“I was so sucked into the negative memes, clapbacks and spirals of conflict I saw on Twitter that when I first left, my muscle memory told me to open the app and start scrolling,” said Kimberly Katiti, a 28-year-old artist in North Hollywood, Calif., who quit the platform in April 2021.
“I got over that within a week,” she said. “I would just put my phone away. And before I knew it, I wasn’t getting the urge to scroll and see what’s happening in the world.”…
Kristen Womack was active on Facebook and Instagram, running groups, sharing articles and operating a small-business account. But when she left Facebook in 2016 and Instagram in 2020, no one seemed to notice.
“Not one single person said, ‘Oh, wow, I don’t see you on Facebook or Instagram anymore. I miss you,’” said Ms. Womack, a 42-year-old product manager at Microsoft Corp. in Minneapolis. “Once you leave the party, it’s like you’re not missed.”
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