Selena Gomez has taken a step back from social media. While the “Wolves” songstress has more than 150 million Instagram followers, she has found a way to limit her usage of the platform.
“I used to, a lot, but I think 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,” Gomez, 26, said during a Wednesday, June 12, interview on Live With Kelly and Ryan. “And it was affecting me, it would make me depressed, it would make me feel not good about myself, and I’d look at my body differently and all kinds of stuff.”
However, that doesn’t mean the Wizards of Waverly Place alum has completely pulled herself away from the platform.
“I actually don’t have it on my phone,” Gomez continued. “I have it on someone else’s phone and when I feel like I have something I want to share with my fans, or just want to mess around on it, I do it then.” (A source previously confirmed to Us Weekly that Gomez doesn’t have the app on her phone and accesses Instagram via a close pal’s account if she wants to post something.)
Gomez — who once held the record for being the most-followed celebrity account on Instagram — has been vocal about the negativity she’s faced on social media in the past. The former Disney Channel star opened up during a press conference last month about the dangers that lie within cyberspace.
“I think that our world is going through a lot, obviously. But I would say for my generation, specifically, and I guess this is what [director] Jim [Jarmusch] gestured to in [The Dead Don’t Die], is that social media has really been terrible for my generation,” Gomez explained at the time. “I understand that it’s amazing to use your platform, but it does scare me that you see how exposed these young girls and young boys are and they’re not really aware of the news or anything going on. It’s just — [I] don’t want to say selfish because that feels rude, but I think it’s dangerous for sure. I don’t think people are getting the right information.”
Gomez announced in September 2018 that she was taking a break from the photo-sharing platform while she focused on her mental health. The following month, a source confirmed to Us Weekly that Gomez was “improving every day” after “resting and getting treatment for a series of panic attacks related to ongoing medical issues.” She announced in 2015 that she has lupus.
