Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

I went camping last weekend with my partner and dog. Four days of sitting around doing nothing was the original plan, after a busy summer of fun activities intertwined with my tech day-job.

I packed a lot of devices, compared to the 1994 camping version of myself. My father probably would have been ashamed because he didn’t teach me that version of camping. Regardless of that shame, I brought my Kindle for reading, my phone, a Bluetooth speaker, battery power bank, a variety of charging cables and whatever devices my partner needed.

My plans were simple, read every day for class, post cute videos and pictures of my dog on Instagram, and stream music for our nights by the fire.

It didn’t pan out.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried camping in the mountains, but here’s a secret: there’s definitely no cell service. So, a few moments after arriving and putting up my tent, it became obvious that a few of my planned activities weren’t going to happen.

Here’s what happened instead:

Lots of really important conversations with my partner that we had not been having due to being able to distract ourselves with Instagram and Facebook.

Conversations with park rangers that helped us feel a little more human.

Excursions into the local small town for the worst pizza we’ve had in a while.

A deeper connection with ourselves as many hours of the day was spent in quiet introspection.

An ungodly amount of s’mores eaten by the fire that we kept lit until late in the night.

Really important connections with our dog, who is a little older and we really need to enjoy her as long as possible.

Obligatory Dog-Tax. Forgive the Vertical video.

Most importantly, we had enough time to re-center and feel relaxed. Contrary to popular belief, lying in bed while mindlessly scrolling Instagram for an hour is not relaxing. There is so much that happens with our own mental health as we spend time on social media. It’s been written about a million times, but I want to write about what it specifically does to me.

Social media is great. I love seeing what my friends are up to, or what the countless dogs I follow on Instagram are doing, but there are so many ways that it’s not great for you. For me, I can honestly say that a large portion of my social-friends are people I don’t really know, don’t really like, or don’t really care about. The people I don’t know could be the girl I volunteered alongside at a food event last year, a friend of my partner who I only met once at a party and thought was interesting, or, honestly, friends from high school that are absolutely different people than when we attended school together. These aren’t connections. Sure, it’s great that they are doing well in life…but I have no emotional connection to them, their activities, or really anything.

The people I don’t like? They may be people I have liked in the past…but maybe I realized they weren’t great people, or we don’t have much in common. Why haven’t I deleted them? Partially morbid curiosity, partially guilt at the fact that I dislike them. Either way, we have no connection or we never will.

The third subset of people are probably the most complex- people who I enjoy in real life, but don’t really agree with their social media output. These could be my relative who insists on having a confederate flag background and doesn’t stop posting racist jokes, an old friend who uses social-media for clout and narcissism, or even co-workers that I love working with but I don’t want them to know everything about me.



Because of these people, I have largely not posted much on Facebook specifically in a few years.

Another way social media is problematic is the change in communication. I noticed a long time ago that much of the conversation between my partner and myself occurs on Facebook messenger. I am known as the person who uses Messenger instead of texting, partially because text messages used to not be cheap, and partially out of laziness. This reliance on messenger has absolutely damaged my relationship. Because my partner and I speak on it all day long, when we meet in person we don’t have much to say. Our arguments that occur through messaging last much longer, have more lasting emotional effects, and the content is cemented in stone for re-visitation at any time. If those arguments or disagreements happen in person- they are squashed with appropriate dialogue in a quicker amount of time. Communication through text easily creeps into our lives as a primary mode of conversation, and by the time you notice, it’s too late. Gigabytes of conversation have become permanently digitized in some company’s databank.

It’s not just that.

I’m angry a lot.

It’s me that has the problem, but social media exacerbates it. I’m not the only one who has the problem…I think that deep down social media affects my partner this way as well. I can tell with his growing dissatisfaction. But being able to see everything that everyone is doing? That highlight reel is killing us. It helps me grow the mechanism I can have for judgement. While I desperately want to be kind and understanding, mellow and unaffected, what happens instead is that I’m sad and discouraged.

Watching people that I judge (not my place to judge, I know) to be undeserving, living their trust fund lives travelling the world or getting all of the opportunities while I struggle to carve a place for myself? It’s not fun. I dislike two things about this: 1 — that I judge at all, and 2- that I compare myself to these people. Social media will never, ever, let me forget about so-and-so who is globetrotting and living MY dreams. And by spending my time watching that person? I don’t get to see what I actually am accomplishing. It’s gross.

Social media…you’re gross.

And not to be a hipster or anything, but my experience without cell service last week taught me one thing: It’s time.

I’ve deleted Facebook. In the coming weeks, I’m going to trim down my Instagram to the accounts that, in Kondo fashion, bring me joy. I hope other people will join me. I know it’s a big step, and a hard one at that, but if you feel like you need a friend — I bet there are a couple out there in real life that would love to hear from you.