Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Quits Facebook, Calls Social Media a ‘Public Health Risk’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), known for live-streaming herself on Instagram, said on Sunday that she has given up Facebook and is scaling back on all social media, which she described as a “public health risk to everybody.”

The New York Democrat said on Yahoo News’s Skullduggery podcast that she has stopped using her Facebook account — even though her official page remains active and still runs active advertisements sponsored by her campaign, according to the Washington Post.

“I actually think that social media poses a public health risk to everybody,” she said on the podcast. “There are amplified impacts for young people, particularly children under the age of three, with screen time. But I think it has a lot of effects on older people. I think it has effects on everybody. Increased isolation, depression, anxiety, addiction, escapism.”

The representative said she is trying to limit her consumption of social media to the workweek. “Like every once in a while, you’ll see me hop on Twitter on the weekends, but for the most part, I take consumption of content; when it comes to consumption and reading, I take the weekends off,” she said.

She last live-streamed herself on Thursday, April 4, for about an hour, as she sat on the floor in her Washington, DC, apartment and ranted about her political views while eating popcorn, drinking white wine, and putting together IKEA furniture.

Critics widely mocked the video on social media, including those who mimicked her in their own videos.

So far, Ocasio-Cortez has tweeted or retweeted multiple times every day in April, except for Sunday, when she taped the podcast. On Monday, however, she retweeted the podcast and was back to tweeting.