I Deleted All My Social Accounts — Yet I Felt More Alone Than Ever

I used to think connection was measured in followers.

I believed if you deleted enough, you’d find peace.

But last Tuesday at 3:17 a.m., staring at my MacBook’s dim glow — the same blue light that once lit up my grandmother’s tea shop in San Francisco — I realized: silence doesn’t heal. It reveals.

I grew up between two worlds: one where luck is spun by algorithms, and another where meaning is whispered through brushstrokes on empty screens.

The ‘Fuxiu Feast’ wasn’t a game I could win. It was a ritual we were taught to perform — betting on validation like incense at a temple fair.

I stopped playing.

Not because I lost.

But because every ‘win’ felt like water drawn from my soul — 5% extraction, always.

I began sketching again — not with pixels, but with breaths.

Each morning now, I open an app only to record the rhythm of silence: how long before the light fades, how often the reflection returns, how rarely anyone says ‘you’re not alone’ when they’re really just sitting there, in their own apartment, in their own quiet, in their own blue glow.

You don’t need more followers to feel real. You need one moment where your existence isn’t defined by an algorithm… but by your choice to stay still, to look, to remember what mattered before the screen turned off.