“I used to follow a cohort of #fitspo and #thinspo models in my 20s in hopes that I’d eventually become ‘inspired,’ but quite the opposite happened. The only thing those accounts inspired in me was poor body image and the diagnosis of an eating disorder. Over the last few years, I’ve gotten into the habit of doing a social media sweep to weed out accounts that aren’t serving me or feel toxic. I recently unfollowed a close friend who’s working in nutrition. I didn’t like how I was feeling and the thoughts I was having about them and their content. I felt guilty about it, but I reminded myself that they wouldn’t necessarily know, and I wasn’t banishing or losing anyone — their content was still there if I wanted to check in or engage with it for whatever reason. Sometimes, I still struggle to unfollow friends, so I’ve become pretty liberal with the mute button. I’ve worked too hard mentally to get to a point where I no longer compromise my own ethics and values to appease another person. My mental health matters more than increasing a friend’s followers by one. Setting boundaries isn’t exactly fun, but once we give ourselves the opportunity to see how effective they can be in supporting our mental health and interpersonal relationships, the less awkward and guilty we feel about it. Now, I choose to follow accounts that inspire curiosity, creativity, and connection, like uplifting storytelling accounts, funny, lighthearted meme accounts; oddball stuff like “Sandwiches of history;” and tons of interior design accounts so that my feed quite literally becomes filled with beautiful spaces.”