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I’ve been on and off social media for years now. I weaned myself off Facebook around five years ago, gradually replacing religious content with wood turning and epoxy resin projects. I stayed off for a few years then, only to return about a year ago, seeking to reconnect with an old friend.

I resided there then with them my sole contact. After some months, I connected with a few more, then various family members and in-laws. But then cut back, down to just two or three, then latterly just one… that singular friend again.

Eventually I deleted the app from my phone to keep temptation away. The temptation of infinite scrolling, I mean. Those viral videos. That waste of time. And occasionally browsing the public posts of those I vaguely know. A bit futile, really.

In the end, I put my account back into hibernation. It’s sleeping now. I’m not going to join the “I quit Facebook” fraternity, because that’s quite tiresome for those left behind, and inevitably I will be back, one day.

I do agree that social media is generally bad for our mental health. Especially for people like me, who have few friends in real life. I couldn’t imagine harvesting a thousand connections, and performing before great crowds.

For me, LinkedIn was worse than Facebook, though. It really sent me into a spin. Life is better without it. That’s probably because it’s where I reconnected with genuine acquaintances, and measuring myself against their apparent achievements, came to view my own to be worth nothing at all.

That fear of missing out is a real concern. But it is just that: a fear. What am I really missing out on? An artificial world, made real only by software engineers inventing new ways to keep us addicted to our phones, to ensure we buy another one as soon as our contract expires.

Our real friends are near at hand. Those we spend time with in person, or who are a phone call away. It’s better to connect with these. To return to the kind of circles we would have known before the world wide web. Those who came before us were content then, happy with their tiny worlds: family and community. Take us back there, please.