Getting rid of social media, one at a time

After being on almost all major social networking sites from last thirteen years I realized it's been too long for such a thing. I first learned the idea of social networking sites in 2005 and it began with Orkut in it's golden days. Lots of groups and communities which shared tons of information, old time games and scarps to each other. Lots of friends found and lost as well.

Then came facebook in 2005 and became open for all in 2006 and I joined after getting an invite. It was dull initially and Orkut was much happening and colorful. After an year or so, Airtel offered free facebook on their prepaid connection. Remember, mobile internet was really slow and not cheap at all. People suddenly started drifting towards facebook and Orkut lost it's crown. Somewhere along came twitter which I didn't understood at all, but joined anyway. Orkut got replaced by Google Plus, Facebook was on rage, Twitter was finding grounds, and I was on every one of them equally.

All this while I had been wondering how I kept going. I could see people who never made any posts from many years, never had even a single chat for ages. There were likes on my status messages and photos, comments of varied nature and often tags on posts that might make some sense, if not then bring a smile. I even met a few of my social networking friends in person and many of my classmates and colleagues were added as well.

Whenever I opened facebook or instagram or twitter,  I had an infinite scroll of information that I may or may not need. I would see a good quote and share it, someone posted a photo of themselves and I will like it, someone got married and I will write a customery Congratulations, someone made a big purchase and I will wish them well, someone fell sick and I will send my get well soon greetings and it went on.
I wondered if I really needed this. I began to form opinion which I don't need at all. The socio-political equations and negetive posts had been creeping up in mind. I had been reading few hours a day, watching what I want, doing what I like, no strings, then why it feels like eating off something from me?
I realized it quite late, and it had been information overflow I was feeling. There is too much information that I don't need, and all social networking sites are giving is truckloads of it.

Often, I had been told that how my life is a lot of happening and I have it easy all the way. I travel a lot, I write just fine, how they envy my weekend trips or wonder how I find time to read and write, how I get on edge with adventure and make enjoying life to fullest, people often asked for advise on their matters, emotional or career, and I was there for everyone. Little did they know was what they saw on my profiles. No one knows what's going on in my mind or what I am going through right now, am I fighting something I will lose or having a tough time or suffering from any terminal illness. No one gets to know.

I never got back to Whatsapp after joining it initially in 2010 on S40 Nokia device because it wasn't popular then ans when it got popular, I observed it a complete waste of time due to thousands of forwarded messages being exchanged with no limit. With facebook, it was always on and off, but from sometime I realized I an keeping it just because I want to keep. Even on Instagram, I had been doing (or atleast I think) some productive work by finding perspectives of other photographer and learn about viewpoint in different ways. It took me sometime to realize that I had been fallen in trap of gratification. My photography is improving and it has nothing to do with instagram.  All I was doing is sharing photos of food, random flowers and places I had been and liking photos of others of the same.

So finally I decided to let go of all social media one by one without declaring on any of them. There stil are some people who might care or ask what and why. Too tired to explain.
I began with Instagram, which was hardest since it captured three of my interests, photography, travel and writing. I just deactivated the account to never go back.

 Then after a week, I moved to facebook, which was relatively easy. Although, I am yet to request a download of my profile since there is some content of mine which I'd like to retain. Maybe sometime later I will activate it for a while and once archive is prepared, I will delete the account altogether. 

A few days after Facebook, I just got off from twitter. It was easiest. Just deleted the app from phone and it's gone. 

I am keeping  Goodreads, LinkedIn, Blogger, Youtube, Quora and Soundcloud as of now. It's rather easy or say time consuming to maintain these. I hope I can stay off from these forever and do something (or do nothing peacefully) for myself.

Cheers!