My life’s love affair.

Real music and dancing to real records, cassettes, and CDs.

Real books that don’t require a wifi connection.

Real experiences in the real world that calls to me, calls to me, calls to me.

Dusk walks, star-watching, hill-climbing, getting a little lost, talking with people in shops, going to the farmers market, making a quiche, harping, writing poems in leather books, lighting candles, learning more about trees, spontaneous dance parties, listening to the kittens purr, dreaming up new travels, making scones, meeting an old friend for a walk in the woods…

Of course, I have been enjoying these things all my life. But now I have even more time and mental and emotional space to enjoy them more fully. That odd, long entanglement with these corporate puppeteers has taught me that the REAL is the only thing that satisfies. That’s the only real gift from all that time on social media:

the bone deep understanding that it’s a thoroughly inadequate substitute for the tangible, huggable, climbable, pettable, face-to-face here and now. The real world, real people and creatures, and real experiences are what’s best for me. They’re why I’m really here.

So that’s what’s happening with me these days. I’m ALL IN on the REAL.

How about you?

PS – I took the above picture from the deck of a ferry on a sunset cruise around the islands of Casco Bay. Oh! Sunset on the water + moonrise = thrilled and happy Kate.