Social media had enslaved me, says actress Sangeetha Bhat on her decision to deactivate her online profile

Social media was getting too toxic and I felt like a slave to it,” says actor Sangeetha Bhat, explaining how the constant urge to document moments instead of living them began to weigh on her. “Every time I felt like taking a picture, I would think, let me post it. We scroll when we wake up, we scroll before we sleep, we doom scroll even when we are watching something on screen... it all got to my head,” she states, adding, “I just deactivated. Now, I feel really light after doing it. My muscle memory still goes to Instagram, but it is deactivated, so I cannot access it unless I activate it again.”Beyond the fatigue of constant scrolling, Sangeetha points to a deeper industry pressure — the idea that an actor’s social media following defines their value. “If people truly believe in talent and appreciate it, they will find you. They will find you because of your film footprint, the work experience you have left behind in the industry,” she says. Weighing in on a fact that today, casting is often based on the number of followers an individual has over talent, Sangeetha tells us, “Even if you have one million followers, those one million people are not going to come and watch your film. People come because they find the movie watchable, something they can consume. Following does not decide that.” She acknowledges that social media has relevance in certain spaces. “For influencers, it probably does. Brands grow, products grow because people buy what they showcase,” she notes. But for actors, she believes the measure must be different. “Unless you have the talent, the skill, and the experience to do justice to a character, nothing else matters.”