Deleting Instagram felt like a breath of fresh air. Before I decided to uninstall the app, in the lead-up to Christmas, I was beginning to feel it taking effect on my mental health and motivation. I was spending hours every day scrolling aimlessly through Reels or snooping through random people's pages, being sucked into the vacuous black hole that is social media.
I felt like I didn't have as much time to do the things I enjoyed doing in my spare time, such as writing or reading, as I was spending all of my free time on Instagram. This was a particularly bad habit to get into at night-time, as I wasn't sleeping properly and was exposing myself to triggering content before bed.
I started to reflect on my relationship with social media, particularly Instagram, given that I'd been a loyal user of the platform since the formative age of 12. However, back when I first started using Instagram, the platform had a whole different purpose. Social media was simply a place to share silly photos and random quotes with friends, no one seemed to care about curating an aesthetic feed or monitoring their likes and follows.
As I got older, social media became more of a popularity contest. If you didn't have 1,000 followers or got less than 100 likes per post you were 'inferior' or 'unpopular.' If you didn't share perfectly filtered photos from your summer holiday, then you were seen as going against the grain and being mysterious. This was especially difficult to navigate as a teenage girl, who was trying to find herself while attempting to keep up with the demands of social media. In retrospect, it was at this point when I should have considered deleting Instagram; when it started to become more of a chore than a fun pastime.
There have been times in the past when I have been doing things with my friends or family and I've prioritised getting an Instagram-worthy photo over actually living and enjoying the moment. This is an especially sad thing to admit, but it shows the soul-consuming nature of social media. It leads us to believe that we should be documenting every significant moment in our lives and displaying it for the rest of the world to see.
More recently, Instagram has become more than just a social platform. It is used by many companies and brands as a marketing tool. I help manage a professional photographer's social media accounts, so despite not being active on platforms like Facebook and Instagram myself, I still have to engage with them. Unfortunately, as a media student, it's unlikely that I'll go into a career that isn't heavily reliant on social media.
This being said, my decision to come off of social media in my personal life has been hugely beneficial for my mental state. I no longer spend my evenings scrolling through meaningless videos, feeling overwhelmed by the range of emotions they produce within me (it's honestly messed up how you can be watching a funny video one second and a clip of someone dying the next). I'm no longer exposed to triggering content that keeps me up at night, or finding myself comparing my life to someone else's. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
Though I will likely return to social media at some point, whether to share my writing with others or photos from my summer (because sometimes it is quite fun to do so), I'm content with my decision to delete Instagram. If you find social media overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, I encourage you to try and do the same. Trust me, you'll feel much better for it.