There is no denying that most people are addicted to social media, and I am no exception. I could easily spend hours on my phone going from Twitter to Snapchat to Facebook to Instagram, etc., and I have often found myself doing this. Every night before I would fall asleep, I would spend at least an hour on Instagram, regardless of how tired I was. After reflecting on my social media usage, I realized that I was living too much of my life staring at a screen, and it was at the point where I started thinking about it when I wasn’t even on my phone. No one should have an app consume their mind, and Instagram was definitely beginning to do this.
I used to delete Instagram posts regardless of how fond those memories were because they didn’t fit the “theme” of my account or simply because I didn’t like how the colors in those pictures flowed with the rest of my posts. I used to do my makeup and spend 20 minutes taking selfies, just to post one on my story and immediately take all of my makeup off. I would get anxious when I hadn’t posted in over a month because I wanted to “stay relevant.” Seeing other people’s posts made me criticize myself and how I lived my life. Instagram was on my mind way more often than it should be, and I didn’t want it to play such a big role in my life anymore.
Towards the end of the summer, I decided to delete the app from my home page. I couldn’t bring myself to delete it altogether, but I knew that I had to do something about it because it was definitely taking a toll on my mental health and caused me a lot more anxiety than I’d like to admit. At first, I would be scrolling through my phone and go to click on the app, and it wouldn’t be there. It was almost like clicking on Instagram had become second nature and it was frustrated that this happened multiple times a day. But as the days went on, I stopped having the urge to check it every time I went on my phone. I felt less obligated to post every time I was with someone or went somewhere, too. While it’s a small accomplishment, I celebrated when I didn’t go on Instagram all day, especially because I didn’t set a goal to do so; it organically happened.
It has definitely been really refreshing to break the relationship I’ve had with Instagram. It has been one less thing I had to worry about. If Instagram has been a source of negativity for you, then I would definitely recommend deleting it, even if it’s for a day or just a few hours. I’m trying to transition to using mine as a creative outlet to post whatever I want rather than trying to stick to the “expectations” of it. I am not positive where my new Instagram journey will take me, but I am so relieved that it doesn’t have as tight of a hold on me as it previously did.