Why I don't use social media

Most people of my generation use social media. On any train or bus ride, take a look around you. I bet that the majority will be scrolling through instagram or facebook. For most of us, it is a part of our daily lives.

I am one of the minority that does not use social media. There are many reasons why I don’t do so, and I would like to briefly explain them in this post.

Note that I’m not saying that everyone should go cold turkey and quit social media. I understand that there are downsides to this approach, especially when it comes to socialising. I am just using this as a way to explain my views regarding social media.

It’s a poor substitute for face to face interaction

I believe that the best way to get to know someone is by talking to them, preferbly over a cup of great coffee. There is so much being conveyed by non verbal methods like body language and facial expression that is as important, if not more so, than the words being spoken.

All of this is lost when interacting with someone through a screen. Texting is the worst culprit here. It is impossible to convey everything you want to say through words alone.

The purpose of social media is to help us connect with others. However, how much do people really “connect” by scrolling through carefully curated photos of someones life, or by brief, sporadic text messaging? Not a lot.

This is why I always prefer to meet my friends in person, have lunch and just talk about life. Moreover, I can hear directly from them whats been happening with their lives, rather than a simple photo and caption. The back and forth of genuine conversation is a great experience, one that I am afraid social media might cause people to disregard.

It’s designed to be addictive and time consuming

If the above were the only downside to social media, I would say that it could be used as a great tool to help in maintaining friendships, as long as it isn’t the main focus. Too often, however, it is.

Social media isn’t a magical gift bestowed from the heavens. They are businesses. And just as every business must have a product, so does social media, namely: you. The whole business model revolves around placing ads in front of users and collecting the revenue.

To achieve this, social media companies deliberately design their apps to be as addictive and time consuming as possible. How many times have you opned your phone to check instagram and realise that 20 minutes have just disaapeared? How many posts have you scrolled through to get that quick hit of excitement when an interesting image or video pops up?

There are literally hundreds of super smart people whose sole job is to get you to use their app longer. If that doesn’t terrify you, it should. This is the main reason why I avoid social media, for fear of wasting my time and not being conscious of how I’m spending it.

If there was an open source, non profit driven way to share and interact with others, maybe I would consider it. Or that may be a future project… who knows?

It destroys your attention span

When was the last time you read a book? For most people it was the last time they were forced to do so in English class. Nowadays, people don’t have the time for that, right? After all, a book takes an average of 3 to 6 hours to finish.

Than again, people spend an average of 145 minutes a day on social media. That’s 2 hours and 25 minutes a day, everyday. Assuming a book takes 5 hours, that’s about 3 books a week. Can you imagine how much you could learn if you read 3 books a week? That’s pretty crazy to me. Which would you prefer, 156 books a year, or 882 hours spent on social media?

To me its a no brainer.

The problem is constantly being exposed to short bursts of content has significantly reduced our attention spans. This is why reading a book after using social media can feel so punishing and slow.

However, having the ability to focus for long periods of time on mentally demanding tasks is very important, in work and in life. This is covered by Cal Newport’s amazing book, Deep Work, which I recommend everyone to read.

I would rather train my ability to focus and learn than to dimish it.

It presents a skewed version of reality

I believe this point is pretty self explanatory for those who use social media often. Most people’s lives and what they present on social media are different. Sometimes vastly different. And even if someone tries to be as straightforward as possible, the very medium of social media means that something will be lost in translation.

Through my brief stint of using Instagram I had an intense bout of FOMO when browsing through peoples perfect, exciting and interesting lives. This is partially also because I feel like my own life isn’t that interesting. However, I realised it was in no small part due to the way that people polish and shape their social media profiles to present only a certain part of their lives.

I disliked feeling that I needed to do more or be more exciting in order to be as happy as those people looked. I wanted to just live my own life and not do things just because others were doing it too.

I just don’t care about other people that much

With the fear of coming off as a cold hearted bitch at the front of my mind, let me explain myself. I believe that around 5 genuine friendships are the most that anyone can sustain. A true friendship takes effort and time to maintain, and personally I don’t think I can handle too many of these. Of course, there are aquntaintances and such, but those just aren’t as important to me.

Thats why, for these 5 or so friends, I am already trying my best to spend time with them and do things together. Social media really won’t add much to the relationship. My theory is that social media gives people the impression of having many close friendships, when in reality those friendships are more of the hi, bye variety.

As an introvert, it takes more effort for me to interact and open up to someone. I just don’t have the energy to do that with everyone I meet. That’s why, if you’re not a close friend, I honestly don’t care which cafe you went to or that you got drunk last night. And if you are, I already know by hearing from you.

I have enough trouble living my own life, let alone thinking about the lives of hundreds of people.

In conclusion

So that’s my mini essay on why I don’t use social media. I’m sure there are a thousand arguments against those points and that I’m very biased. I just thought it would be fun to lay out my thoughts here. Do you use social media? Why or why not? You can let me know at ryan@ryanyanjansen.me. I would love to read your thoughts.

Till next time.

-Ryan