In Favor of Muting

We were never meant to ‘keep up with’ this many people

Dunbar’s Number is the theory that most humans can only maintain social relationships with about 150 or so people. Beyond that, relationships lose emotional depth and our brains just can’t handle it. How many people do you follow on Instagram? I follow about 500, but I have friends who follow thousands. We have somehow found ourselves in a place where we are constantly ingesting the lives of acquaintances. Who cares what that girl from high school you never speak to is doing? You don’t need to know what random person lost weight on Ozempic or that your ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend got engaged and has a small rock. It’s useless information, and it’s taking up valuable real estate in your brain. They don’t matter. You barely know them. Mute.

Stay in your own lane

Social media is bad for us; we know this. Compare and despair. Before I started muting people, I often found myself comparing my life to others. We’ve all found ourselves home alone on a Saturday night, scrolling, wondering why we’re not at the cool party or trying to guess whose mysterious hand is in that story post. Nothing makes you feel more like a loser than seeing everyone’s amazing vacation pics, wondering why you didn’t plan a more fun summer—not that I’m speaking from personal experience or anything. I never feel better after scrolling on IG. There are people who just irk us or make us feel bad about ourselves. Friends send me random people’s Instagram posts to gossip about, and I now love it when I click on the story, and it says ‘Unavail. Private.’—good for me. It means I muted them and can go about my day without that information.

Trim the fat

Who to mute then? I recommend muting anyone who makes you feel bad, ex-boyfriends, that girl you met in the club bathroom, all the ‘talking stages’ from dating apps, and Tier 3 acquaintances (you know what I’m talking about). Mute the frenemies. Mute your weird relative you can’t unfollow. The idea is to curate your social media so it’s less exhausting and really only shows what your closest friends are doing. If you wouldn’t stop on the street to chat with the person, mute. ‘But how will I stay in touch with so-and-so?’—text them!

Muting over unfriending

Of course, there is another option to simplify your social media, and that would be unfriending people. See, I won’t encourage you to do that because it’s just messy and slightly aggressive. Someone will notice, and it gets awkward. To be fair, I regularly do a ‘cull’ maybe once a year, unfollowing the truly randos, but it can be hurtful if someone notices, and muting is just so much easier and less dramatic.

It’s not personal

I’ve clearly outed myself here, but it’s not personal. I only see stories from my closest friends now. The way I think of it is, if I didn’t know what they were doing already, where they are vacationing, etc., if I am not in communication with them, I don’t need to know it. I don’t need to know how 90% of my following list is spending their weekends. And maybe this is because I have ADHD, but it’s just too much useless information for my brain.

You’ll spend less time on IG

This one goes without saying, but you will spend way less time on IG when you have muted everyone. Which is good. Come join me on TikTok instead, the far superior, far funnier social media, where I don’t know anyone, but everyone is funny.

So go ahead and mute. I give you permission. I promise you won’t regret it.