If You Want to Be a Creator, Delete All (But Two) Social Media Platforms

Pixel art, woman, NetWorker, social — @Deleted User (fast). Image created on Midjourney.

In October 2022, during the whole Elon Musk debacle, I finally deleted Twitter from my phone. Around the same time, I also logged out of Instagram and Facebook. I had wanted to remove these distractions from my life for a while, and thanks to Elon’s shenanigans, I got the push to do so.

Six months later, I realized something that runs in direct opposition to almost every single piece of creator advice out there: I don’t miss having social profiles.

I’m not surprised that I don’t miss them from a personal perspective. It’s conventional wisdom nowadays: social media =/= connections. Without Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and so on, I have more time, more energy, and deeper connections with my actual friends. I read more. I write in my novel more.

But I also don’t miss them from a professional perspective. I’m not missing out on business opportunities. I’m not missing out on communicating with my readers.

I’m not missing out at all, as far as I can tell.

That realization inspired me to write this article. Today, the prevailing advice is to create a profile absolutely everywhere and post nonstop until you get traction. But in my experience, that’s bad advice. Here’s why.

1. The people giving you that…