Why I Stopped Using Facebook & Instagram

Find out why I stopped using Facebook and Instagram for both blogging and personal reasons. If you’re a blogger or have mental health issues, you might want to read this!

Usually I try to write about fitness-related things, but today I’m taking the time to rant about my wasted time on Facebook and Instagram.

But it might not be what you think – I want to address why I stopped using Facebook for blogging and business, as well as my personal choice to ditch Instagram, too.

You see, when I started blogging, using Facebook was super effective. It was easy to get “likes” on your page and everything that you posted was visible to your followers. Bloggers everywhere basked in the traffic and interaction they got from Facebook.

But about three years ago, Facebook got a little too big for its britches and introduced an algorithm that stopped all of that.

The changes made it so that only a small fraction of followers of any given page, and even only some “friends” would see things that were posted. The changes also made it harder to get “likes,” AKA new followers.

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All-in-all, the end result was less exposure and website traffic. Facebook got greedy and started charging for “promotions,” which means basically, that they’ll only show people your page if you pay them too – even if you have thousands of followers.

So, that’s obviously part of why I stopped using Facebook.

On the business front, I know I’m not alone. But I could have just stopped trying to grow my “page” for Ironwild Fitness. Instead, I shut down my personal account, too. Why?

In short, Facebook was a waste of my time. But the long explanation is that I feel like Facebook is killing us. Lol.

Seriously though. Do you know that saying, “Comparison is the thief of joy?”

Facebook is a cesspool of comparison and drama. I was only friends with people from my past on Facebook, and I found myself on Facebook being jealous of what someone else had. 

Not just jealous, but comparing myself to them. Like, “Look at her, she still looks good and has an amazing career. I wish I had that.”

Then, you also get sucked into the drama of other people. It was like, “Wait, why am I sitting here worrying about someone that I haven’t seen for ten years?”

The point is, I knew it was having a negative mental and emotional effect on me. That’s the biggest reason why I stopped using Facebook. (And maybe you should think about quitting Facebook, too!)

P.S. I’m updating this post and a few months later and find it even more relevant now than ever. There is so much information, political drama, and too much suspicious activity on FB. Call me paranoid, but I just don’t trust Facebook at all anymore. If you haven’t already quit Facebook, I urge you to consider it!

But What About Instagram?

So. I quit Facebook. But what about other platforms? When you’re a little blogger like me, you don’t have social media managers and virtual assistants like big-time bloggers.

It can become really overwhelming to try to write content, create products, and manage 4+ social media platforms.

As a newer blogger, I was trying to use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and Flipboard. Then Instagram came along. Then YouTubbing became a big deal.

But do you know how hard it is to strategize and stay active on all of those? There’s such a huge push to “grow your Insta” and gain followers left-and-right.

Psst…I’m still active on Twitter & Pinterest if you care to follow me there!

But the thing is, I fought for each and every follower on every platform. And even though I had a lot of momentum on some of those platforms early on, it hasn’t really translated to traffic or income.

With Instagram, Twitter, and the rest combined (save for Pinterest), I have only ever gotten maybe 2-5 visits to my site daily.

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If you take into account the amount of time I spent curating content for each platform, it definitely doesn’t pay off! Plus, with Instagram I got the same feeling as Facebook.

I spent way too much time being influenced by “fitness” accounts filled with 6-pack moms and it was a lot of pressure.

*Update. I now casually use Instagram, but with no real intention of getting Insta-Famous or being consistent. I have a teeny personal account where I follow mostly other moms and people I actually know. 

One More Reason Why I Stopped Using Facebook & Instagram

Aside from the obvious (that being a waste of time), I do have one more reason why I stopped using FB and Insta. Balancing time is hard! I run a fitness blog and I have personal fitness goals.

The more time I spend sitting around scrolling through FB, Instagram, and the rest, the less time I am moving. And I’ll be the first to admit that I have a tendency to get super into my blogging work and social media efforts to a point that I am straight. up. sedentary.

This is part of why I say that FB is ruining the world. (But of course, it’s not just FB. It’s all social media.)

We are moving less, comparing ourselves to strangers more, and having less personal interactions with people face-to-face. Guys, if you want to be healthy in every way – mental, physical, and emotional – I urge you to quit Facebook. (Or whatever social media platform is sucking the most life out of you.)

Obviously, this is a tough one since I’m a blogger. On the one hand, big-timers like Gary Vee say that if you’re not actively on social, you’re basically irrelevant these days.

Yeah, obviously it’s a huge marketing opportunity. But on the other hand, if you’re not happy and not seeing results, it’s OKAY to live a normal life outside of social media! Like, there are people out there with normal, non-influencer jobs out there still, silly!

I, however, can’t handle all of the social media platforms plus actual blogging. I have spent hundreds of hours on social media and never saw any direct correlation between income or traffic.

Instead, I just got overwhelmed.

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That’s why I stopped using Facebook, and recently Instagram. 

I have decided to keep Twitter because it’s kind of fun, and I will definitely keep using Pinterest. But my focus now is on writing, creating products, and getting that Google juice. I am encouraged by the fact that many of my favorite bloggers don’t use Instagram and/or FB.

So, I’m sorry if you clicked on a link that was supposed to take you to my FB group, page, or Instagram. I just can’t do it anymore! (Know that I have hundreds of links on my site and taking them all off is gonna take forever and I just don’t care at the moment. Lol.)

If you’re a mom, maybe you can relate to feeling like social is just in the way and maybe just negative overall.

If you’re a blogger, I have questions for you! Do you still use all of the platforms are available, or do you just stick to what works?

Thanks for listening to my rant about why I stopped using Facebook and Instagram!

Hope you’ll still stick around,

– Chantal