At least once a week, someone slides into my inbox or LinkedIn DMs asking why I blocked them on Facebook or Instagram. Reader, they're not blocked. I just completely obliterated my Facebook and Instagram accounts. Gone. Deleted. Scorched earth with salt for good measure.

This wasn't some performative digital detox bullshit where I'd be back in 72 hours. I deleted Facebook and Instagram entirely in January, taking all my data down with me like a millennial phoenix who finally got tired of being monetized.

Watching tech oligarchs prepare to kiss the ring of the Trump administration while abandoning fact-checking and rolling out the red carpet for conspiracy theories? That was my breaking point. When platforms can't tell the difference between journalism and propaganda, it's time to burn it all down.

Mark Zuckerberg: Silicon Valley’s Peter Pan With a God Complex

Mark Zuckerberg built his empire on stolen Harvard code and our stolen attention spans. This hoodie-wearing harbinger of democracy's death has spent nearly two decades proving that good intentions pave the road to digital hell. If you need proof that this man peaked in his dorm room, go watch any clip from that cringe-fest Theo Von podcast—watching Zuck try to be relatable is like watching a robot attempt stand-up comedy. Painful doesn't even begin to cover it.

Remember when Facebook was about "bringing the world closer together"? The only thing Zuckerberg brought together was a monopolistic stranglehold on our personal lives and a direct IV drip of misinformation into democracy's veins.

Meta hasn't innovated jack shit in years. They've become the digital equivalent of that friend who peaked in high school—desperately buying up competitors (Instagram, WhatsApp) and copying features (Stories from Snapchat, Reels from TikTok) because original thought died somewhere around 2012.

The metaverse? A billion-dollar fever dream no one asked for. Meta is not creating the future. Instead, they're desperately trying to stay relevant while the world moves on without them.

Zuckerberg knows his personal and company reputation is in the gutter, which is why he tried to bury Sarah Wynn-Williams' explosive memoir, "Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism," like some digital mob boss. Meta unleashed its rapid-response machinery, boosting posts from current and former employees decrying the book's accuracy, but the Streisand effect kicked in harder than his metaverse fantasies.

When your own executives are writing tell-alls about your company's moral bankruptcy, you're not the misunderstood visionary—you're the villain who knows exactly what he's done.

The Golden Age of Social Media: Buried Under Our Own Clicks

As a true-blue millennial, I joined Facebook a few weeks before heading off to college in 2006 (when you still needed a college email address to join the exclusive club). When I logged on for the first time, I had no idea this platform would dominate the next 20 years of my life, shaping how I communicated, consumed information, and validated my existence.

Those were simpler times when Facebook pokes were peak flirtation, and magic still lived in the internet. We'd stumble home from parties, plug in our chunky digital cameras (remember when cameras were separate devices?), and spend hours uploading albums with names like "Saturday Night Shenanigans" and "Why We Can't Have Nice Things."

Facebook was our playground then. Messy, playful, alive. It felt like a new world we were building together, one inside joke and photo album at a time.

But now? The magic’s gone, replaced by an attention economy designed to bleed us dry.

Meta's Hall of Shame: A Data-Driven Dumpster Fire

If we fast forward from summer 2006 to today, Meta's resume reads like a masterclass in corporate sociopathy, and I've watched every single betrayal unfold in real time.

These numbers should make your skin crawl: Children and adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems, and teenagers now average 3.5 hours daily on these platforms. I have watched Meta learn this—only to keep pushing harder.

I've seen them roll back DEI initiatives while women and minorities face unprecedented harassment across their platforms. I watched them systematically abandon fact-checking in a single week while "modifying major sections of their Hateful Conduct policy to allow anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and remove protections for LGBTQ users." I'm witnessing 59% of US teens experience cyberbullying while Meta prioritizes "free speech" for hate mongers.

Most recently, they hired anti-DEI and anti-LBGTQ activist Robby Starbuck as an AI "bias monitor." Because nothing says "unbiased AI" like hiring someone whose entire brand is built on discrimination.

But wait, there's more (and this should terrify you): The 2021 Facebook breach exposed the personal information of 533 million users. Cambridge Analytica harvested up to 87 million profiles to influence elections. They've received 8 government fines since 2011 for privacy violations. And they keep your data for 180 days even after you delete your account.

It's like they took every dystopian tech nightmare and said, "Hold my hoodie, watch this." This isn’t a few bad headlines. Meta has weaponized our relationships, our identities, and even our children’s vulnerabilities for profit. It’s a machine that eats trust and spits out shareholder value.

