Social Media Break: Which App Do Most Americans Want To Delete?

American users desire to remove Instagram from their mobile gadgets more than any other app. No, it is not Twitter or Snapchat, and definitely not TikTok.

TikTok, in fact, topped the charts for app downloads in both the US and worldwide in 2022, as revealed by BusinessofApps. The photo-sharing service Instagram came in at number two.

Online Searches for Uninstallation

VPNOverview, a security-focused website, looked at internet search data for the 30 most downloaded programs to discover which users were most interested in uninstalling.

According to the research of search patterns conducted by the cybersecurity website, people who wanted to delete popular social media apps performed the most online searches for uninstall information over the most recent six months.

VPNOverview reported in February that more people in the US sought how to "delete" or "deactivate" Instagram than looked up any of the 30 most downloaded apps in the country combined.

It was more than twice the amount of searches for uninstalling or deactivating Facebook, which VPNOverview claimed was the app with the second highest searches in its investigation, with over 385,000 searches over six months.

Data from keywordtool.io and SimilarWeb, a provider of online analytics, were used to compile the report's findings about the popularity of searches for phrases connected to uninstalling or turning off well-known apps. In a report by CNBC Make It, these five applications appeared most often:

1. Instagram - 900,120 searches
2. Facebook - 385,410 searches
3. Snapchat - 217,400 searches
4. Twitter - 92,490 searches
5. Telegram - 24,819 searches

Possible Reasoning

Many individuals already have Instagram and Facebook installed on their phones, which makes sense that these would be the apps most people want to uninstall if given a choice.

The most popular Meta-based platforms, however, saw their user bases peak, and engagement rates fell in 2022. Fake news, cyberbullying, cybercrimes, privacy concerns, and data mining are all reasons why the public has become warier than the most well-known social media sites in recent years.

Some experts have voiced concerns regarding the toll that social media may be taking on the emotional development of young people. Leaked internal research from Meta shows that excessive use of social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook might have harmful consequences for young users.

Although many young people today are open to taking breaks from their social media use, opinions on whether they could give it up permanently are more divided.

In a poll carried out by the Pew Center last year, over half of the adolescents said that it would be "hard" to fully stop using social media. Forty-six percent thought it would be "easy," including 20% who said it would be "very easy."

Deleting Your Instagram

As USA Today noted, there are two ways to end your engagement with Instagram.

Choose between a permanent break by irreversibly deleting your entire Instagram account and a temporary deactivation with the option of returning later.

If you're having trouble, here's a more detailed explanation of how to delete your Instagram account.