The Art of Unfollowing

Let’s talk about unfollowing — something that takes one click, yet is so much more complicated than that.

Let’s be real, being unfollowed by someone sucks. Even if it’s a random person who went to your middle school that you haven’t talked to in years, it still takes a hit to your ego when you see that someone doesn’t want your content on their feed. So many of us are so obsessed with who unfollows us that there are several apps dedicated to showing when someone unfollows you.

Because people take unfollowing so personally, it makes it difficult to unfollow someone who you simply don’t want on your feed. When we unfollow someone, it’s not because we hate them or want them to feel bad about what they’re posting; it’s simply because we don’t benefit from their content. We have made such a big issue around unfollowing that so many of us follow people and interact with content that doesn’t benefit us in any way. 

Unfollowing people is so important. As college students, we spend so much of our free time engaging on social media, an estimated two hours a day. Why should we spend that time interacting with content we don’t really care about? Whether it’s a random person from middle school who posts 20 pictures of their dog a day or a mutual friend who floods your feed with opinionated political posts, if it’s not benefiting you, unfollow them!

Social media’s algorithm has made it where users are obsessed with how many followers they have. As a consequence of this, so many of us follow random users in hopes for a follow back. The result of this: clogged feeds.

How we use social media needs to change. There should be less focus on how many followers we have and more on personalizing our social media feeds, so they are something that benefits us. The first step: unfollowing. This should, and can, be normalized! It just starts with reflecting on what you want to use social media for and following accounts that align with that, and unfollowing accounts that don’t.