These past few months, I’ve been exploring life with minimal social media. I realized I was spending too much time on social media, and I wanted to fix that. One by one, I started limiting my access to these apps and then eventually deleting them altogether from my devices.

LinkedIn was the easy first target. I am already in my late forties, and none of my jobs were discovered or recommended by people via LinkedIn. Most of them were recommended or referred to by actual friends I know outside of work. In addition to that, most of my recent interactions on the platform were just with random recruiters trying to get in touch with me so they could fulfill their sales quotas. Cynical? Yes, but that meant goodbye, LinkedIn.

Next in line was TikTok. I found myself spending too much time swiping through these short videos that when I thought about it, did not really add much value to my life. They are entertaining, yes, but do I really need them or even want them in my life? No. So goodbye, TikTok. Instagram had Reels, and YouTube had Shorts, so they would do for those times I intentionally want to kill time.

Instagram was my next target. I used to use it for sharing places I visited and pictures I took, but then I realized many of my friends and family are not on the platform anyways, and my photography attempts are not really going anywhere. So goodbye, Instagram.

Facebook was my next big target, and this one was hard because most of my friends and family are on there, and Facebook Messenger is still a common way for Filipinos to interact with each other. In the end, I decided to just delete Facebook but keep Messenger. That way, I can still keep in contact with family and friends while getting rid of the noise.

X (formerly Twitter) was now the remaining social media on my phone. I did log off my personal account and only kept a Japanese-language account that I still use often. None of my family or friends know about this account, and I do not intend to change that. I do not follow anybody I know in person as well. I keep it as a way to practice my Japanese while anonymously talking about a topic I like: our neighborhood here in Tokyo.

YouTube, if you do consider that as social media, is maybe the only exception. I regularly use it on our Apple TV, and I even got a subscription after I got sick of the ads. I do not use it to socialize, though, and I use it strictly to watch videos. YouTube is staying, at least for now.

It’s been months since I’ve deleted these apps on my devices, and I still feel like I made the right decision. I got to lower my screen time a lot, and seldom use more than 3GB a month on my cellular account. My phone rarely leaves my bag when I’m with people, or even when I’m just by myself on a train.

Life is better without all that social media noise.