It’s been A MONTH since I decided to quit Instagram indefinitely, maybe…hopefully…forever. This was not a swift, seamless departure. It was HARD. It was ick-inducing. It was really pretty depressing. When I tell you I COULD NOT QUIT, I really - embarrassingly - mean it.
I don’t want to undermine the experience of real addiction (drug, alcohol, etc.), but I also want to say my relationship with Instagram felt akin to substance abuse. I often found myself on the app without consciously deciding to open it. I found myself scrolling at stoplights and in the bathroom (how strange to peer into someone else’s life while you’re on the toilet.). I couldn’t muster the discipline not to open the app and BOMBARD my senses first thing in the morning, first thing before bed, in line at the grocery store, while eating lunch, between (and honestly during) meetings, when work or school or life got hard or boring and even when it didn’t. Perhaps my most uncomfortable realization in this journey is that I often turned to Instagram to dull an unpleasant feeling - exhaustion, overwhelm, self-doubt, loneliness, frustration. In these ways I didn’t feel so different from someone who finds themselves drinking even when they don’t want to, even when it hass crossed the boundary from harmless fun into harmful compulsion.
I feel like people in my life aren’t talking about this. It is absolutely a big part of the cultural conversation. There is important and pervasive discourse around parenting in the age of social media, its impact on mental health, echo chambers, political polarization, surveillance, and - yes - social media addiction, but I really feel like people (like REAL LIFE PEOPLE) are not being honest or open about their own overuse of these apps. I think this is because it’s really kind of embarrassing to admit, as a full blown adult, that I (you! WE!) can’t stop scrolling Instagram! However, my hunch and my observation is that this is not unique to me. We all seem very comfy worrying about THE YOUTH and HOW THEY WILL SURVIVE BEING YOUNG IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA?! But, how are we doing? Are you scrolling at a stoplight, too? Is your Dad reading Facebook posts under the table at family dinner?
The very well researched fact is that Instagram and apps like it are perfectly designed to hijack our time and attention for not-at-all neutral or benign purposes. Here’s a good interview with NYT journalist and author or The Chaos Machine on how social media rewires the brain. One of my big takeaways in listening to it is just how little I understand about how Instagram works, and as a result, how little control I have over the ways in which I engage with it. Even if I curated a perfectly positive, healthy, or boundaried relationship with this app, the algorithm is more in charge than I am. Even when we really intentionally monitor our use, we cannot fully cocoon ourselves from the app’s impact on our mind, our worldview, and ultimately how we live out our life. BUT: that is not what this article is about. This is about my decision to FINALLY get the hell out of there!
Here’s some of the ways I came to realize I was addicted to Instagram.
I OFTEN opened the app unconsciously. An innocent intention to check my calendar led to clicking an in-app ad for a linen duvet or tearing up at the sight of a pregnancy announcement
I felt a pull to check Instagram immediately upon waking.
Scrolling consumed a lot of my leisure time, crowding out my hobbies. (Ew. Embarrassing.)
I scrolled “to relax” even though it IS NOT - scientifically - relaxing.
I knew intellectually that I spent too much time on social media but couldn’t seem to moderate my use.
I felt like there wasn’t enough time in the day, but would be ashamed to share my screen time data with a friend.
I opened the app over and over again even though it didn’t fulfill the visceral craving I turned to it for. It felt like opening the fridge repeatedly for a snack I knew wasn’t in there.
I’d mute phone calls from real life people when they came in during my leisurely social-media scroll, choosing synthetic connection over the real deal.
I’d find myself thinking in Instagram when I wasn’t on Instagram. AKA: writing captions in my mind about things happening in real time. (Again. Ew. Embarrassing)
MAJOR RED FLAG: SCROLLING AND DRIVING.
I have tried to quite Instagram about 320431459 times before. I’d known for a long time that it was making life…less good. Books weren’t as engrossing, songs seemed too long, my nervous system felt perpetually lit up, flitting around like a caffeinated squirrel. I fantasized about life without it - HOW PURE, HOW VIBRANT, HOW SIMPLE. And yet, I couldn’t pull myself away. The urge to go back was too strong. It was too easy to re-download or reset the password or leap right over whatever barrier I’d put between me and logging back in. It wasn’t until recently that I really felt in my body that I NEEDED to quit. It became very clear that transformation was on the other side of this commitment, and that continuing to be on Instagram meant forgoing better days, better weeks, a better life for…what?
In my last post I talked about being in a liminal season, one of transition into something unspecified. I am on sabbatical from my work and from school. I don’t know if or when I’ll go back. I’ve quit a lot lately. BIG THINGS. Things that were huge parts of my identity, both how I understood myself and my place in the world and how my family, friends, and community understood me. But, REALLY. TRULY. Quitting Instagram has by far been the most impactful thing I’ve quit. The QUIT OF ALL QUITS.
This is not meant to be didactic or persuasive or sound even a little bit like me talking to you from way atop my HIGH HORSE. This is a just me, a person who felt gross about their own social media use sharing that I feel a lot better. I LOVE MUSIC AGAIN. SONGS DON’T SEEM TOO LONG. At red lights I just sit there. I watch a person cross the street. I show up to a coffee date and really mean “what’s been up?” when I ask because I haven’t been following the instagram stories! What a joy to hear what’s been up from the mouth of a person, not the screen of my phone.
To letting the goodness of quitting get even more good.
With love,
Stephanie
Ahh I quit instagram also nearly a month ago and these words felt like my own, like my souls truth, like a huge awakening... like BAM! Here’s the reality check you needed Alisha, here’s the words you couldn’t quite articulate.. RAW & REAL!
YES! I started pulling away from social media when I realized how physically ill it made me feel, and had many of the habits you describe. I still have the apps, but I actually dread checking it now on the rare occasion when I need to find information there.