Image Commercially Licensed From: Unsplash

For better or worse, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives at some point in the last fifteen years. There’s little question social media revolutionized the way we communicate, connect, and share information – this is a site all about influencers, after all – but there’s an increasingly apparent negative impact it can have on our mental health and well-being.

As a result, major social media platforms are seeing an increasing number of account deactivations as people look to cut the cord on social media.

Maybe you’re part of that group.

Or maybe you’re part of a group of people who maintain a Facebook account for one specific feature or purpose, like messaging or remembering people’s birthdays.

If you’re part of the latter group, here are some useful alternatives so you can finally close that social media account for good, says tech entrepreneur Drew Chapin.

Messaging

Every social media platform has some form of messaging, whether that’s a direct message inbox or a fully-branded Messenger experience like on Facebook. Moving a conversation to another platform once you’ve started on social can be a tricky procedure, but it’s certainly possible.

If your friends are on Facebook Messenger, but you want to close your Facebook account, don’t worry: Meta has made the full Messenger experience available to everyone, even if you don’t have an active Facebook account. For more information on how to activate the Messenger experience, visit Meta’s guide.

If you’re linked up on a platform and want to chat without handing over your phone number or other personal information, there are several popular options available for you. This includes Telegram, Discord, and Skype, all of which are available on major platforms which allow you to create a public username you can share with your friends instead of a phone number.

Don’t: Rely on the messaging capabilities of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Do: Register for a standalone Messenger account and sign up for messaging platforms that don’t require your personal information.

Remembering Birthdays

There is a large segment of Facebook users who keep their accounts active exclusively because they need a birthday reminder for their friends and family.

But that’s no longer necessary, thanks to the Birthday App, which magically populates the birthdays of all of your contacts without requiring you to fill in any details yourself. Their proprietary technology just knows every birthday in your phone and can gently nudge you when it’s your loved one’s big day.

Don’t: Lean on Facebook or LinkedIn as your birthday calendar. Do: Use the Birthday App on iOS or Android.

Entertainment

No matter how you slice it, people watch a lot of video content on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube every day: the average social media user spends 151 minutes on a social media app of some kind, and the majority of that time is spent viewing video content. That’s like watching Inglorious Basterds (runtime 153 minutes) or Pulp Fiction (runtime 154 minutes) every single day.

A large part of the reason why people are so engaged for so long is the algorithm that suggests things to watch, even beyond the accounts that you like, follow, or subscribe to. Those feeds have mastered the hooks that can keep you glued to your screen for hours.

The solution? View content on YouTube signed out (and, for bonus points, while in a private browsing or incognito window).

While ditching the algorithm might make discovering your next favorite video a little more difficult, it will allow you to be more intentional and deliberate with your social media entertainment consumption.

Don’t: Get sucked into the algorithm and rely on feeds for entertainment. Do: Use YouTube while signing out.

Logging Off

Cutting the cord on social media can have significant benefits for our mental health and well-being. Whether you’re looking to reduce your social media usage or completely deactivate your accounts, there are perfectly viable alternatives available for messaging, remembering birthdays, and entertainment. By utilizing standalone messaging platforms, such as Meta’s Messenger or apps like Telegram, Discord, and Skype, you can stay connected without compromising your personal information, and the same goes for useful features like being alerted of friends’ birthdays. With a simple switch of your browser window, you can enable a more intentional and deliberate approach to social media entertainment, free from addictive algorithms. By making these changes, you can regain control over your online presence and create a healthier relationship with technology.

And if you’re one of our beloved influencers, keep this general shift in mind: it has never been more important to be platform-agnostic.