Selena Gomez on deleting her social media apps: 'It's really saved my life'

Selena Gomez revealed how she found the perfect balancing act with social media.

The Only Murders in the Building star spoke to WWD about how deleting her social media apps and having her assistant post what she wants to share instead has done wonders for her mental health.

"That's a huge, significant part of why I feel like I’ve been as healthy as I have been," she explained. "I'm completely unaware of actually what's going on in pop culture, and that makes me really happy. And maybe that doesn't make everybody else happy, but for me, it's really saved my life."

Gomez, who has disclosed her mental health struggles with the public, as well as her battle with lupus, shared that seeing her personal life discussed online was just "too much information" for her to handle.

"I felt like my thoughts and everything I was consuming revolved around a million different other people in the world saying good things and bad things," she explained. "And I just thought, 'Why would I — I don't get anything from it. Nothing is giving me life.' And I just snapped, and I was over it."

While the Disney Channel alum wanted to "delete it altogether," her team convinced her not to — a decision she ultimately was happy about.

"It is such a wonderful way to stay connected, and when I do go on, it makes me happy to know that I’m just being completely honest and being true to who I am," she said.

Gomez, who was once the most-followed person on Instagram, has previously spoken out about the mental health toll of having her public life on display. In August, she told ELLE, "For a while, I felt like an object. It felt gross for a long time."

Stepping back from reading the comments helped her find peace, and even take more creative risks, explaining, "This tiny little phone that had 150 million people on it — I just put it down. That was such a relief for me."

Gomez first removed social media apps from her phone in 2019. She told Live With Kelly and Ryan of the decision, "It's just become really unhealthy, I think personally for young people, including myself, to spend all of their time fixating on all these comments and letting this stuff in. And it was affecting me. It would make me depressed, it would make me feel not good about myself and look at my body differently and all kinds of stuff."

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