Confessions of an Algorithm Addict

I haven't always been sitting on digital sidelines throwing stones at glass houses. For many years in my career, I was in the belly of the beast. I ran accounts for national brands, an entire healthcare system, and even for Santa Claus (and all his elves that sit on shelves). I was complicit in the content creation apocalypse, and that makes my exodus even more necessary.

At one point, I was running 11 Facebook accounts, 6 Instagram accounts, and operating off of three different phones. If there was engagement to manufacture, I was your girl.

Occasionally, my content would go viral. To me, going viral felt like a drug: the rush of likes, the Today Show calling, the sense that you were steering culture. But the crash was brutal. The 24/7 churn turned me into a shell of myself. Behind the curtain, there was no magic—just metrics, dashboards, and the constant push to extract more engagement.

That's why I transitioned out of social media management and into content marketing. At least now I create value instead of manufacturing addiction.

"But How Will We Stalk You Now?"

The reactions to my digital exodus have been more revealing than a therapy session, and honestly, they've made me question what I was really missing out on. Meme accounts? Dudes from middle school sliding into my DMs at 1 AM with "u up girl!?" Internet sleuthing through people's vacation photos?

When I shared that I was cutting the cord on these channels, my cousin asked if I was "purposefully cutting myself off from the world." A friend genuinely wondered, "How will I know about your life?" Here's a revolutionary concept: pick up the fucking phone and ask me. I know, I know, earth-shattering stuff.

This digital detox has deepened some relationships beautifully. A few friends and I completely shifted our dynamic post-Instagram. Now, we actually call each other and have real conversations instead of sending IG messages punctuated with "lol" after every sentence. This requires listening, attention, presence—all radical concepts in our dopamine-addicted world.

As much as it’s strengthened some relationships, my departure from Facebook and Instagram has also killed some relationships. Real talk though: how good of a friend is someone if they never participate in your life once you leave a platform? If your entire relationship was built on double-tapping photos and reacting to stories, was it ever really a meaningful connection?

When I decided to delete these social media accounts, a college friend said to me: “Charlsie, I can always count on you to do the right thing, the thing we all should be doing." Hearing that was real validation—the kind you can’t quantify, the kind that lingers longer than getting 2,800 likes on a brand post.

The Myth of Keeping Up With Trends

Whenever people hear I worked in content marketing, they ask, “But how will you keep up with trends?” As if the only way to stay relevant is by letting algorithms spoon-feed me culture.

The truth? I don’t need to keep up. I read. I listen. I pay attention to real conversations. Social trends are loud, but culture runs deeper and you can feel it without being plugged into algorithmic echo chambers.

In my current role, while I'm not managing social media day-to-day, I'm running point on content strategy—and social falls under that umbrella. I'm still in the game, but I'm not in the storm anymore. I can analyze trends, understand platform changes, and create a strategy without being consumed by the beast.

Facebook's glory days are deader than disco, and everyone knows it except Meta's shareholders. Real trends aren't happening there—they're happening everywhere else while Facebook users argue with high school acquaintances about vaccines. Instagram desperately trying to make Reels happen is like watching your mom try to be cool. It's a platform perpetually three weeks behind TikTok's cultural moment.

Reclaiming My Time and Attention

Before you think I've gone full digital hermit, let me be clear: I'm not living in a cave with stone tablets and carrier pigeons (yet). I still have LinkedIn (the content there is absolutely unhinged), and while I don't post on TikTok, I watch it to understand what the youth are doing.

But I've reclaimed so much of my life. I'm writing for myself again—not for social media, but for the pure joy of crafting words that matter. I'm reading more books than I have since college. I've discovered platforms like Ditto List and incredible Substacks that actually add value to my life instead of extracting it.

The silence was deafening at first, then it became symphonic. My phone feels lighter, my mind clearer. I'm no longer performing my life for an invisible audience of people I wouldn't invite to dinner or measuring my worth in algorithmic validation.

Time to Touch Grass

So yes, I deleted Facebook and Instagram, and I'm never looking back. These platforms have strayed so far from their original promise that they're essentially digital casinos designed to extract our attention, harvest our data, and profit from our insecurities while giving us nothing meaningful in return.

If you want to know what I'm up to, here's a radical idea: let's have a conversation that doesn't require a privacy policy to participate. Let's remember how to exist without an audience, live without constant documentation, and find joy in moments that exist only for us and the people we actually love. The most beautiful moments of our lives don't need witnesses or engagement metrics to validate their existence.

Delete Facebook and Instagram. Save your data. Save your sanity. Your future self will thank you for breaking free from manufactured connection and rediscovering what it feels like to be genuinely, authentically, beautifully human.

How to Delete Facebook and Instagram: Why I Burned My Digital Life to the Ground