It costs you nothing not to be on social media

Consider this your friendly reminder that signing up for social media is not mandatory. It costs nothing not to be on it. Life without the whole ensemble—TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and the rest—is utterly free.

In fact, it is simpler not to be on social media, inasmuch as it requires no action on your part, only inaction. If you don’t create an account, no account will be made for you. You aren’t auto-registered, the way you’re assigned a social security number or drafted in the military. You have to apply and be accepted, like a driver’s license or church membership. Fail to apply and nothing happens. And I’m here to tell you, it is a blessed nothingness.

That’s the trick with social media: nothing comes from nothing. Give it nothing and it can take nothing from you.

Supposedly, being on social media is free. But you know that’s not true. It costs you time—hours of it, in fact, each and every day. It costs you attention. It costs you the anxiety it induces. It costs you the ability to do or think about anything else when nothing exactly is demanding your focus at the moment. It costs you the ability to read for more than a few minutes at a time. It costs you the ability to write without strangers’ replies bouncing like pinballs around your head. It costs you the freedom to be ignorant and therefore free of the latest scandal, controversy, fad, meme, or figure of speech that everyone knew last week but no one will remember next week.

Thankfully, social media has no particular relationship to what is called “privilege.” It does not take money to be off social media any more than it takes money to be on it. It is not the privileged who have the freedom not to be on social media: it is everyone. Because, as I will not scruple to repeat, even at the risk of annoyance or redundancy, it costs nothing not to be on social media. And since it costs nothing for anyone, it therefore costs nothing for everyone. Unfortunately, the costs of being on social media do apply to everyone, privileged or not, which is why everyone would be better off deleting their accounts.

Imagine a world without social media. It isn’t ancient. It isn’t biblical. It’s twenty years ago. Are you old enough to remember life then? It wasn’t a hellscape, not in this respect at least. The hellscape is social media. And social media hasn’t, not yet, become a badge of “digital citizenship” required by law of every man, woman, and child, under penalty of fine or loss of employment. Until then, so long as it’s free, do the right thing and stay off—or, if you’re already on, get off first and then stay off.

Here’s the good news, but tell me if you’ve heard it before: It won’t cost you a thing.