How deleting an app has made me a happier person
I’ve had Instagram since I was in third grade, back when my username was @gurlygeek123. It started out as an innocent way for me to post pictures of me and my friends and share videos of me doing a flip on my trampoline. It stayed this way for a long time. But at some unidentifiable point, Instagram turned into a way for me to compare every aspect of my life and identity to others. It became a way for me to prove something to those who followed me. It became a source of unhappiness in my life. So, this past July, I deleted it.
I am guilty of rotting on my couch and mindlessly scrolling. This would usually lead me to rabbit-holing down someone’s page and staring at their posts for way too long. I found that, no matter how happy I was, looking at someone else’s glamorous life made me feel terrible about my not-so-glamorous life. I would find myself looking at all the amazing things people were getting to do and the experiences they were having, and feeling so indescribably jealous of them. Even if I was in a joyful phase of my life, seeing someone else have things that I wanted made me feel terrible. This feeling would gnaw at me. You should be doing more! You should be traveling! Why aren’t you going out more! Make more friends! After a while, that nagging of my own voice would become really, really annoying.
My inner voice is notorious for letting me know what I’m lacking, and Instagram was feeding it content on the daily. The images of women who I deemed more-beautiful-than-I flooded my feed, which in return flooded my inner voice with ammo to attack my self-image. Things that I didn’t like about myself felt highlighted, things I didn’t know I should be insecure about were brought to my attention, and the way I felt about myself continued to get worse. It was at a point where I could take any post and find things about them to make me dislike myself.
Admitting that a social media platform had this much impact on me is slightly embarrassing. The rational part of my brain knows that media is a highlight reel and comparing myself to someone’s Instagram is ridiculous; however, the rational part of my brain rarely wins when in competition with the irrational, dramatic part of my brain. I have a really loud internal monologue, and it became clear to me that it was really important to make my monologue something I wanted to hear (AKA: not the thoughts Instagram was making me think!)
I had previously thought about deleting Instagram multiple times, but I always convinced myself out of it. I told myself I’d put time limits on, move it off my home screen, but nothing actually stopped me from rabbit-holing. I also had a weird, incessant need to prove something to the people following me. In a way, I wanted people to see my Instagram and think that I was having the time of my life (even if it wasn’t true). It was so ridiculous. Why did I want people to think that? What does that say about me? How is this mindset bettering my life? What am I trying to prove?
Come July, I had really had enough, and I spontaneously decided to delete the app. At first, I thought it was going to be hard. And while I had an itch for the first couple days, I found that it really wasn’t hard. I was rarely thinking about it. I very quickly forgot that I had deleted it.
I’ve now had it deleted for almost 3 months, and I have no intention of re-downloading any time soon. I realized it just wasn’t serving me anymore, it was only hurting me. It was making me think I was less than, but it was a lie, I was just obsessed with consuming other people’s lives. But now that I am less attached to social media, I am able to live my own life, rather than consuming someone else’s. While I do feel slightly out of the loop, I’ve started calling my long-distance friends more to get a recap of their weekends, sending dumps every week, and reading the actual news to get information about the world! In a nutshell: Instagram made me feel like crap. So I deleted it. Now I don’t feel like crap. It’s a win for me!
I know that I can re-download it whenever I want, and maybe someday I will. But for now, I’m going to live my own life, being me, without the pressure to do it like someone else. Oh, and my internal monologue has been a lot kinder these days. So, if you’ve been thinking about how social media makes you feel badly, or just need a phone detox, here’s your sign: you are not the negative thoughts you have about yourself! You are more than what the media makes you feel! Remove the things that make you feel bad! Live your life!