In modern times, we live with the burden of a third dimension. There is real life – what happens in person, face-to-face – then, there is what happens on social media, which is not real life. It is in this third dimension that our self-esteem rises and falls like the tide. We put our value outside ourselves and into likes, comments and follows.
Yet, there are people you love who forget to ‘like’ your pictures.
A person’s worth cannot be quantified by a number of followers.
You can’t hear someone’s laugh or admire the way their eyes crinkle only at the corners, inevitably leaving wrinkles that will need to be photoshopped away later.
Instagram is not a tool for connection. It seldom brings people closer. It’s alienating. It’s taken personally. It’s hurtful.
As if they’re going to write the number of Instagram followers you had on your grave.
Social media is not living. It is pretending to live. On social media, you experience nothing. You waste the time you were supposed to be living. You pretend to find human connection.
The longer you stay off of it, the better you feel.
I hope you would trade all your likes, comments and followers for more moments where you feel really connected. Moments that go un-photographed, un-posted, unknown to the third social media dimension.
You wonder why you evaluate your life so harshly by the ability of people whom you don’t even know to ‘double-tap’ your picture.
More likes wouldn’t make you happier.
More followers wouldn’t make you happier.
More comments wouldn’t make you happier.
On your death bed, you won’t be yearning for more followers, you will yearn for all the screen time you gave to your phone. The valuable time that you wasted, competing in an unwinnable game. You will yearn for all the missed connections, more genuine than a ‘follow back’. You won’t remember how many likes your photo got, but how many people made you feel valid. You will remember the time someone said something profound. You will remember when you felt immensely loved
So, you ask yourself, should you delete Instagram?