I deleted my final two social media accounts about a week ago on Thursday, August 21, 2025. Despite building a following, creating great connections, and generating revenue through the vehicles of YouTube and LinkedIn, I decided to delete my accounts on both of these platforms after already deleting my accounts on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and TikTok.

My life is simple. Everything I own fits in the trunk of my 2006 Toyota Corolla and I have less than 15 apps total on my iPhone. I use my laptop less than 2 hours every day and 95% of my time using my laptop is spent on Gmail, Zoom, iMessage, and ChatGPT, with the other 5% being dedicated to stray searches on Google Chrome. I don’t have an active account on Spotify, Apple Music, or any other streaming platform. I spend the majority of my days walking, reading, writing in my journal, meditating, spending time with loved ones, and exercising a curious awareness of my experience.

Right now, I am writing with an orange mechanical pencil inside of my green Moleskine journal, inside of a cafe near where my father and I live in Wendell Falls, North Carolina. I’ve recently been hired as a substitute teacher for Cary Academy, a middle and high school, where I’ll hopefully start subbing within the coming weeks. As I step into this new phase of my life, I’ve been contemplating why I do anything I do.

What is my driving intention in life? Why am I drawn towards the habits, people, places, and experiences I am? What do I want in life, if anything? Who am I? What are my values? Do these questions matter? What is true? Is time real? What is a thought?

Most of these existential inquiries typically lead me back to a focus on my breath in the present moment or tuning into my emotional state of being. Consciously directing attention away from thought and onto the breath seems to calm down my nervous system rather quickly and facilitate emotional states of peace, gratitude, acceptance, love, and joy. For the record, I openly welcome and invite all emotions and thoughts into my experience without preference towards what is thought or felt. I find that each emotion is a message of sorts that would like to be read, understood, and processed.

So, amidst all this thinking, feeling, doing, being, and processing, why do I do anything that I do? It would appear that my recurring motivation and intention is to help myself and others flourish. In other words, you could say this would be helping life flourish, grow, cultivate wellness, wellbeing, etc. After all, these are all just thoughts/words that point to something much deeper. I say this to indicate that my decision to delete all social media seems to be what my deeper being feels best for the flourishing of myself, others, and life as a whole.

So, what have I noticed in my 4 days of complete social media account deletion? The first thing that comes to mind is freedom from the shackling chains of certain thoughts and perceptions. So many thoughts and questions about social media seem permanently relieved. At one point, I had my accounts on LinkedIn and YouTube deactivated with all other accounts deleted. Despite deactivated accounts, I would wonder if I should reactivate my accounts, consider using the platforms in creative ways to accomplish my goals, and eventually reactivate them once inspiration hit with a new use case in mind, only to fall to the same consumption and comparison traps that have plagued me in the past. With fully deleted accounts, I’ve accepted that my life goals, business goals, and community goals will be creatively accomplished without social media. Complete deletion has opened up entirely new ways of thinking that deactivation couldn’t.

The second thing I’ve noticed since being off socials is a greater sense of focus. I now have less inputs competing for my attention, which has been boring in the best way. I feel like I’ve had more time for the things that really matter in life and like I’ve had PLENTY of time to address them. Distractions and decision fatigue have decreased.

For example, I have LOVED digital expression over the past 4 years as that has my primary intended use for social media. I’ve been consistent in digital expression but inconsistent in the vehicle for expression. I’d post on Instagram for a week or two here, YouTube for a month or two there, LinkedIn the next couple weeks, the newsletter after that, and then back to Instagram. I couldn’t stay consistent with any platform because I saw unique value in all of them.

Now, I’m limited to email and text message to communicate with the digital world. My vehicles for expression are completely narrowed down, creating a deeper level of focus, clarity, and confidence in what I’m doing. Not to mention greater levels of creativity and inspiration due to less time spent consuming and mental energy fighting discipline wars against the addictive algorithms. Overall, I’ve noticed a greater sense of focus, clarity, patience, calm, and discipline.

The final realization I’ve had since full social media deletion is that I’ve had to more fully confront ALL aspects of my reality/lived experience, both pleasant and unpleasant. I no longer have an easy escape for unsettling feelings like worry, anxiety, sadness, doubt, fear, and anger. Traditionally I’ve escaped those feelings with weed, porn, binge eating, and social media. I haven’t engaged in any of these habits since deleting socials. Weed and porn felt more important to address than YouTube and LinkedIn, so I let go of those over a month ago.

Binge eating (and honestly any of these habits) could pop back in at any time, however, they continue to be less desirable over time with the cultivation of mindfulness & a willingness to confront unpleasant emotions instead of being averse to them (which leads to suppression and coping).

This isn’t to villainize suppression or coping either. We cope oftentimes, if not every time, because we feel as if we lack the safety or environment to process what needs to be processed. I’m grateful for the roles my coping mechanisms have played in allowing me to feel soothed and safe when it felt like I lacked the community, environment, and ability to soothe myself in a less harmful way.

On the bright side of this deeper confrontation with my experience, I’ve felt incredibly engaged with all the wonderful feelings, people, places, and experiences in my life like never before. I’ve felt deeply present with loved ones, nature, God, eating, the breath, and this eternal moment. I’m very grateful to feel more alive in every way. I attribute much of this to finally deleting all social media accounts.

As I wrap this writing up, I want to acknowledge that this social media deletion has been a five year process. It started in 2020 during Covid when I realized I had a serious addiction to Instagram and TikTok because I was spending 14+ hours a day on them. I made the small decision to delete the apps from my phone, which was step 1. That was a small step, and the apps were re downloaded minutes later, but it was a significant step in this process.

5 years of patience, love, awareness, a commitment to my wellbeing, and the grace of God have led to the freedom of my addiction to Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and social media as a whole.

Addiction is no joke and requires patience, love, and support. I’m here to tell you it’s possible AND worth it to step away from these addictive algorithms competing for your attention. If you need help or support, I’m here for you.

Love,

Joe :)