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\title{Sufyaan's Website}
\author{Sufyaan's Website}
\date{}

\begin{document}
\maketitle


\section[Stop Using Social Media]{Stop Using Social Media}\label{why-i-use-terminal-apps}

\textbf{20 April 2023}

\textbf{Category: }Software \& Guides

\renewcommand*\contentsname{Table Of Contents}

\tableofcontents


I know how you felt reading the title. If you are a heavy social media
user, you probably said:

\emph{"What? Who in their right mind would delete their social media
accounts? How are they supposed to live life and talk to their
friends?"}

Don\textquotesingle t worry. That was me last year. I understand your
feelings. However, the disadvantages of social media and the perks of
deleting it far outweigh its benefits. In this post, I will go over the
reasons why you should delete all of your social media.

\hypertarget{cons}{%
\subsection[Cons of Social Media]{Cons of Social Media}\label{cons}}

\hypertarget{time-consuming}{%
\subsubsection{Time-Consuming}\label{time-consuming}}

A study counted 5 billion internet users and it was concluded that, on
average,
\href{https://www.forbesindia.com/article/lifes/how-much-time-do-people-spend-on-social-media-and-why/79477/1}{an
internet user spends 6 hours and 53 minutes online per day.} 6. HOURS.
AND. 53. MINUTES. That is almost a whole third of
people\textquotesingle s daily lives. Another study concluded that
people spend more time on social media in their whole lifetime than
grooming, socialising (social media !=socialising) and doing the laundry
combined.

It is not as if any of the time spent is valuable. Sure, you may learn
one or two \textquotesingle fun facts, which will make you think that
you need social media. You may talk with your friends a lot, which will
make you think that your account is required to socialise with people.
However, these are all nonsensical excuses that your brain makes to
justify getting cheap dopamine. Imagine how much work you can get done,
how many actual connections you can make with people, and how many good
habits can be formed that will make you happier in the long term than
social media.

\hypertarget{mental-health}{%
\subsubsection{Affects Your Mental Health}\label{mental-health}}

Whenever people hear that social media affects your mental health, they
agree but say that it does not affect them specifically. The most common
argument I hear is:

\emph{"Yeah, I know that it affects other people. However, I am fine
with it. I feel normal and do not feel depressed at all.}

All I can say is not to trust what your brain tells you whenever you are
dealing with any addiction, not just social media. Think about it. The
same brain that is telling you that you should keep using social media
for meaningless reasons is the one telling you that it is not affecting
you.

Social media is a constant source of comparison. You open it up, view a
few triggering posts, find out that your favourite actor has passed
away, and see your friends perfect lives. Before closing the app, you
apply filters to yourself and edit the picture as much as possible for
your stories to make yourself look artificially good.

You see, not only is social media fake, it also has an absurd effect on
your mental health. It has been proven that many social media platforms
track you to show you personalised content. They use human psychology to
hook you onto their platforms.

There are two chemicals in your brain that are responsible for
happiness:

\begin{itemize}
\tightlist
\item
  Dopamine - released when you are anticipating something good
\item
  Endorphin - released when you are happy
\end{itemize}

In many cases, the effect of dopamine is much greater than the effect of
endorphins. Recall back to a young age when you realised you were about
to receive a toy that you had been waiting for for a few days. The
feeling you got when you realised you would get it soon was more intense
than the actual feeling of getting the toy.

The same trick applies on social media. Many social media platforms show
you content that is completely different from the content that you like
just before showing you content that you really like. This results in
more dopamine being released, with a good amount of endorphin being
released as well. To your brain, it has just achieved something great
when, in reality, you have not.

Constantly high dopamine and endorphin releases raise your base
happiness levels. This is why things that you used to love now seem
boring to you. It is not \textquotesingle growing up\textquotesingle. It
is your social media addiction.

Social media metrics also contribute to this. It makes you think that
likes and comments are proportional to your worth, which is simply not
the case. When you get a like, it is a form of validation that you are
valuable to someone. Someone not liking your post does not mean that you
are not valuable.

FOMO (fear of missing out) plays a big role as well. The phrase:

\emph{"If everyone is using {[}insert anything here{]}, why
shouldn\textquotesingle t I?"}

is commonly said by an individual who experiences FOMO without the thing
in question. There is a constant fear of missing out on information,
which simply will not happen. You may miss some arbitrary information
that you would not care about otherwise, but this is not a reason at all
to continue using social media.

To hook you into their addiction, social media companies hire "attention
designers" who take references and inspiration from casinos to keep you
hooked.

Before ending this unexpectedly long section, I would like you to read
this quote.

\emph{"You\textquotesingle re either on, and you\textquotesingle re
connected and distracted all the time, or you\textquotesingle re off,
but then you\textquotesingle re wondering, Am I missing something
important? In other words, you\textquotesingle re either distracted or
you have a fear of missing out."}

\textbf{Tristan Harris, Former Design Ethicist at Google}

\hypertarget{privacy}{%
\subsubsection{Privacy}\label{privacy}}

If you post everything you do on social media, there is no longer any
privacy. Anything you do is public information. If you have a
\textquotesingle private\textquotesingle{} account, your friends know
everything you do. There is no privacy at all if you keep posting
everything on social media.

Then there is the elephant in the room.

\textbf{Digital Privacy.}

It is well-known that apps like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and some
Google apps collect your data like their lives depend on it
(technically, they do). Everything from your name to your IP address and
phone number to even the amount of network requests you make or the
model of your phone. Not to mention, literally everything you do on the
app. This all goes to their servers and is used for more advertisements.

It is pretty safe to say that your digital footprint, as it is called,
can be nearly eliminated by deleting your accounts. There are more steps
that you have to take to take care of your privacy, but preventing data
collection from big corporations is a huge step.

