Stop telling people to delete their social media

In 2017, I deleted my Facebook account. It was triggered by an HN comment that I cannot for the life of me find, but at the time it felt like the right thing to do. Everybody smart on the internet was saying social media was rotting our brains and the only way out was to get rid of it. Almost a decade later I can say it plainly: it was a mistake.

What I lost

I lost a bunch of friends. Not in the dramatic sense, we just stopped being in each other’s lives because the one thread connecting us was gone. Some of them became famous and I learned about it the way everybody else did. Some of them died, and I learned about it way too late, or by accident.

More importantly, I lost the place. The place where I could tell everyone, or at least what seemed like everyone, about the important things: a new job, a move, a wedding, a birth, a loss. And honestly that’s what it’s all about. There is no replacement for that. A group chat is not it, a newsletter is not it, and a blog that six people read is definitely not it. Ironically enough, the last straw that made me reinstall it was showing up to basketball practice and finding empty gym because the cancellation was announced on the Messenger group chat.

There is nothing wrong with having an account

There is nothing morally wrong with having an account on a regular social media website. Using a tool that billions of people use to keep in touch with each other is not a character flaw.

So to the people telling everybody to delete all their social media: stop. You can give much better and non-destructive advice.

The problem was me

To be fair, deleting Facebook did cure my Facebook addiction. Insofar as I only consider Facebook, it worked perfectly.

But for all intents and purposes I just replaced it. First with a Twitter addiction, then with a Hacker News addiction. Same compulsive refreshing, same lost hours, different logo. So the problem was never Facebook, or Twitter, or Hacker News. The problem was me.

That doesn’t mean these platforms are innocent. They are designed to exploit exactly that weakness (except HN with the noprocrast setting), and it’s not good that they do. But I have my part of responsibility in that whole ordeal, and pretending otherwise just lets me switch dealers while feeling good about myself. If I could go back, I wouldn’t delete the account. I would fix the habit, and keep the people.

The other side

Weirdly enough, when doing the research for this article I realized that at the same period many people were also suggesting not to delete your account (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). I guess I just didn’t see them.