Why I Don't Recommend Removing Social Media Apps From Your Phone

Or: The bad feelings get worse, trust me.

I have spent at least the past year¹ desperately trying to disconnect myself from social media (Instagram, specifically). I was successful in deleting Facebook back in 2021 or 2022² and have never felt the pull to go back, but that could be mostly attributed to the fact that I just deleted my account vs. simply removing the app from my phone (and re-adding it. And removing it. And re-adding it…forever and ever).

The worst thing about removing the apps from your phone? You will end up downloading them again. If you have an account (or two) to go back to, you WILL go back. I know you’d like to think you won’t³, but when you realize you use Instagram or TikTok to research things to do on vacation, or for recipes, or [insert your hobby-related search here], you’ll reluctantly go crawling back.

Have you ever seen someone looking happy or engaged while scrolling? Pay attention to the way people completely shut down as soon as they get sucked in. You’ll notice it more when you’re not doing it too.

“I’ll just look up this one thing!” you say. “I’ll download it for today and then remove it again,” you tell yourself. OR the more insidious “I don’t really miss it, so i’ll just set an hour per day limit and somehow i’ll be perfect at using it and i’ll never get sucked into the scroll and i’ll keep strong boundaries,” you lie.

You won’t. Because that’s not how these apps are designed. It’s not a failure on your end, it’s clever engineering crafted to keep you interested and scrolling.

If you’ve deleted Instagram (or TikTok, or whatever) off of your phone because you’ve noticed that it makes you feel like shit, I have bad news: every single time you download the apps again, and go back to scrolling after a few days (or weeks, or months) of freedom from the sinister lens of social media, you’re going to feel worse.

Literally how I feel after looking up after hours of scrolling. The cake (read: content) wasn’t even that good for how shitty I feel!

Whenever I put Instagram and TikTok back on my phone, there’s inevitably a day where my screen time rockets up to four, five, six hours and I feel absolutely disgusting. It’s the digital version of eating a really terrible dessert⁴ — and each time, the feeling hits sooner (and harder). Even a 15-minute scroll now makes me feel overstimulated and gross.

This is the most embarrassing (but probably, hopefully relatable) confession: I found myself sharing carefully curated posts to stories as a way of crafting and controlling my online identity so people would think I was…what? Cool? Smart? Worth following? Following for what?⁵

I find myself getting disgusted with perceived desperation on social media. Those posts and videos you know were created solely for attention-seeking. It becomes more obvious when you’ve spent some time away from the apps.

I’ve been working to focus more on real life, to do things because I want to, not because they’ll make for a fun photo or a clever caption.⁶ Since I’ve spent the majority of my online time since 2019 working on a book- and reading-related account, i’ve let recommendation culture and what’s new and what’s trending influence my reading, which has not panned out well. Yes, I have expanded my reading tastes and discovered books I probably would not have otherwise, but i’m still struggling to read for myself.⁷

Unfortunately my solution for this mess is one that I have not put into practice myself (yet). If you really want to break away from the cold, clammy grip of the apps, you have to delete your accounts. You have to make the apps almost impossible to return to.

Hey now, hey now, this is what dreeaaams are made of.

Is deleting my accounts my goal for 2025? I’ve love for the answer to that question to be a yes, without hesitation, but they⁸ have made it so hard to quit social media entirely and still feel like a participating member of society.⁹

I do have hope for us, as a whole. From the countless discussions about reducing or eliminating time spent on social media to more people working to reduce their consumption of material goods, I think we’re headed in a positive direction.

1. Or longer, but my concept of time and when things took place has been ruined since 2020. Which i’m sure rings true for many of you.

2. Again, what is time?

3. I know there are some magical unicorns among us who deleted the app(s) once and never went back, but be real with me for a second.

4. You know, something that tastes fine in the moment but inevitably leads to a grimy, nauseated feeling that takes hours to shake.

5. For full transparency, this was mostly related to my bookstagram account that had (and still has) a few thousand followers, most of whom I do not know (of course). Why do I care what these strangers think of me?

6. My god, this is insufferable. WHO CARES?

7. Although it gets easier the less time I spend on social media. Who would’ve thought?

8. Why are “they” ALWAYS the problem? We need to shut them down.

9. I have some life changes coming up this year that will, unfortunately, be made easier by still having access to things like Instagram and TikTok, but i’m hoping that I am able to utilize these on an as-needed basis until I can finally cut them loose for good.