\hypertarget{fake-news}{%
\subsubsection{Fake News}\label{fake-news}}

Fake news. It\textquotesingle s everywhere. Even the worst social media
addict cannot deny it. You see parody pages that copy the design of
famous news channels perfectly and post random news. You see people edit
images to exaggerate or divert the subject of an article. There is not
much that I need to say. You know what I mean.

\hypertarget{sleep}{%
\subsubsection{Much Worse Sleep}\label{sleep}}

The blue-light from your phone tricks your brain into thinking
it\textquotesingle s daytime. So, when you use your phone late into the
night scrolling on your social media feed, it makes you feel less
sleepy.

When this happens, do you know what most people do? They pick up their
phones again since they cannot sleep, thinking that they will sleep in
30 minutes when they are sleepy. This cycle goes on. Many individuals of
Generation Z do not sleep the whole night for many days on end and
instead take naps in the afternoon. Does this sound healthy to you?

And no, using a blue-light filter does not fix the issue. It only
slightly reduces its effect.

\hypertarget{physical-health}{%
\subsubsection{Decline In Physical Health}\label{physical-health}}

When you spend hours and hours a day sitting down with no exercise or
action apart from flicking your thumb, what do you think will happen?
You may experience the following effects:

\begin{enumerate}
\tightlist
\item
  Weight Gain
\item
  Back Pain
\item
  Bad Posture
\item
  Neck Pain
\item
  Eye Strain
\item
  Increased Risk of Heart Disease
\end{enumerate}

Many individuals who use social media are experiencing these problems,
which are usually experienced by older people, at ages like 25.

\hypertarget{productivity}{%
\subsubsection{Horrible Productivity}\label{productivity}}

When you are working and are in the zone (a phase in which you do
high-quality work without even thinking about it), any minor disturbance
will move you out of that state. A notification about someone liking
your post can shake you out of the zone. In the long-term, this will
waste hours of your time.

\hypertarget{getting-rid}{%
\subsection[Getting Rid of It]{Getting Rid of It}\label{getting-rid}}

So, you are ready. You want to quit social media and break this horrible
addiction. You realise the effects it has on your life. However, you do
not know where to start. If this is the case, check out
\href{https://www.staygrounded.online/p/the-air-method-phase-i}{\textquotesingle The
AIR Method\textquotesingle{}}. If you would like to read how I did it,
please refer to the steps below. Referring to the steps I took may help
you understand your weak points and how to combat them.

\hypertarget{contact}{%
\subsubsection{1. Alternative Contact Details}\label{contact}}

Make a list of all of your friends and cross out the ones that you know
can be reached on other chat applications. Ask the rest for alternative
contact methods. This may be through apps like Signal, Session, XMPP,
Matrix, or WhatsApp. Just make sure that it is not another social media
app.

\hypertarget{download}{%
\subsubsection{2. Download Your Data}\label{download}}

Download your data to refer to in the future. Most social media
platforms include chats along with it so that you can refer back to the
chats if needed. A website like
\href{https://justgetmydata.com/}{JustGetMyData} will allow you to
quickly get to this section. Most websites place it in places which are
difficult to access to prevent people from deleting their accounts.

\hypertarget{healthy-apps}{%
\subsubsection{3. Start Using Healthier Apps}\label{healthy-apps}}

Quitting social media \textquotesingle cold-turkey\textquotesingle{}
(abruptly) may work for the first few days but it will cause you to fail
completely. It is better to slowly reduce your usage by using healthier
apps.

If you haven\textquotesingle t already, start using RSS feeds. There is
nothing wrong with using old technology. RSS provides you with a similar
feed to social media but with content you actually like and want to
read. It is managed by you, not an algorithm. You read what you want and
stop. There is no algorithm or endless feed that compells you to keep
using the app.

I am going to make a post about RSS feeds soon. It will be updated here.

\hypertarget{announce}{%
\subsubsection{4. Announce}\label{announce}}

It is also important to announce that you are deleting your accounts.
This may not be necessary if you have less than five friends you talk to
on your accounts but it is important if you have many friends. This
announcement will allow your friends to contact you and tell you their
alternative forms of contact. It will also allow people to know that you
are leaving for good.

\hypertarget{plunge}{%
\subsubsection{5. Take The Plunge!}\label{plunge}}

The moment you have been waiting for. Click on the delete button.

This is much easier said than done, however. Most social media accounts
have a grace period during which if you login to your account, your
account deletion will be cancelled. For Instagram, the grace period is 1
month. To combat this, I did the following:

\begin{enumerate}
\tightlist
\item
  Removed all recovery options (phone number, 2FA) from my accounts and
  changed my email to one from \href{https://temp-mail.org/}{TempMail}
  to prevent password reset
\item
  Generated a random 128-character password in
  \href{https://bitwarden.com/password-generator/}{Bitwarden (my
  password manager)}
\item
  Changed my account password to the new password
\item
  Deleted my account
\item
  Immediately delete all records of the password and restart your device
  to clear it from your clipboard
\end{enumerate}

These steps were drastic but they practically cemented the fact that my
account was going to be deleted, no matter what.

\hypertarget{conclusion}{%
\subsection[Conclusion]{Conclusion}\label{conclusion}}

There is not much left to say. I am much, much happier without social
media. I have more time on my hands and I am still getting the
information I want from RSS feeds without an algorithm trying to pull me
in. Big corporations have much less data about me, I have a lot of time
and have produced a lot of work. In terms of academics, my overall
percentage in school has increased by over 20\%. I find difficult
subjects easier and easy subjects a piece of cake.

All in all, if you care about yourself, delete your social media. It is
a hellhole that is getting worse by the day.
\end{document}

