Though many of us can’t imagine a world without Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, we often find ourselves fantasising about a time when social media didn’t exist.
With the omnipresent connection of social media, comes a world of new things to stress about—and it’s painstakingly easy for the Internet to cause us to compare ourselves to others in a not-so-healthy way.
It appears that plenty of major celebrities are on the same page.
While sharing your life is arguably an unavoidable part of being famous, plenty of A-listers have decided to steer clear of operating a social media account, sparing themselves the pressure of it all.
From Emma Stone to Kristen Stewart, scroll down for 14 stars who’ve made the decision to delete their social media accounts, or never even operate them in the first place.
Emma Stone
Stone has never had social media (or at least accounts that we know of), and lives privately in comparison to other celebrities. In a 2018 interview with ELLE U.S., the La La Land actress said social media “wouldn’t be a positive thing” for her, adding: “If people can handle that sort of output and input in the social media sphere, more power to them.”
Kristen Stewart
Stewart, who’s never publicly operated a social media account, has a very straightforward view on sharing your life online. In a 2016 interview with CBS News, the actress said: “I know I sound ridiculous and really obvious—everyone says this, and I sound like an older person, but we could be doing way cooler s–t. It’s so time-consuming.”
Jennifer Lawrence
Lawrence doesn’t use public social media accounts, and said in 2014 that it’s because the Internet “has scorned me so much” throughout her career. However, she admitted in an InStyle interview in 2018 that she actually operates secretly on social media, saying: “I watch, I don’t speak.”
Cate Blanchett
In the past, Cate Blanchett has been very critical of how certain platforms can be a birthplace for comparison and narcissism—especially Instagram.
In a 2015 interview with Yahoo Beauty, the actress said: “There’s a subversive quality to the Internet, and I do think there’s a genuine ability to connect. But the downside with social media is it divides people really quickly and sets up rivalry and jealousy and a sense of the life over there is better than the life over here.”
Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex
Many people know that Meghan Markle was on social media up until 2016, when she deactivated her accounts and settled for the PR-operated @sussexroyal account. In March 2020, however, the Duchess and her husband, Prince Harry, announced they were ending the @sussexroyal account in line with their departure from operating as ‘senior members’ of the British Royal Family.
With Meghan and Harry now living a new life in L.A., time will only tell whether the Duchess will once again take to social media.
Amal Clooney
With a globe-trotting career as an international law and human rights barrister, we’d be surprised if Amal Clooney had any time for social media. Clooney has never given a reason for not using social media platforms, though her husband, George Clooney, has said he steers clear of social media out of fear of “saying something stupid”.
Cameron Diaz
Once-present on social media, Diaz shared her candid thoughts on the Internet in a 2015 interview with Cosmopolitan U.K., saying: “I think social media is a crazy-ass experiment on society. The way people use it to get validation from a bunch of strangers is dangerous. What’s the point?”
Kate Moss
Unlike plenty of other ’90s supermodels in 2020, Kate Moss doesn’t use social media, despite part-owning an account for her talent agency, Kate Moss Agency.
In a 2017 interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, she said: “The whole modelling scene is completely different to when I first started out. Everything now is so instant with digital photography and there’s no mystique. I don’t have any personal accounts on social media, I’m just not into posting about personal stuff online.”
Scarlett Johansson
Johansson may be one of the highest-paid actress in the world, but you’re not likely to see her on social media. In a 2011 interview with Interview magazine (before Facebook and Instagram became immovable parts of our lives), she said: “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less than have to continuously share details of my everyday life.”
Then, in a 2023 interview on the Skinny Confidential Him & Her podcast, Johansson revealed that she feels too “fragile” to handle the negativity that often goes hand-in-hand with public celebrity accounts.
“I honestly am too fragile a person to have social media. I can’t. My ego is too fragile. My brain is too fragile. I’m like a delicate flower,” she admitted.
ScarJo, 39, also said that she has dabbled with Instagram before, but quickly found herself falling into a pattern of obsession.
“I started realising that I’d spent 20 minutes looking at somebody’s Instagram page, someone who worked for a friend of mine,” she joked, adding, “I now know you have a pitbull and two daughters and you live in, like, Burbank.”
“I was like, what? I just wasted 17 minutes of time. I now feel like I should move to California, get this pecific dog, and change my life in all these ways. I felt so bad. Like I was missing out on this random person’s life.”
Keira Knightley
Knightley has admitted that she had an Instagram account for “about five minutes” before deleting herself from the platform entirely. In a 2019 interview with The Irish Times, she said: “I watched [the account] accumulate, like, 100 followers in three seconds, and I got so freaked out that I turned it off straight away.”
Ruth Negga
In a 2017 interview with Net-a-Porter’s The Edit, Oscar-nominated actress Negga said she never engages with Instagram or Facebook, because they “terrify the s–t” out of her. She also said her reluctance to join means she’s always “the last to find something out, and my friendship group is very small, but I would hope, committed”.
Saoirse Ronan
In a 2018 interview with TheWrap.com, Ronan said she had a brief dalliance with Twitter in 2009, but has since avoided social media, saying: “self-promotion has always always made me feel really uncomfortable.”
She also said having an online presence is “too much work for me and too stressful. I’ve developed a kind of distant relationship with my phone and technology over the past couple of years”.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge
As one of the most popular comic actresses and writers of her generation, Phoebe Waller-Bridge said in a 2019 podcast that she avoids social media because she “would feel pressure to be funny all the time”. In the same interview, she admitted she didn’t believe she’d be able to deal with any negative comments that came with having an online presence, and we can’t blame her.
Alicia Vikander
Vikander admitted in a 2019 interview with Harper’s BAZAAR U.S. that she purged social media from her life after using Instagram for a month. The actress said: “I realised early on that social media was not good for me; I personally didn’t find the joy in it.”
