Five years ago, Selena Gomez (29) became the first person ever to have more than 100 million followers on Instagram. In 2017, she decided to remove the app from her phone. In the American Elle she says that she simply no longer saw the use of social media.
Shortly after her decision, Selena suffered from withdrawal symptoms, she says. “Suddenly I had to learn to entertain myself. That was hard because I could always spend hours looking at other people’s lives. Sometimes I would scroll back two years in someone’s feed before realizing I didn’t even know that person. Now I get I do my information the old way. When my friends talk about something, they call me to tell me what’s going on. They don’t ask anymore: haven’t you seen my post?”.
Selena’s account still exists, the singer passes on photos and quotes to her assistant to post. The fact that she herself no longer goes on Instagram has done her good mentally. “There were 150 million people on that little phone. And I put it away. That was such a relief for me.”