My partner Dave (i.e. the stud in the above photo) has an enviably healthy relationship with Instagram. He opens up the app a couple of times a day, scrolls ten stories to the right and ten posts south, “likes” each post that belongs to a friend, takes a screen shot of some macho inspirational quote with a picture of Tom Hardy next to it, forwards me something from the Real Deal, and closes the app. He reposts every story he is tagged in, and, once a year, he posts a sweet Mother’s Day message for me to his feed. There are no deep dark Instagram holes, no stalking of tenth degree acquaintances, no FOMO over parties he didn’t even want to go to and no obsession over mansions he can’t afford. It’s fascinating to watch and, quite frankly, a turn-on.
My relationship with Instagram is not quite as disciplined. For one, I post lots of stories, which I like to come off as “fun” and “effortless” but actually require far more energy than they merit. This means that I’m often looking at my photo roll from a content perspective, trying to configure a narrative that will feel humorous yet humble yet cool to the 3.5 people I consciously want to impress. Once the story is up, I ascent into the real world, only to check back in thirty minutes later for some digital validation – a “like”, a crying-laughing emoji, a sweet comment about my daughter – anything to get the dopamine flowing. If a story doesn’t resonate as much as I had hoped it would, this often leaves me with a nagging feeling of, not exactly disappointment but dissatisfaction, which then distracts me from whatever else I’m doing, and, in turn, makes me feel even more pathetic.
Then there’s my scrolling habit. I consume at least 40 minutes of other people’s lives a day, “liking” and commenting and silently observing and occasionally falling into little “research” loops of the restaurant so-and-so is eating at or the boots so-and-so is wearing. The way I feel afterwards is contingent to how I’m feeling about my own life at that moment. When I’m happy, professionally satisfied and brimming with fun plans, I usually process everything I see with healthy neutrality. However, if I’m feeling bored, lonely or frustrated, then Instagram only exacerbates said emotions, reaffirming that I am definitely not living up to my best potential, and neither are my social activities, my vacation plans, or my wardrobe. In fact, I’m a loser who sits at home most nights while everybody else is gallivanting around town doing glamorous things. Or vacationing in Bali. Or being Kaia Gerber.
I don’t know if it was the pandemic lockdown or the consecutive social isolation of having a baby, but, in the past few years, Instagram has become my default. It’s where I go when I’m in the bathroom, or in the passenger seat on a weekend trip, or taking a break from work, or winding down after putting my daughter to bed. Much to my embarrassment, it’s where I go when I get tired of playing with my daughter and need a distraction before going back to coloring little mushrooms and elves. It’s also where I went about a month ago during a fight with Dave – because I was nervous, because my fingers just automatically slid open the app, because it was easier to escape rather than to stay in that situation and be present. Let’s just say that the outcome of the fight would have been a lot better, had my phone remained on the table.
Following that disastrous night, I deleted the app from my phone. Not because Dave had asked me to (he’s not really the type), or because it was preventing me from being a present parent (trust me, I find other distractions). I deleted Instagram because its presence had become too amplified, competing for space with my family and my job and quite simply my life. Because it had become too connected with my self-esteem, too aligned with my perception of events – and, at the end of the day, too linked to my happiness. I deleted the app because, like a true addict, I couldn’t handle it.
Let me just clarify that this is in no way an admirable story about a woman quitting Instagram. All I did was delete the app from my phone, minimizing my access to it and therefore curbing that constant tick that kept pushing me to update it multiple times an hour, like a junkie seeking a fix. I now peruse it a few times a day from my computer, which makes it far more difficult to get lost in the little ergonomic pathways the Meta magicians configured for our brains. Once a week, I re-download it to promote this newsletter and post a week in review of my daughter’s momentous accomplishments (at this point, she has fans). Sometimes I download it to post a story about a fun weekend or trip, because I’m still hungry to either impress or to share. Instagram is still present in my life, but it is contained.
It’s been a month and the votes are in. As expected, I feel great. I know a little bit less about what others are doing, which makes me feel more content with my own life. My mood doesn’t end up tampered with because of some perfect’s stranger’s career milestone, or home, or existence. Not having a self-updating tracker of all the awesome things everybody else is doing has left me feeling peaceful more than anxious, satisfied more than restless, grateful more than resentful.
And yet, I must admit that I miss sharing. It’s quiet here in my little world without the app, even quieter than it was before. Gone are the spontaneous conversations with friends and Insta-friends, the funny DM exchanges, the humorous prism from which I would approach the mundane. Even writing this now makes me want to download it, because there truly is a creative vessel involved in the way I craft the stories – and I can practically taste the instant gratification on my lips. I want to get to the point where I download it and use it in a healthy way, but I know I’m not there yet.
I’m not there yet because I haven’t changed. I’m still the same person I was before I deleted it – a person who is never quite satisfied, who never stops wanting more, who has a very nice life but somehow often fails to recognize it. Who is well aware that Instagram is, by design, a self-promotional highlight reel of people’s shiniest moments, yet still manages to let it affect her. Who knows that the people on Instagram, the ones with the followers and the perfect bodies and the unlimited travel budgets, are not necessarily happy, or even real, yet still inadvertently compares their lives to her own. My emotions never quite line up with my logical reasoning, leaving me to wonder – am I the product of Big Tech’s grand experiment over humanity, in which a healthy psyche is ruined by excess exposure? Or am I simply too fragile and insecure to handle these platforms? Either way, I’m going to sit in the stillness as I think about this a bit longer.
I realize that I’m touching upon a tiny fragment of something that is having a far deeper and more detrimental effect on our society, contributing to the skyrocketing rates of adolescent depression and young people’s skewed, and often harmful, perception of self. I’m on the fringe of the real damage that social media is doing, because I grew up without it and will always be able to separate the screen from reality. And yet, even for me, the lines are becoming blurred.
Sometimes, inspiration can come from places you don’t expect. I was listening to Lauren Santo Domingo on World’s First Podcast last week, and she said, “I like to think of my mind as a harbor. It’s a safe place and the water needs to be really still, and you just don’t let anything come in.” It stuck with me. If my own mind is a harbor, then Instagram is a force that shoots off turbulent waves, blocking the possibility of stillness. On one hand, I need to work on making the water in the harbor as sound as possible by adjusting my perception of reality and sitting tight with a gratitude list for my own life. On the other hand, I need to create a mental dam that controls the exterior sources I allow in. The boundaries over how I use Instagram – who I follow, how often I log on, how long I linger for – are the barriers that prevent the waters from spilling in and the sea level from rising.
Once the water is tranquil and the dam is established, there’s a chance at survival.
(Or so I hope.)
I loved this! It was so honest, touching, and humorous.
You are such a great writer!