I was laying in bed, getting ready to fall asleep. I finally put my phone down and settled into my bed. And then all of the sudden I found myself turning on my phone. Before I knew it, I pressed that little ghost icon and deleted it. I deleted Snapchat. Okay, I know you’re thinking that this sounds super dramatic and after all, it is “just an app.” I didn’t delete my account completely or anything like that, I’m not that brash. After I set my phone down, and I smiled. It felt nice, almost freeing. And it was even stranger that it actually felt good.
Now, we all know the duties of having Snapchat. The keeping of streaks is like a measure of friendship. The stress of opening a photo and not responding immediately is so unnecessarily heavy. You need to see the stories to keep up to date with what is happening in people’s lives. A lot of us like to think that isn’t that deep. But isn’t it? I always felt this obligation to open and respond quickly. I got stressed when people didn’t respond immediately. I felt left out when people when I missed someone’s story.
Once I realized how much I let Snapchat dictate my emotions, I turned off notifications. And over time, I stopped clicking on it. It became less and less of a priority for me. Since I didn’t see a little red bubble sitting in the corner of the icon, I had no reason to have use it. I had nothing to trigger my mind into thinking of it as a necessity.
This then led me to ask myself why I still had it. Was it adding anything positive to my life? No. Would my friends actually be offended if I delete it? No, not if they’re true friends. Will anything bad actually happen if I get rid of this little weight on my shoulder? No, it’s just an app. And so I deleted it, as simple as that. I woke up the next morning and thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until the day after that that I even remembered I had gotten rid of it because someone asked if I had seen their story
And yes, it is just an app. And yes, I’m still pretty addicted to Instagram. But we all need to start somewhere. And social media addiction has nothing to do with the point I am trying to make. The point of this is that we all have things in life that weigh us down and a huge part of growing is releasing all of that weight. If it is something as trivial as Snapchat, let it go. If it’s something immense like a toxic friend, let them go. Give yourself the space to be spectacular. By letting all of these weights, big or small, stay, means that you are not setting yourself up to live your best life. So do yourself a favor… and let it go.