3 Things You Realize When You Delete Social Media

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A few years ago, after I read this book, I decided to delete* social media for one month. (Even though, for the record, this book is NOT one-sidedly trying to tell you how awful social media is, nor does it even recommend deleting it!) Three years later, I still never reactivated it after that month. When you delete social media, here is what you realize:

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1. I actually use social media for practical purposes—legit ones.

What if I forgot my best friends’ birthday and needed to check it on Facebook? What if I wanted to post something to sell in the Marketplace?

2. I was actually a tiny bit addicted.

(You knew this was coming.)
I promise you though, I was never one of those people constantly on their phones when hanging out with friends; nor was I one of those people always checking their likes on Instagram or making Snap stories. Sure I mindlessly scrolled through Facebook when I was sitting on my couch watching TV or before bed, and I made sure I checked Instagram at least once a day to keep up with any new drama, but other than that…? But then, a week after I “deleted” it, I was shocked to find myself scrolling through Instagram at a stop light without realizing I had even opened the app. Yikes.

3. Social media was not my problem.

Let me explain the reason I got rid of social media in the first place: It wasn’t because I was wasting too much time on it (honestly), but it was because I was starting to notice something: Every time I looked at my friends’ pictures and snaps and stories and live feeds online, I didn’t feel happy for them. I felt annoyed. Things I should’ve been excited about—my friends’ pregnancies and weddings and vacations—irritated me. So when I got rid of it, I figured that would all change—but the truth is —

Since social media was never my problem in the first place, getting rid of it wasn’t the solution.

How naive of me to think it was that simple! Because even though I wasn’t seeing it on social media anymore (which did help, somewhat, at least at first), I was hearing it live.

Suddenly every time we went to dinner with friends, the husband had just gotten promoted to his “dream job.” (My husband was still discouraged with his career and not sure of what direction to go.) Suddenly everyone I talked to on the phone was booking these vacations to Switzerland and Germany and Hawaii and Israel. And I had no travel plans for the first summer in five years (poor me, right?). Suddenly everyone was pregnant. And, well, okay, we weren’t even trying to get pregnant at the time, but that was beside the point.

That was when I realized…

…it wasn’t social media’s problem; it was mine. So I have a confession to make: It’s hard for me to be really, genuinely happy for other people when they have something I don’t.

I don’t think I’m the only one who finds it hard to be happy for other people. I think that’s why God made that the second-most-important commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself. And that’s why he tells us:

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Unfortunately, I don’t have a ten-step recipe for how to stop comparing yourself to other people. And I won’t tell you that other people who seem happy actually have problems of their own, because while that’s true, the bottom line is you might actually, truly have worse problems.

It’s not about reminding yourself that other people have problems too; it’s about learning to love other people.

This kind of love can only be inspired in us when we consider the way that God loves us; when we realize that we don’t actually even deserve the blessings we’ve been given in this life, let alone wish we had more than others.

*Confession: I couldn’t bring myself to actually delete the apps off my phone at first. Eventually I did. But here I am, several years later, and my accounts are technically still active — don’t ask me why (I just never deleted the actual accounts). And I have gotten Snapchat back. 🙂

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