Brief thoughts on quitting social media

I officially deleted my Instagram and Facebook accounts yesterday, which means that in 30 days (06/06/2026), they will be permanently gone. This is a decision I made with little thought, though the idea had been on my mind for a few months; it was a decision made on a whim. Overall, I’ve been just feeling very frustrated with social media, and the antagonists are the usual: AI, influencer slop, politics and brainrot. I genuinely could go ten minutes of scrolling on Instagram without some ai generated content or some influencer trying to sell a product that is completely useless. I just felt exhausted using social media, and the disadvantages highly outweighed the advantages. Of course, social media is an incredible tool. I’ve seen the good it can do for small businesses, artists, music and other areas that benefit from a tool that allows global connectivity. And I’ve been inspired by a lot of creatives I’ve discovered on Instagram; people who have genuinely inspired me. But no amount of mental exhaustion can justify inspiration. And I’ve not deleted all social media, only Instagram and Facebook, but I still use others, such as Pinterest. As far as I’ve used Pinterest, it is nowhere near as addictive as Instagram is. Even though both have the infinite scroll, to which a lot of the addictive nature of social media can be attributed, Pinterest is lighter on my mind. It’s primarily a tool for collecting visuals, whether that is for a story I’m working on or finding fashion inspiration, and somehow it doesn’t make me feel trapped as Instagram does. Plus, I will probably start using other socials, such as Github, Letterboxd and Goodreads more, for their respective niches. I still want to have access to the film and literature communities.