14 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY AUGUST 27-SEPTEMBER 2, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com Anti Social Quitting social media a year ago revealed its own kind of truth. By Caitlin Fillmore FORUM I made the decision to delete my Facebook and Instagram one year ago, on Aug. 27, 2025. I stopped posting to social media nearly four years before that. I stopped learning new social media products at Snapchat—15 years ago. I opened my Facebook account during a sleepover on St. Patrick’s Day weekend of my senior year of high school, 19 years ago. None of this seems like it should matter, but as I was getting ready to deactivate, I realized it does. Meta gives you a 30-day cooling-off period to rethink your decision, making this choice more weighty to Americans than a loaded gun. Why does this matter? I suppose the answers lie inside the waves of identity social medias have tried on over the last 20 years. If it exists to help you stay connected with friends and family, what happens when you withdraw? If it exists to build an online community around shared ideas, what happens when you stick to in-person instead? If it exists to inform and communicate, what happens when you disconnect? These websites and apps were silly time-wasters for me in the beginning, landing just as I was embarking on my college career. When I entered the workforce in the rural Midwest, I was the youngest in the office by decades. My supervisors understood social media mattered but were not interested in adopting the habit; the obligation fell to me. Then came a pandemic and social media was no longer a silly time-waster but was now the public square. After nearly two years of constant scrolling and 15 years of daily posts, I quit in December 2021 when I realized I felt obligated to elegantly respond to a family crisis publicly like I was some celebrity. During the Hamas attack in October 2023, I realized I was watching actual footage of hostages being taken and murdered while reclining on my couch. I abandoned my accounts after that. Social media is the last place I spoke to my ex-husband. It’s the place where I got the message that my brother had a stroke. It’s where a friend took a photo of a heartfelt, handwritten note and sent me a picture of it through Messenger, instead of popping it in the mail. I entered my relationship with social media before I had ever been in an actual relationship, and it took 18 years to realize it was an abusive one. Social media makes my heart race almost immediately at this point; the emotional noise is too much for me to absorb. For some reason, we believe leaders of technology companies who tell us they have the answer to questions no one is asking. I am now being told AI is just the next thing we must adopt, just like how it felt in the early 2010s with social media. But maybe we must reconsider our approach to technology’s endless cycle of Wild Wests. Because the people selling you the next big thing are the only cowboys in this analogy. You and I are just a pile of discarded buffalo skulls. Caitlin Fillmore is a native Midwesterner living in Monterey. She is a freelance writer of 20 years and her work can be found at caitlinslhfillmore. com, where this story originally appeared. OPINION For some reason, we believe leaders of tech companies. PREVENTION•EDUCATION TREATMENT•RECOVERY WWW.SUNSTREETCENTERS.ORG NOW OPEN! Located on the beautiful Monterey Wharf, Sun Street Centers' new Outpatient Office offers accessible, compassionate treatment services designed to support lasting recovery and wellness for individuals with substance use disorders. DISCOVER CARE IN THE HEART OF MONTEREY NEW OUTPATIENT OFFICE PRIVATE INSURANCE & SELF PAY 245 Washington St, Monterey, CA Call Us for Other Locations! (831) 753-6001 THE SPARKLE IS HIDING GO FIND IT Every find funds a future. DIG a LITTLE FIND a LOT ccgoodwill.org Your purchase powers job training for 13,000+ Central Coast neighbors a year. Every jewelry case, freshly stocked. Summer Jewelry Hunt ONE DAY EVENT ONLY SATURDAY, AUGUST 29TH NORTH DAVIS STORE ONLY 1425 N. DAVIS RD., SALINAS
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