I was around nine years old when I created my Facebook account. I was a young girl looking for the same thing everyone was looking for: a good feeling. I wanted to do what everyone else was doing that was said to be so amazing. I created my platforms, and became the watcher and the doer. After a while, I had almost every social media platform downloaded: Vine, Musically, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. I had my life as a little girl in reality with all my friends, and then I had my second life on my phone on social media talking to multiple people, not only just in Alaska but also around the world. 

I fell in a deep, dark hole in the chaos of distraction. Fast forward time, I was 12 years old talking on my phone to so many people I didn’t even know. I was always answering my Snapchats to see pictures of people’s faces. Half the time, I didn’t even know who it was. I would get on Instagram and Facebook to see what everyone was doing–to see what I should be doing–even to find out new resources that would make me fit in. That was my life for about four years before I finally realized it was all wrong.

It was only this year on November 21st, 2021, when I finally deleted all social media platforms. And this is my testimony. We are all looking for something, right? Well, through all this social media we think we are finding something that is fulfilling us inside, but really it’s all phony. Let me explain to you why that is. We do actions in everyday life, and create a story that is a false reality. As in, making the wrong decisions in life that you know will make you feel this certain way that we don’t want to feel like.  After something like that happens, we don’t want to feel that way anymore, so in this day and age we get on our phones and store away all those emotions inside ourselves that we didn’t think were not worth feeling. Then after countless times of doing this it becomes normalized; it becomes relevant to why people end up doing drugs, to suppress our feelings. Not only just that, people use social media because we constantly feel like we have to be someone that society is telling us to be. 

Social media has been conformed into a resource to ruin our humanity. I can’t tell you to get off your phone, or delete your social media platforms. What I can do is share with you my story and what happened to me to finally take the steps to delete all the tactics of what our social cues are telling us who and what we should be. I encourage you and I recommend taking a step to transformation and delete those social media apps that are making you comfortable. 

Ever since I deleted my platforms, I have been able to do so much more self-reflection. I have been able to look deeper into the self to find the places we as humans suppress through our phones. And most importantly, I have been able to be more mindful and aware of what is going on around me. It has made it easier to feel empathy for human life. After you let go of social media and tap into reality, it might make you afraid and/or maybe make you feel like you want to run away. But I promise you, it is all worth it in the end. If we want to find a way to patch the scars of what our society has created, we have full capability and control over what happens in our lives, and what we do about it. 

Whatever this means for you, I ask you to take initiative over what that is to make a change in your life. Soon it will make you realize that it did not only help you, but it also helped the people around you as well.