I deleted social media for a month

By Bridget Killian

Her Campus DePaul, 2021

A couple of weeks ago, I made the bold move of hitting the little gray ‘X’ on the top left corner of my social media apps, deleting them from my phone. I know what you are thinking: I’m crazy. But I have to disagree. Making the decision to remove social media apps from my phone may have been the best decision I’ve made thus far this year.

Social media is something that gives people a lot of joy but also can just as easily give people a lot of stress. For me, it was the latter — my stress levels were off the charts. There is so much pressure on people today to have a social media following, an aesthetic feed, and maintain a constant presence. I was beginning to fall into the trap of placing too much value on the performance of my posts.

Let’s talk about Tik Tok. When Tik Tok first came on the scene, I basically vowed never to download it. I didn’t really see the appeal or find any of the trends at the time funny. Of course, once quarantine hit in March of 2020 I gave in and downloaded it. Initially, I only wanted to post original dances that I choreographed to highlight my dance abilities, but I quickly forgot about that idea and just fell in line. I posted so many videos just doing random trends or doing “Tik Tok dances” rather than setting out to create a platform just for my creations...continue reading