Remember when we were all coders?

I can trace my addiction to social media back to the 7th grade, when I rearranged my Top 8 and added lyrics that matched my mood on Myspace. Back then, social media was fun—or at least that’s how it felt while donning my rose-colored glasses. Now, social media is a cesspool—and it feels more like something I have to do rather than something that I want to do.

Somewhere along the line, social media prioritized itself as my most important hobby. It replaces painting, arts and crafts, and writing. It replaces watching Cher on stage with my own two eyes with a small screen—creating videos I’ll only ever watch once when I share them to my stories. It replaces date night and evening relaxation. It’s become both my crutch and my kryptonite. And in 2025, I want nothing more than to leave it behind. I can’t keep wasting my life for people who couldn’t care less about it.

How the Toxic Relationship With Social Media Started

While I can trace my obsession with social media back to grade school, I can attribute the beginning of my toxic relationship with it back to the pandemic. Like most people, I went from being on-the-go to having more free time than I knew what to do with. At first, it was a nice change of pace. That extra hour of sleep made me more energetic and focused at work. My house was always clean, and it felt nice to have control of my weekends instead of having to feign interest in weekly dinners or parties. Nothing against them, but I was tired. Mentally, speaking. I worked all week and attended school in the evenings and on weekends. If I could get a chance to chill, then I was hungry to take advantage of it.

Still, the free time eventually grew old, and what became the best form of entertainment? Social media. While the rest of my friends joined TikTok, I joined the Disney Community. A Disney adult to my core, I missed the ability to visit my favorite place. Creating an account where I could reminisce without judgment from my regular friend group was nice. Before long, I was posting about my souvenirs, making handmade Minnie Ears, and supporting small Etsy shops that were looking to make a little extra cash.

At first, I loved it. I became a Brand Rep for several small shops, made digital friends, and felt a shared connection with people who were hungry for a little Disney magic during a time when real life felt so bleak and hopeless. When the parks finally did reopen, I spent more time filming ride scenes than I did actually enjoying them. Every photo was curated for the ‘gram. Somewhere along the line, I tricked myself into thinking that I was going to be this great influencer. Not once did I stop to think if it was something I even wanted.

Trying to Be Someone I’m Not

I liken my social media experience to high school. I wanted to be in the popular crowd. I wanted to look like them, be effortless like them. I often stumbled on my words. Sure, I wore ripped Hollister jeans, but I also wore red leopard-printed pants and gold shoes on Casual Day. The girls in the cool crowd would have never been caught dead with something so daring—and that’s not a knock on them; that’s just the reality of being popular. You have to fit in; otherwise, what’s your identity?

For us non-popular kids, originality was—and always has been—easier to touch. But despite growing older, many of us tend to never really outgrow that adolescent desire to fit in. We crave both anonymity and jealousy, originality and conformity. We walk around, existing as our own enigmas.

And that was where I found myself on Instagram.

My weakest moment came when I held a live explaining why I had been so absent on social media. True, there was a lot happening in my personal life. My dad was either dying or already deceased. My childhood home was either about to be on sale or recently sold. My grief was mounting. There was a lot to be said. However, doing it in a live format wasn’t really my style. I craved validation. I craved attention. It didn’t matter if only two people attended. I had tricked myself into thinking that my story mattered to the masses.

The truth was that it only mattered to me. No one on the internet was going to give me what I wanted. No one commented or offered words of encouragement. They offered silence, and that was something I could have gotten from most areas of my life already.

I closed the live feeling ashamed and embarrassed. I began to let my Brand Rep responsibilities falter. My life had been so intense as of late that turning what was once a hobby into an obligation made my time on the platform feel like work. And it was work. Because not only was I leaving bullshit comments like “Omg how cute!” on people’s photos and joining follow trains to up my follower count, I was tricking myself into genuinely caring. And I don’t. I don’t care about any of it. I don’t care about travel photos or the latest Stoney Clover Lane sale. I don’t care about ride walkthroughs or people filming themselves eating Dole Whip. I had become disillusioned with the Disney Community. And pretty soon, I became disillusioned with myself.

Letting it Grow Out of Control

Social media provided a platform for me to reinvent myself—and that’s very tempting when you dislike your life. I hadn’t always disliked it. But my reality, up until this point, was in a free-fall. I remember sitting at a light, waiting to make a right turn on my way to my chiropractor, where I thought to myself, “This can’t really be my life.” My mom can’t really be dead. I can’t really be living life without her.

It was a thought that kept popping up over the past few years while my dad was sick. This can’t be my actual life. I wanted so much more from it. I wanted freedom. A baby. A honeymoon period. I wanted a house. And to move to Florida and to go on vacations. Instead, I was at my father’s beck and call. He said jump, and without hesitation, I asked, “How high?” I lost my identity in his illness, much like I did when I went through a divorce.

But on Instagram, I could have reinvented myself. I thought of my interests and created accounts for all of them. @Rockthequote was going to be all about painted rocks I’d eventually sell. @BadArtandMeow was about bad art. @ShoppingCourt was going to be all about my thrifting adventures. @OscartheCat was going to chronicle my cat’s daily musings. As was @JeanettetheCat. @Courtstorymania (later changed to @CourtneyDoesFlorida) was centered around Walt Disney World, whether they be my visits or demonstrating love for the small shops I followed. @MagicallyEverEars was dedicated to my Etsy shop, and @WhateverMakesYouHappyShop was about just that—whatever made me happy.

But the thing is, I lost the thing that made me truly happy: My family. I lost myself in the loss of my parents, and I’ve never truly recovered. Any other type of identity I crafted was formulaic, a strategy to not be me, but rather someone who truly felt genuine joy at living another life and posting on social media. But I didn’t. My feelings were confirmed after going out to lunch two years ago and watching some woman in her 40s spend the entire afternoon taking videos on her phone and asking her husband to capture her eating tacos. She ignored her husband. She ignored her daughter. And I just kept thinking to myself, “God, how sad it must be to have to stay that connected all the time?” You can’t live life and have a smartphone. It just doesn’t seem possible.

Removing Followers and Staying True to Myself

Earlier this year, I started removing followers from my private Instagram account. I’m down to 472 from over 1,000. The rule: if I don’t know you in person, you don’t get access to my private account.

It’s a slow and tedious process, and truthfully, I think this is just the first major cut. My goal is probably to just follow my friends and maybe a few relatives I interact with often. The end goal is to be off social media completely, save for Facebook, because I do truly love browsing Marketplace. I’ve found papier-mâché zebras, artwork, and antiques on there—and that’s something I truly love.

And still, I thought about turning that into a brand. Maybe that will work this time?

The obsession still has its hooks in me.

I blame a lot of this desire to craft a new identity to my grief because it’s still very much affecting me. A lot of people believe that’s because I haven’t accepted what’s happened, but the reality is that I changed as a result of it. I’m not the same person I was the day before my mom died. The more that happened, the further from myself I grew. It’s like a never-ending seven-layer dip.

The older I get, the more I realize how much time I’ve been wasting. Whether out of necessity or not, I’m truly scared of running into ailments or tragedies that hinder my ability to live. I don’t want my life to be over before it’s had a chance to begin—and what a wild statement to make at 34, on the cusp of 35. It’s young to people of a particular generation, but it’s not. It’s middle-age. The average person only lives through their 70s. And if my life is halfway over, I have to begin living as my authentic self.

The words authentic and social media go together about as well as a peanut butter and Swiss cheese sandwich. And I’m done pretending that I have any interest in eating that. I mean, I don’t even like Swiss cheese. Who’s the ruse for at this point?