My main reason for using social media is to share uplifting content. Unbiased positivity. Whether through music that I enjoy and feel others may enjoy also, or through words of wisdom that may help guide someone along their journey, I always post with purpose. I always try to post and share from a full cup, as opposed to a cup that needs filling. If I cannot first help and encourage myself, how can I expect to do the same for anyone else? When I see someone going through it, I reach out. I make an attempt to be as good of a human online as I am offline, across all platforms. Social media, for me, is a tool to reach and impact people in a positive way, from an enlightened perspective. But as with all things in this life, too much of any good or bad thing is poisonous. A tool intended for, or that has the potential to do, good can easily be turned into a weapon used to divide, disrupt, and ultimately destroy. Though accessed through physical apparatuses, the damage that obsessive social media usage can cause is rarely physical. Instead, it is primarily mental, emotional, and spiritual. I, as well as many others, would argue that this type of damage results in far worse long-term consequences.

Yesterday I deleted all social media apps from my phone in an effort to free myself from the mental whirlwind these platforms subject myself, and most of society, to. “Clusterfuck” would be the perfect term to describe Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as a collective. With all the happenings of the world in front of your eyes with the scroll of a thumb, all the opinions of idiots and peers alike bombarding you daily, how can one even think it’s possible to find or maintain inner peace? Facebook, nor Instagram, have any concern for the mental well-being of any of its users. In fact, much of its algorithm is in place for the sole purpose of disrupting and sabotaging mental stability. Whether it’s videos of Black men being executed, blatant displays of racism and division, or even just the normalized viewing of your peers’ life highlight reel, nothing presented on social media is intended to promote inner peace, rather it is intended to destroy it. I have seen this happen to many people. The person they see when they look in the mirror becomes foreign to them. No longer are they who they’ve known themselves to be. Instead, the person they see on their timeline or explore page is all they think about when staring into a reflection of themselves. All they see is what they are not, in comparison to what social media shows them on a daily basis. All they see is where they are not in life. The life purpose becomes blurred in an attempt to run someone else’s race.

I recently experienced an eye opening realization that a vast majority of the content displayed on our social news “feeds” are not even of our own choosing. In actuality, we are being fed content at the hands of algorithms at their discretion to what is appropriate for us. Instagram and its social media relatives are all in on a game of which platform can use and manipulate our data most effectively. Every post we like, every word we speak, every topic we search, are all funneled into machine learning algorithms that seek to create an environment that they deem appropriate to nourish our habits, obsessions, and insecurities. I find this alarming. For one, it presents the question: Who is really in control of how you think or what you feel? If you jump into a pool, you will inevitably get wet. You have no control over how the water interacts with your exposed body. Similarly, when you engage with social media platforms and the subsequent content and discussions from myriads of users, you can be certain that you will be affected mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. How does it make you feel to know that the emotion you feel when you see a post was predetermined by an algorithm that sees you merely as data, not a human being? Humans have complex emotions and feelings; algorithms and robots do not.

Granted, the day in age we live in is filled with algorithms that are in control of our daily lives. Hell, we even have our faces scanned every day in order to unlock our cell phones and access countless filters to distort our self-image. Who knows where that information is being used… But at the same time, while this is technological evolution on display, mental warfare is not a part of the deal. Having your psyche toyed with by companies who are only concerned with revenue and your dependence on their platforms is far from a recipe for a healthy life.

Aside from the technical arguments for indefinitely deleting my social media apps, the majority of my reason stems from time. Social media is powerful, beyond description. An idea, a picture, a video has the capability to spread like a wildfire. This has many, many possibilities to end with a positive result. But with much of the control not being in human hands of good intent, but rather that of binary algorithms, the result tends to be, more often than not, negative. This is due to the fact that the goal for social media companies is optimize user interaction and usage, by any means. At the end of the day, the reward system for using these platforms ultimately leads to an addictive cycle that derails peace and wastes valuable time. Casinos are playgrounds for the rich, places where people go and spend their time when they have money to waste. When people are poor and visit casinos with the little money that they have available, they rarely exit in better financial shape than which they enter. I have been a social media user since the age of 14, and over the years I have come to realize that it runs analogous to casinos. Social media platforms are playgrounds for people who have time to waste. In contrast to the casino analogy, time is much more valuable than money. Money can be replenished, while time is non renewable. As young adults, we have more time on our hands than we realize; however, none of us have time to waste. This holds especially true if you are currently living a life that you are not content with living for the rest of your life. All the time in the world is at your disposal during your youth to accomplish and achieve anything you desire or yearn for in life. But that time is worthless if it is spent on activities that will bear no fruit. Spending hours scrolling through a timeline or tapping through stories filled with people who hold no value to my life journey has proved to be useless. Most of the time, the scrolling that we do is not even done consciously. Zombie-like interactions with social media are more frightening than anything. It’s second nature for us to unlock our phone and open an app as a crutch for distraction from social interaction; we are operating on autopilot. I have caught myself doing this more often than I’d like to admit, but it has become a normalized pastime in this generation.

Last year I took an extended break from Instagram, totaling about 5 months. In that time I noticed a return to my inner self. I vividly remember remembering what it is to be alive. Without all the external noises and sources of constant anxiety in front of my eyes on a daily basis, I was able to ground myself in the present gift of life. I am making it a purpose to return to this state of mind, as I have found that my relapse into the social media crack house has led me to losing myself again. I must reconnect with me. I need to refill my cup, and I believe that a hiatus from social platforms will enable me to do just that. The road less traveled is often the most difficult to take and for good reason. This is the road that tends to lead to treasures that the crowd likely doesn’t even know exists.

Peace and love.

Q. A.