I have been free of all social media for three months.
I only had one social media account (Instagram) left in January 2025 before I permanently deleted it. Mark Zukerberg’s decision to end fact checking across his platforms sealed the deal for me.
Interestingly, it was his decision to implement a news ban in Australia in 2021 that made me permanently delete Facebook. The Autralian government proposed a law that would have forced tech companies to compensate media companies for their content, and Facebook decided to ban the news from its platform as payback.
I never had Twiter because I thought it was stupid. I signed up for Snapchat only to immediately delete it because I knew I would never use it. I’m too old for TikTok and since I’ve moved away from social media, there’s no point in joining.
There’s a new social media site called Bluesky, which a lot of people are migrating to because of Twitter’s (X’s) problems, but I see no reason to join the herd when they all exist to rob you of your precious time and profit from your free content.
And that’s what it came down to in the end: Social media does not add any value to my existing life, and I’m not getting paid for my time spent posting or consuming content.
Time to Pay Me for My Attention
You might be thinking, “Why should you get paid to consume content?”
It’s simple: Social media companies need me more than I’ll ever need them. They profit off my attention either through ad revenue or selling my personal data to third party companies. I should be receiving a cut given that it’s my attention and my personal data, though I would prefer my personal data not be sold to any entity.
You might be thinking, “That’s not a strong argument.” It’s not to you because you don’t value your time the way I do mine.
I’m obsessed with time: how much time I have left on this planet (I’m not dying!), how I spend my time, and with whom I spend my time.
I’m more protective of my time than I am of my money, not that I’m gambling my money away. The big difference is that in life you’ll make money and you’ll lose money. If you lose money, you can always make it back.
Time doesn’t afford you the same luxury. You will never make up for lost time. Never!
The older I become, the more protective I am of my time.
This isn’t to say that I avoid life and all its unexpected moments. It just means that I have the experience to know when someone or something is or is not worth my time, even if that experience doesn’t always produce perfect results.
I have learned over the many years of using social media that it’s not worth my time.
I kept Facebook and Instagram under the false impression that I was connecting with someone when what I was doing was wasting my time looking through someone else’s photos and watching someone else’s Instagram stories.
In turn, people were pretending to connect with me. What these people really wanted was to increase their friend count. Don’t misconstrue this as animosity.
I began to question the point of it all especially when I had friends that called or texted me, wanted to meet me for lunch or dinner, or wanted to fly halfway around the world with me.
Once you start questioning the point of something, it’s only a matter of time before the smoke clears and you see the truth behind it all.
The truth is that my (our) attention makes these companies money. My time is making the CEOs and the shareholders of these social media companies very fucking rich.
And there’s absolutely nothing in it for me. Social media never made a positive impact on my life.
I never cared about racking up friends or followers. I never felt the need to be validated.
“Validation is for parking.”
Austin Kleon
Why should I use something that steals from me? Yes, social media companies steal from us.
They steal our time, and they also steal our work.
Time to Pay Me for My Content
I do not work for free.
Let me say that again.
I. Do. Not. Work. For. Free.
Content creation is work. I completely disagree with anyone who says that you need to create a ton of free content “on the front end to build a fanbase you can sell to on the back end.”
That’s cute.
I’m not putting in hours of unpaid work on any social media platform with the hope that one day I’ll make a little something in return. The amount of time it takes to create content for what you get in return is a bad deal.
But working for free isn’t new. It’s just been repackaged by social media companies. They have convinced a lot of people that being an influencer is a quick and easy way to get rich.
It isn’t. It’s a way for social media companies to get rich.
Existing research shows that only 12% of full-time creators make $50,000 per year.
What it really is is the continuation of the devaluation of labor. Look no further than freelancing websites, and you’ll see a race to the bottom not a race to the top. Everyone is outbidding themselves as the cheapest to get more work.
Knowing all this, why in the world would I create content all day every day for someone else for the chance, not the certainty, to make $50k/year? And that’s $50k/year with no health insurance or PTO.
I make $82,000 a year at my current job. I have health insurance and 24 PTO days, 10 of which I can carry over. It’s not perfect, but I’m getting paid for the work I do.
It doesn’t make any sense for me to work 40+ hours a week, more like 24/7, for the chance to make money.
No, that’s not a good return on my invesment.
A very small part of me, teeny weeny part, can’t blame people for believing the lie social media companies have sold them.
I was watching Adam Conover’s video about gambling a month ago, and he points out that part of the reason why people think they can become rich being an influencer is because people “have lost faith in anything other than a roll of the dice to provide a secure middle-class life.”
I get it. The job security of the 1950s and 60s disappeared.
But that’s your fault. You failed yourselves.
You stopped fighting for unions.
You voted for politicians who enacted right-to-work laws.
You never protested factory and plant closures.
You allowed the people in power to convince you that your labor isn’t worth much.
I’m not jumping on that ship.
I’m not working for free, and I’m not consuming content for free.
My time and work have monetary value.
Your time and work have monetary value.
“If you don’t value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents—start charging for it.”
Kim Garst