Social media cleansing

I remember the early days of social media interaction when I would got to an internet cafe just to have a chat on mIRC with someone from my community. If I was lucky, I would even get to have a blind date. Those years seem like ages ago and a lot has changed, gone are the days of mIRC, HI5, MySpace, and Yahoo Messenger.

I’ve never been a big fan of Twitter so my social media activity revolved around Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram. With Instagram I had a somehow healthy relationship. Since I have joined the platform back in 2016, I have decided to only post pictures that have a meaningful story behind them. That usually meant I will only post a few times a year. But still, here I was checking the app multiple times a day and knowing almost all the stories posted by the people I follow. Not the best use of my time and a somehow addictive behavior.

This year, on the other hand, has been a time for change and part of it has been tying to disconnect from all the noise and distractions that consume my time. In June I have deleted Facebook and Facebook Messenger, and this month I have deleted my main Instagram account (I still have an “arty” one). In the beginning I felt like a void, like something was missing. But after a while that void feels like a relief. I get more time to focus on the things that matter and have meaningful the conversations I so much enjoy. I totally recommend it :-)