Minimalism and social media, exiting some platforms
Recently, I decided to exit some social media platforms. This exit is not accompanied by negative emotions. I experience it as a new step on my growth path. I'm feeling joyful and liberated.
On the 18th of March 2025, I exited ResearchGate, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
ResearchGate is a research sharing platform. I'd been there approximately since 2016 when I started working on my PhD. Being present on that platform never took much time, and this is why I kept a ResearchGate profile for so many years. At times, fellow humans would reach out to get access to some of my works. But generally, there were no deep and meaningful conversations. I came to the realisation that fellow humans (in and outside academia) can simply email me if they didn't have access to my works or if they wanted to ask questions about my works. Academics' email addresses are usually public. I also realised that a Google Scholar page (here is mine) performs the same function as ResearchGate performed for me: displayed a list of all my articles, books, editorials and so on. Over the years, ResearchGate felt less and less relevant, too. In 2016, many fellow academics would talk about being on ResearchGate, but these days there seems to be less excitement about this platform.
Unlike many fellow humans, I had very good experiences with Instagram. To many, Instagram is a source of self-doubt, fear of missing out, and a space that encourages persons to consume. I've had a tiny space on Instagram where I mostly shared my everyday sustainability practices. I used Instagram to learn about fellow humans' sustainability journeys and practices, too. I believe that some fellow humans carved out spaces on this platform to encourage a different mode of relating with the world. I had wonderful, deep exchanges with fellow humans there. Having said that, I felt that my Instagram page to a large extent repeated what I was doing already in this autoethnography. And Instagram imposed a word limit on each post, so I couldn't dive as deeply into some topics as I would have liked, and as I could do in my autoethnography. Moreover, this autoethnography is accessible to everyone. One doesn't need to register on Instagram to read it (and thus potentially expose themselves to advertising and other triggers). There are, intentionally, no adverts in my autoethnography. One downside of this page is that I disabled the comment section. I did it because my autoethnography, though a very personal project, is also my academic work.
From all the platforms where I was still present, LinkedIn was my least favourite one. Perhaps one's experience with LinkedIn depends on one's industry. I felt that academic LinkedIn was not a heathy space. The same strategic networking that one can so clearly see within universities and other academic spaces (conferences, workshops) thrives on LinkedIn, too. LinkedIn posts are rarely deep. I believe that LinkedIn is a space that encourages persons to misrepresent their academic lives and lives in general. For instance, it is normal to share about receiving funding, accepting positions, and publishing articles, but not normal to share about rejections one inevitably gets on their academic path. As someone whose professional and personal lives are intertwined (e.g., this autoethnography is my academic work about my personal practices), I found LinkedIn to be an alienating space. I would very rarely post on that platform. I mainly used it as a messaging platform to communicate with my colleagues. I came to the realisation that the same conversations can be done via email. It felt wonderful to leave this platform.
Apart from these platforms, a while ago I used to be on Facebook and what used to be called Twitter.
Overall, Facebook has been my least favourite social media platform. I've tried being there several times in my life, but every time I exited it rather quickly. In the early days, in my experience, it was common to add persons as friends when one barely knew them or even never met them. I remember receiving many unsolicited messages. Some persons seemed to use Facebook as a dating app, and this was not something I personally appreciated. When I was in my teens, persons often tried to access others' accounts, too. In general, I found Facebook's design complicated, and various settings were difficult to find. It was not clear how this platform used my data, either (which applies to all the other platforms I've mentioned in this entry). I appreciated Facebook groups (e.g., one can establish a local no-buy group on this platform). Having said that, I also had less positive experience with groups. For example, some persons would take over discussions or judge fellow humans without having a full picture of some event.
Academic Twitter was not a nurturing space for me. I left it quickly, too. Because this platform imposed a character limit on posts, posts were often shallow, and discussions aggressive. There were too many analyses lacking depth, and too many arguments. And I felt that this platform was incredibly time-consuming.
I've never used other popular social media platform such as TikTok. I believe this platform encourages overconsumption and short attention span, and misrepresents normality. I've noticed that many videos on YouTube that analyse unsustainable trends reference TikTok videos specifically. There are many trends that I'm happily unaware of (as a consumer) simply because I'm not on this social media platform.
I remain present in the following spaces. A couple of months ago, my partner and I decided to film videos to share our knowledge and practice, so we are on YouTube. I'm also maintaining this autoethnography. My autoethnography is not social media, but it's still a space where I share parts of my life and my work. I'm contemplating opening the comments section in this autoethnography, too, but I haven't decided yet if this is something I want to do.
I still use two messaging platforms. I use them strictly to communicate with my closest family members and friends. There are around 4 contacts in each of them. I'm not part of any groups on messaging platforms.
To summarise, I am not trying to eliminate all social media from my life. But I am trying to understand what enough is for me. In this process of trying, I identified several spaces that were not nurturing, and I stepped away from them. The spaces where I am still present are nurturing.
Some fellow humans suggest that a good approach to social media is to limit the amount of time one spends on these platforms rather than to step away from them completely. Perhaps this works for some. For me personally, being present in fewer places is most helpful. I have a similar approach to my writing projects: I prefer to have very few of them and dive deeper into each one.