A few years ago, I was sitting in a café with Behnam (Twitter) talking about military service. He was sharing his experiences, and I was talking about my worries. One of my concerns was not letting it change me. Behnam said something interesting: “No matter how much you try not to change, Araz after the army will be different from Araz before the army.” He was right. That change happened, but not because of others. It came from myself and from the dozens of books and articles I read and thought about during that time. Besides those books and articles, I thought about anything else I could. Thinking was my only way to escape that environment. That thinking was like a storm tearing through my mind, questioning existence itself. Few things survived those storms. Many things didn’t, including my reasons for being active on social networks.

This post isn’t continuous, it’s made up of notes written over nine months. But I’ve tried to piece them together so they make sense and can be useful to others too.

There are many reasons I gave up the so-called benefits of social media. Some of these reasons don’t just discourage me, they scare me. Scare me because of the immeasurable amount of shared information, where even a small portion of it can be used to cause serious harm to anyone. And alongside that:

Social networks are more a money-making tool for their creators than a communication tool for us. Like gaming machines, or internet cafés. Sure, gaming cafés bring fun and excitement, but they weren’t created for that. They were created for profit. The fun is just a lure, maximized to keep you spending your time and money there.

Facebook made to exploit human vulnerability.
Sean Parker | Guardian

Social media wastes your time. They’re built to make you spend as much time as possible on them. For this, companies hire top experts, people trained at the best universities, in psychology and behavioral science, so they can design the most addictive systems possible.

I might be the only one who didn’t like the title of the Pirate Bay documentary TPB AFK (Away From Keyboard). (I translated its subtitles into Persian for the first time, which you can find on my Work page.) Social networks are not the real world. The real world is somewhere else, with other experiences.

At the time of writing this, it’s been three months since I unplugged, and what I’m writing is from personal experience, not theory. I’m not the type to preach or rally people behind me. There’s also this idea that if someone constantly says “don’t do X,” it means deep down they want to do X themselves. So I’m not inviting anyone to quit their accounts. I’m just sharing my reasons. Now, let’s look at the reasons people resist leaving social networks, reasons I myself had, and the answers I found that helped me let go. For this, I also drew on talks by Tristan Harris at TED and Dr. Cal Newport at TEDx Tysons.

I’ll be like a caveman. This is the main reason I, and almost everyone who’s considered leaving, hesitated: being cut off from the world and current events. But seriously, why insist on knowing about a landslide in a random Thai village? I think we need to rethink what we feed our brains as “news.” And honestly, you don’t need to share updates yourself or wait for likes, favorites, retweets, or comments to stay informed. News belongs in news outlets, not on social media.

If I quit social media, I’ll lose access to work-related updates. Nonsense. Let’s be honest. Do you really need to follow Instagram models or random Twitter accounts to stay updated in your field? Nearly every service that posts updates on social media has a proper website. You should follow those websites and check them when you’re focused and ready, not skim them between food photos in your feed. I’ve been off social media for three months now, and I’m still alive. Even before quitting, I was alive. The news I need is always one click away in my feed reader, without the clutter. Writers, architects, poets, and everyone else had access to relevant news long before social media existed.

Yes, social media makes promotion easier. But that’s a minor advantage compared to the huge downsides. There are better, simpler ways to promote your work that don’t carry the same harm. Google is always there. It’s like what my friend once said after working 14 hours a day at a shoe workshop: “If I just spend two of these hours on my own work, I’ll earn several times more.” Social media might promote you, but at what cost? If you used those hours differently, wouldn’t you get better results?

Let’s not confuse social networks with the internet or blogging. They’re not the same. Blogging is actually a useful, constructive technology for promotion. The web and hypertext were created for sharing linked content, basically blogging. Unlike social media, blog posts get indexed by search engines, and the people who find them are those actively searching. No one is more likely to become your customer than someone already looking for your topic.

At one point I wrote down “Eat That Frog.” I don’t remember what connection I was trying to make here. If you can find it, go ahead and use it.

I need social media for branding. Even if you have gained customers through social media, ask yourself: how much of your presence there was really for that purpose? And was the energy and time you spent worth those clients? Couldn’t you have found them through more direct, logical ways of outreach instead?

Social media has no harm. On the surface, sure. Twitter is funny. Instagram is appealing. But remember the cost of this “harmless fun.” How much time do you spend on it? What else could you have gained by using that time differently? These platforms weren’t built just for you to have fun. You can’t “control” your use of something designed to addict you. Your unconscious mind is stronger than your conscious one. And the pleasure you get from them keeps demanding repetition, eating away more and more of your time.

These violent delights have violent ends.
Shakespeare | Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6

Addiction in any form is bad, but the result of that addiction matters. Some people are addicted to reading. That addiction means constantly learning new ideas, perspectives, and stories. But what do you learn from social media? Just nonsense.

You have nothing to lose but your chains.

The last and most important reason for me is the seventh semi-sufficient principle: if everyone is doing something, it’s probably wrong and worth rethinking. I explained this more in Life After Quitting Smoking.

Also, your brain is the best memory recorder. You don’t need to post your moments on social media to preserve them. Live them instead of documenting them. And if you feel lonely after quitting, remember, you were already lonely. Social media doesn’t cure loneliness. It makes it worse by distracting you from real moments where you could ease it.

Travel, and tell no one.
Live a true love story, and tell no one.
Live happily, and tell no one.
People ruin beautiful things.
- Khalil Gibran

Related:
Life After Quitting Smoking
What Is Life Without News?

Coming soon:
Life After Quitting Smartphones soon
Life After Quitting Music soon