I have always had a love-hate relationship with social media. As someone who grew up during the years that social media was being created and developed, it was hard not to jump on the bandwagon and create a profile for every social media platform out there. Like most people, I started with Facebook in the late 2000s, moved on to Twitter and Instagram, and then became obsessed with Snapchat in high school.

I never really had a problem with using Snapchat until the Snapchat story feature came around. Once that happened, instead of just sending stupid pictures to my friends, I could check in and see what they were doing at any point during the day. At first, I enjoyed going through Snapchat stories, as I had a lot of friends who posted some really funny stuff. However, this seemingly mundane feature of Snapchat is what started my transition to eventually deleting the app altogether.

While I had a Snapchat account during my first two years here at Iona, I started to notice how I felt when I used it. Every time I checked a Snap Story, I would just feel worse and worse about one of two things –  either the fact that my friends were hanging out without me or that I was busy laying on my couch eating Cheez-Its while those around me were out in the world, living their best life.

Around this time, I was also going through a lot of personal stuff, so that only fueled the FOMO (fear of missing out) I had when I went on Snapchat. Social media in general is not healthy for a depressed, self-conscious person, yet I couldn’t stop checking it – I know I am not the only one in our age group that would check the Snap Stories of people I was no longer on good terms with just to see what they were up to. A lot of my friends wouldn’t even look at the Snap Stories that would pop up onto their feed, and while I tried to do that too, there were a lot of moments when I had a lapse in judgment and checked anyway even though I knew how it would make me feel.

During my first semester of junior year, my sister and mom came to New York from Colorado to visit me and hang out in the city. We went out to dinner one night, and I started talking to them about Snapchat. My sister is 10 years older than me and a mother of two who doesn’t have time for social media – and my mom grew up with typewriters – so needless to say neither of them really knew what it was. While I was explaining the concept of Snapchat to two people that grew up without social media, I realized one thing: to me, Snapchat is quite honestly really creepy.

I have nothing against sending Snaps to friends, but with Snapchat stories, you are able to constantly know where someone is at almost all times of the day. When my mom went to college, there was one phone in the lobby of her dorm that you could use. Now, college students can see whatever their friends are doing (with or without them) on any given night. To me, no one should be allowed to see that much into someone else’s life.

Don’t get me wrong – I understand that some people use Snapchat with no problem and really don’t experience FOMO, and that works for them. However, I knew that the healthiest decision for me personally was to delete the app altogether. I deleted it that night with my mom and sister a year and a half ago, and I can honestly tell you I haven’t regretted it since – now that I am not overthinking what I see on a tiny screen, I can be way more present and in-the-moment when I am spending quality, face-to-face time with people I enjoy hanging out with.