I think it's important to understand how draining social media can be and we might not even realize it until it's no longer there.

Every day we look at other people's stories. Some people show off the vacation they are on or just simple pictures of them studying in their school's library. After a while, this can get to be too much. I wondered a lot why I was even looking at people's social media who I am not even close with or friends with. Looking at these posts all day can mess with you in different ways.

It makes you question everything about your own life. It makes you wonder if you're supposed to be doing what other people your age are doing. It makes you compare your looks to other people your age. It becomes so overwhelming and that's not the purpose of social media.

Posting pictures and videos on Snapchat should be something fun to do with your friends or family. I knew once I started feeling overwhelmed that it was time to delete Snapchat and Twitter.

We don't need to know what everyone is doing or thinking every second of the day.

Let's focus more on improving ourselves. Becoming the best people we want to be whether it is how we look or what we accomplish in life like getting an education or a job that we love. We need to stop looking for validation that our lives are fun or exciting from random strangers online. We don't just go up to people on the street and tell them our life story and ask them if they think it was fun or interesting. Why should we expect the same things from people we barely know online?

We are teaching ourselves that the more followers you have, the more popular and interesting you are and the less followers or friends you have means you are boring, ugly and mediocre.

But that's not the case.

Everything in this world doesn't have to be a competition. We should be happy for the people around us when they post something amazing about their own life. Someone else doing great in life does not diminish our own lives. Someone else's accomplishments don't take away from our own. And just because someone posts their fun or mundane moments in life does not mean that we have to try and top them.

Now I should say that I only deactivated my Snapchat account for 2 weeks but I did permanently delete my Twitter. Every once in a while I might do this again and maybe one day I will delete it for good. It's an addiction to social media and going cold turkey is not easy considering I have had social media since I was 12 years old.

Not looking at Twitter every day and Snapchat really helped me stop worrying about what other people think about me. Most of the time social media just feels like a competition. Who posts the most clever and relatable tweet or posts the most aesthetically pleasing or adventurous photo.

You are always wondering "What do people think about what I post? Is it stupid or too boring? Do these people even care about what I have to share?"

That's the biggest thought that always rattled in my mind if I was sharing photos or videos with people that don't really care about me. People will add you on socials just to get another follow or friend. For some reason, the more followers you have, the more desirable you are to the rest of the world. This misconception makes the average person feel like they aren't important because they don't have thousands of friends on social media, as if the more "friends" you have online makes you a more interesting person? I'm not sure what people think having more followers means. Everyone just wants hundreds or thousands of likes on their tweets or posts.

The most important thing I learned is that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It really doesn't matter. People who care about you will always enjoy seeing you happy or having fun. You are control of everything you put out there online and you can control who sees your content. You don't need thousands of friends to feel validated in life.

Social media is not a real representation of our true lives.

I knew I had to do something to improve my mental health and this was the best thing I could have done. We need to care of our bodies, mind and soul and when we know something is negatively impacting us, we need to take action. No one NEEDS social media. People like to have it, but keep in mind how it is affecting your life and if it isn't making you feel good about yourself, then maybe it is time to take a break.