Step 1:
Open all of your social media accounts on your computer. Then, mentally prepare yourself to deactivate each account, one by one. If you have the willpower, delete them permanently. If you think you might need to come back to one of them for any reason, deactivate temporarily.
Step 2:
Before you actually delete or deactivate your accounts, choose one of them that you would consider either most useful or most important to either your career/professional life or your social life. Now, obviously, if you need social media for your career or for business/professional purposes, you shouldn’t be deleting any of your accounts. But this list is really for those who have personal accounts and either need a break from social media or are ready to give it up for good. So, decide which social media account would be best to keep for potential networking or career purposes. But make sure you only choose one.
Step 3:
If you’re having second thoughts at this point, watch the social media episode "Nosedive" of the British sci-fi series Black Mirror on Netflix. Maybe also watch a couple other episodes if need be.
Step 4:
If you’re still having second thoughts, watch as Simon Sinek speaks on millennials in the workplace and listen carefully as he talks about the harmful effects of social media.
Step 5:
If you have any photos or videos on any of your accounts that are not saved to your computer or phone, go through each account to save your memories before they’re “gone forever”. (Which is in quotes because anything you put on the Internet is technically going to be out there somewhere floating in digital space forever.)
Step 6:
If you have any friends or colleagues you would like to keep in touch with, reach out to them to ask them for their number or add/friend them on the one account you will be keeping. Let go of any "friends" that only like you or care to talk to people who "like" their posts. Real friends are determined by a "double-tap" or emoji heart-eyes comments. Real friends are the ones that will physically go out of their way to be there for you or to physically pick up the phone to call you and ask how you're doing. Real friends shouldn't need to scroll through your feed to know what you're doing in your life. And if you are sitting there wondering why no one spontaneously calls you to see how you're doing, maybe you need to ask yourself if you do that for any of your "real" friends.
Step 7:
Now, as for that one account, go through your profile in its entirety and delete as much as you possibly can. You may want to start by deleting the most personal information, such as selfies, photos of your friends and family, posts or status updates about your job, friends, personal life, personal issues, struggles, relationship, etc. You can keep a profile photo of yourself up if you’d like. You can also keep bits of information about yourself on there, such as where you work or your birthday, if, and only if, you feel it is necessary. (Say, potential employer is checking out your social media account and wants to make sure it says you’re working where you said you currently or previously worked.) Don’t just keep that information up there simply so you can show off your job as a Starbucks barista to all your "friends".
Step 8:
Now that you’ve done all that profile cleansing, continue by going through your Friends list and remove any friends you do not truly know or have a relationship with. The next step will be to set your profile to private, but if you have all these randoms following you or “Friends” with you, what’s the point in making everything private?
Step 9:
As stated in the previous step, set your profile to private. With only your closest friends and family following you and very little to no personal information presented on your page, you will be getting the message across to anyone that comes by it that you are not very engaged in your social media account and you simply have one for contact or professional purposes only.
Step 10:
The final step is to delete or deactivate all other social media accounts except for the one you decided to keep. If you have decided to delete all social media accounts, good for you. Remember that you can still stay connected to friends without social media, and you can still stay updated on the latest trends or Internet memes via talk shows or Google.
Bonus Tip:
A good way to stay active on social media would be to create a new account that does not contain any of your personal information (including your name and photo), such as an Instagram account for puppies. This would allow you to stay entertained via social media, without becoming too immersed in the virtual community.
