I Deleted Snapchat Off My Phone And I Never Felt FOMO Again

Snapchat has been around for a few years now and as it's evolved from simple selfies to a realm of filters and geotags, more people have begun using it.

Even celebrities like Kylie Jenner use the app to launch their newest products and keep fans "in the loop" of their lives.

A month ago, I decided to do the unthinkable: I deactivated my Snapchat account.

My Snapchat, which had a "score" roughly over 200,000 and more than 350 friends, was suddenly gone.

Although Snapchat won't deactivate your account until it's been unused for 30 days, it took much less than that for me to see the effects of deleting it.

Here are eight things that happened to me after I deleted Snapchat:

1. I lost communication with friends.

Something many people don't think about is how there are some people you mainly communicate with through just Snapchat. (Or just any other type of app for that matter.)

For me, I had a few of those friends. Sure, I can talk to them outside of the app, but Snapchat was our way of communicating our daily ups and downs to each other.

Those relationships seemed to fizzle almost immediately, since our major medium of communication was gone.

2. People got mad at me.

Even funnier, many people thought I was ignoring them for the first few days after deleting it.

So I had to explain what happened and why I deleted the app.

Some of my closer friends were upset I ruined our streak (how many days in a row you've been snapping someone).

It was surprising to see so many people caring about something so superficial.

3. I felt a step behind.

Many people use Snapchat to go from the friend to best friend level, so I felt like in some ways I was missing a common friendship component used for making jokes and bonding.

In some ways, I got the feeling that without Snapchat, certain friendship bonds would be harder to make stronger.

I also felt a step behind on celebrity gossip.

Like I mentioned before, Kylie Jenner uses the app to promote her makeup and her life.

When a celebrity would post a controversial snap I wasn't able to see it right away. I would have to wait for someone to post it online or ask a friend to get the full details.

4. I felt disconnected.

It was hard because it took me off of another social media.

Never being on Twitter had already set me back a little with the social media world, but being off of Snapchat, another fast-moving popular social app, made me feel even more distanced.

5. I no longer got FOMO. Like ever.

Suddenly, I wasn't constantly thrown hundreds of Snapchat stories showing me what everyone else was doing.

I stopped seeing what I was potentially missing out on, or seeing people having "more fun" than I was. The comparisons I subconsciously made in my mind had dialed back into a carefree blur.

It was so relieving.

6. My phone bill thanked me.

I finally wasn't going over my allotted data plan anymore. This is an obvious benefit, but also a major one. It saved me money on data overages.

And it made my friends reach out to me. It made the friends who wanted to communicate with me do so through other, less short-lived mediums.

7. I took advantage of all the extra space my phone had.

I used a surprising amount of space on my phone, and even time in my life on Snapchat.

Getting rid of it gave me more space on my phone for pictures I actually cared about and moments I wanted to remember, not just random selfies I took when I was feeling funny.

As far as time went, I spent much more of my time on things like sharpening up my resume, studying, hanging out with people I cared about and catching up with people who mattered to me.

8. I was happier.

Basically, I felt a drastic change by simply deleting an app off my phone.

I ended up being so much happier for a variety of reasons, all having to deal with FOMO and time management.

I never realized how much seeing what people were doing affected me so negatively.

I didn't (and still don't) miss it. It's a fun app but the benefits of life without it definitely outweigh the benefits of life with it.

It was a wake-up call and a way to press the “refresh” button on the winter doldrums.