Why I Decided to Quit Social Media

Caught in a moment without my phone.

Tension

I first announced my vague idea to leave social media in a coffee shop deep in the San Fernando Valley. I’d met up with a dear friend and fellow playwright in my last days before a cross-country move. 

In hindsight, it might not have been the best time to bring up the idea. “Hey I’m moving so far away that we’ll never see each other, but I’m also erasing all the other ways we might communicate, anyway love you bye!”

We both worried we wouldn’t be able to keep in touch. (No need, as we’ve enjoyed long phone calls, feedback sessions on our writing, and multiple text threads since that day.)

We also both worried about the career impacts. 

“What about all the writing and submission opportunities you’ll miss out on?” he asked. In our world, theaters and publications often use social media to post open calls for content.

“I know,” I replied. “But… be honest… have you ever gotten a single opportunity from blindly applying to those?”

After a long pause, he admitted, “No.” And then with a deep sigh: “God… No, you’re right.” 

My friend is a regionally-produced, nationally-known playwright who works full-time in the industry as a writer, professor, and dramaturg. And all of his opportunities have come not from cold national calls for scripts, but from the in-person network he’s built and the quality of his work within that community. 

Of course, some writers certainly have gotten those opportunities posted on social media (at the least ones that weren’t scams). But I was at the stage of weighing pros and cons. This particular con—the missing out of certain writing opportunities—was an acceptable loss. 

At the time, I knew I wanted out. Social media exacerbated a longstanding problem for me of performance vs. perception. I love performing and have made it a major part of my life and career. And due to my life experiences, I’m also extremely sensitive to being misperceived or misunderstood. 

Social media benefits from this tension. I want to be seen, and I want my work to reach people and mean something to them. When it does, I feel elated. When it doesn’t—whether by my own failing or the algorithms, who can really tell?—I feel a private but acute humiliation. 

And yet, chasing the elation always compulsively brought me back, even against my own interests. And that, sadly, defines an addiction.

Connection

I hadn’t decided for good to leave that day in California. I gauged my friend’s reaction, sort of hoping he would give me a strong enough reason to stay. But he is a friend, and friends care about other friends’ mental health. And so, acknowledging his own struggles with the same platforms, he wished me success and said maybe one day he’d join me. 

For people who never dabbled in social media, this all might sound melodramatic. But for those of us who do engage (72% of Americans), these platforms have an incalculable impact on our lives and mental health. 

The data is frank, irrefutable, longstanding, and terrifying. I’ve written separately about the resources I used to get off social media, including many that helped me understand better what it’s done to my brain, community, work, culture, and country. But suffice it to say, we are being dulled to death by robots, prodded mindlessly into wars against each other, and our precious souls deserve better than this.

I spent the last few years “chronically online,” and have felt it change me in ways I didn’t care to admit, including: polarized views, distrust of others, a diminished sense of humor, lower attention span, and a sad case of “text neck.”

Most distressing for me personally, I found myself thinking performatively about minor details of my life. I wondered if I should post happy moments (rather than just… being happy), took photos I didn’t even want, and worried constantly about my appearance in public. I even prioritized work based on how I would publicize it, as opposed to thinking deeply about my own goals and what I want to accomplish with my life. 

Chasing the elation compulsively brought me back, even against my own interests. And that, sadly, defines an addiction.

I did all of this with the vague, subconscious belief that social media kept me tethered to the world—connected to the people I cared about and who cared about me. 

I knew from experience that in extremely tumultuous times, when connection was most valuable, I actually felt tethered by taking extremely long walks (my favorite) and speaking directly with friends. 

Instead, in moments of crisis, I usually chose to ignore both options and looked to these powerful platforms for the connection they promised but were, at best, unable to give. 

The Hudson Highlands

Decision

By the end of 2021, during one of those tumultuous times, I finally had an honest conversation with myself. I took a long walk to the Hudson. It was bitterly cold, and I was totally alone looking out at the Highlands—a stretch of river where perfectly-domed Appalachian hills extend gracefully into the water. 

I stood for as long as my face could bear the cold wind and realized I wanted to look and think deeply about places like this… all the time… forever. 

Something broke in me. I remembered how it felt to write in total focus, to feel flow. I thought of books I owned and hadn’t read. I imagined what kind of activism and volunteer work I might want to do if no one knew about it and it wasn’t an option to post about it. 

I would get off social media, I decided. 

We are being dulled to death by robots, prodded mindlessly into wars against each other, and our precious souls deserve better than this.

I will write separately, some other day, about how I did it. It actually took the entire year, although some habits changed pretty immediately.  

However, for now I’ll say that at that time, I didn’t set a date. It was a done deal in my mind, but I suspected it would take some time.

Otherwise, I might do something I’d observed over and over with compounding cringe: announce I was leaving and then come back.

Or even more dreadful: announce I was leaving for a month and then return exactly 30 days later with some deep insight into my profound experience of touching grass for four weeks! and how this time would be different now! and I wouldn’t be addicted again! and you’ll see!

Complicity

In September, I landed on my birthday as the official date—so February 2023. By then I’d already cut back my screen time by over half. I rarely posted, and I didn’t feel a serious addiction anymore. But I wanted time to get my contacts in order, set up a new website and newsletter, etc. 

Then in October, I read a deep dive into Facebook’s complicity in the genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar. I knew the basics of how violent genocidaires used the platform to spread hate, but I didn’t know the extent of Facebook’s “willful blindness” as outlined in this 2022 Amnesty International report or the extent to which social media’s very design encourages this and similar atrocities. (For more on this subject, see The Chaos Machine in my list of resources for quitting social media). 

Armed with that information, I moved my deadline to December. I had planned to keep a limited archive on the main platforms so people could find me/my work if needed. I still did this, with some reservations; likely in the future, I will fully delete all of my accounts. 

I didn’t know the extent to which social media’s very design encourages atrocities.

In addition, I’ve had the opportunity to join as a writer with a law firm working to sue the major platforms, including Instagram and Snapchat, for their role in encouraging eating disorders, abuse, and self-harm in children and teens. With that in mind, please reach out to me if you know and love one of the many people 23 or younger who received treatment or, god forbid, lost their life because of their engagement with social media.

A friend on my walk the day I set my December deadline.

Algorithms

Here’s the fundamental truth:

I don’t want to be complicit any further in systems that knowingly addict their users, exploit children, boost misinformation, promote genocide, and face no consequences. 

I don’t want them to own or control my work. 
I don’t want them to dictate what I see and hear from my community. 
I don’t want them to have anything to do with my inner life. 

Instead, I want the satisfaction of a day well-lived. 
I want the childlike experiences I remember of nature, friendship, and useful boredom.
I want my minutes and hours back. 

The main social media platforms have violated my trust at every possible level. 

In their place, I choose to trust myself and the world directly around me, with the memory of something better as my subconscious guide. It churns underneath my decisions now: my own algorithm calling me back to sprinklers in summer and holly berries and bike rides and playdates and… 

- Joanna