I deleted Instagram on New Year’s Day at my friend’s recommendation. “Come on, I’m deleting it for the month and you’ve mentioned how you wish you could get off of it,” she said. “Let’s just try it! The first day of February we can redownload.”
I took her up on the recommendation and deleted Instagram. It’s now two months later and I have no desire to (permanently) redownload the app. Here are four things I’ve learned in the last sixty-some days:
It isn’t Instagram, it’s the addiction
To preface, I deleted the app in January and did not log into Instagram for the entire month. In February, I logged in on the website to check my DMs and logged out once done. I realized that allowing myself to log in from time to time, without redownloading the app, to clean up DMs and respond to any pressing notifications was doing me good. I’ve never done very well with a fully restrictive mentality, and all of January felt like I was just waiting around for the clock to run out, wanting to redownload Instagram. Allowing myself to (sparingly, no more than once a week for a couple of minutes without specific reason) log in on the web has healed my relationship with social media more than a clean detox.
I never let myself stay logged in on the website, either. If I log in for any reason, I log back out when I’m done. Having to go through the hoops and hurdles of logging in, approving two-factor authentication, and then trying to scroll on the generally glitchy website is so inconvenient that it sometimes feels like a pain to even open Instagram. This way, it’s so difficult to get quick dopamine hits from endlessly doom-scrolling, that I’m forced to use my time in other ways.
I’ve had so much more time
I’m a fairly busy person. My Google calendar is horrendous, I almost always have to plan out lunches and dinners days or even weeks in advance, and I probably say “Sorry, I can’t, I’m busy” more than I should. Still, I always seemed to have time to doom scroll.
Since deleting Instagram, though it seems ridiculous to think about, I’ve truly had more free time. I’ve noticed my screen time drop a seemingly ridiculous amount, and I feel great about it. Now, to be clear, I’m not saying deleting Instagram has given me hours upon hours of free time each day. The time I’ve found might not be in amounts so great that I’m suddenly found with a completely open schedule or anything, but I’ve found that I’ve been able to make more time for my priorities.
I’ve felt so much healthier
I no longer wake up and laze in bed doom scrolling until the literal last minute I have. I’m not lying in bed for hours after promising myself I’d only be on Instagram for five minutes. Simple habits like starting and ending my day without a mindless scroll have inspired other little changes. Waking up a little earlier, going to bed a little earlier, reading the news more, reading books more, listening to podcasts, making more time to see my friends — it might sound ridiculous when I detail it this way, but little changes add up.
I’ve always found that one little successful change in my life inspires me to make other little changes. Over time, these small changes become behavioral switches, and, at some point, lifestyle changes.
Deleting Instagram and realizing that the pros outweighed any imagined cons by extravagant measures led me to try other things I’d always said I wanted to do or make other changes I’ve always wanted to — and it’s gone great.
I stopped comparing myself to people’s digital lives
No one is posting their worst selves on Instagram. We all know this, but it’s all too easy to get caught up in the social media spell and compare ourselves to everything we see. Seeing how everyone looks, who they’re hanging out with, what they’re doing — we know it’s not all real, but it feels so real.
I truly began to forget all of that when I put some space between myself and the digital world. It’s so easy to build up ideas of how glamorous other people’s lives are when you’re just looking at their Instagram, but it’s not real. It’s not that I didn’t know this before, but when you’re scrolling and see the most perfect aspects of everyone’s lives, it can be easy to forget how much work people tend to put into putting their best selves out there.
We all post what we want people to see, nothing else. Deleting Instagram grounded me and reminded me of this so strongly that now on the occasions that I log in, I don’t fall into the trap I used to so easily.
If you choose to delete Instagram, you might have different results than I did. You might decide that deleting it isn’t worth it for you, and that’s fine. You might decide that deleting your profile and completely getting rid of it is what’s best for you, and that’s fine too. But if you’re unhappy with your current social media usage, maybe just try taking a break for a month. You can gain a lot of clarity in one month, and who knows? You might just realize that changing one habit changes your life for the better, even if it’s in a small way. It all counts.