Scarlett Johansson opened up about her decision to refrain from using social media on Sunday’s episode of The Skinny Confidential Him & Her podcast.
While speaking to hosts, Lauryn Evarts Bosstick and husband Michael Bosstick, the 38-year-old actress revealed she is ‘too fragile a person to have social media.’
‘I can’t. My ego is too fragile,’ she admitted. ‘My brain is too fragile. I’m like a delicate flower.’
The two-time Oscar nominee, who is married to SNL star Colin Jost, went on to explain that apps like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, are simply too addictive for her.
‘I become like a three-year old with their mom’s phone, where I get completely absorbed into it. So that’s why I know I can’t have it,’ the Black Widow star confessed.
The mother-of-two, who welcomed her son Cosmo with her spouse in August 2021, recalled using Instagram for three days through her company’s account.
‘I started realizing that I’d spent 20 minutes looking at somebody’s Instagram page, someone who worked for a friend of mine. I now know you have a Pitbull and two daughters and you live in like Burbank,’ she said.
Johansson said the her Instagram stalking session got her frustrated that she wasted ’17 minutes of time’ and caused her to want to ‘change’ her ‘life in all these ways that felt so bad.’
Last year, she said echoed a similar sentiment as she stated that she does not ‘have the brain capacity for’ social media.
‘Keeping up with friends and family requires a lot of my mind,’ she told LADbible.
‘I’ve never had any social media, so I don’t know if I’m missing it. But I can’t imagine I am, maybe! I must be missing some fun stuff about it,’ she reflected.
Back in 2011, the performer also insisted that she doesn’t ‘feel the need to brand’ herself.’
‘But as a means to share information and raise awareness of things, I think these social-networking platforms are unprecedented. They’re amazing tools to communicate information – especially about different causes or crises or movements,’ she acknowledged.
Still, she said she couldn’t ‘think of anything’ she’d ‘rather do less than have to continuously share details of my everyday life.’
‘I’m always surprised that certain actors have Twitter accounts. I guess they use it in a way that works for them,’ the Tony Award winner stated.
‘But I’d rather that people had less access to my personal life. If I could keep it that way, I’d be a happy lady,’ Johansson concluded of the subject.
That same year, after private photos of her were allegedly hacked from her private cell phone and put on the internet, she asked the public to respect her privacy.
‘Just because you’re an actor or make films or whatever doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to your own personal privacy,’ she told CNN. ‘If that is sieged in some way, it feels unjust. It feels wrong.’
While speaking of growing up in the spotlight, after making her film debut at age nine, she said ‘it’s an adjustment.’
‘I think there are certain instances where you give a lot of yourself and finally you have to kind of put your foot down and say, ‘Oh wait, I’m taking it back,’ she explained.
