Life sans Instagram.

My thoughts after trying the new 'offline' trend.

Just like the Italians vacate the cities for the month of August, I decided to vacate my social media accounts for the second act of summer. My screen-time average went down from 3 hours 36 minutes per day in July (with 71 pickups 🙈) to 1 hour 29 minutes per day in August (with 35 pickups). It comes as no surprise that spending less time on my phone resulted in less anxiety and more creativity. There’s a lot to say about how I felt last month. There were times of loneliness and confusion, several personal realizations, and an overall sense of relief. Instagram and I have been together for over a decade and it was about time we had a serious chat. Sometimes you need to take a break from a relationship to see that your needs aren’t being met.

Let’s start by setting the stage. My most used social media app is Instagram, so that got deleted. I’m not a Facebook/Twitter user or YouTube watcher and I’ve never created a TikTok account - so nothing needed to be deleted on those fronts. Pinterest got the boot (just for good measure). We don’t have a TV, and we only activate our Netflix account for the winter months, so there was no binge watching happening. I did go to the movie theatre to watch Barbie though - twice (debating a third).

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t off-grid or anything.

I still used my phone everyday for: texting, reading emails (mostly Substacks), playing the daily games on The New York Times app, listening to podcasts, taking pictures, and letting Google Maps direct me.

I also work on a computer Monday thru Thursday and although I’m not browsing the internet, I’m still clocking my fair share of screen time.

Juicy summer cherries + the New York Times.

Alright, back to the first of August. It’s crazy how addicted I was. For the first day or two without Instagram, my fingers would muscle memory their way to where the app used to be and open the app currently in Instagram’s place. By the time my brain caught up (confused about why I was looking at Uber when I wasn’t planning on going anywhere), I realized I had done it all subconsciously - a little disturbing.

There were also the moments I found myself in picturesque settings and felt they were being wasted because I wasn’t capturing them to share online. ‘Such good content’ I would think to myself, as if the pleasurable moments in life are simply here for us to create content out of. I looked around at the people I was with - people I love and adore, people I look up to. None of them were having the same thoughts as me, because none of them actively share their lives on social media. They were investing their time in the moment, and I was off thinking about how I could re-create the moment later to get some dopamine hits online. I felt so lame. We all know the only thing wasted about those picturesque settings was the fact that I was spending any time at all thinking about something else.

To be fair, I would like to note that taking pictures and capturing beauty is something I have always enjoyed doing. I won’t be extreme and choose to never document parts of my life just to prove a point. Instead, I started asking myself when I wanted to whip out my phone: are you taking this picture to gain status/credit online - or are you taking it to capture the beauty for yourself? I took less photos in August for sure, but the photos I did take held more meaning.

Sunset at Gonzales beach.

After two weeks sans the scroll, I started to find my groove. I was living this mysterious life where nobody knew how I was choosing to spend my days - unless of course we talked about it in person. It felt so freeing, almost like travelling. You know that feeling you get when you walk down the street in another country and think to yourself, ‘nobody knows who I am right now, I could be anyone!’ - it was like that.

When I met up with friends, I was so genuinely curious about what they had been up to - I was much more attentive to the details of their stories and it felt good to listen. However, there were also settings where I found myself more anxious. I was no longer able to rely on the recently posted events of my instagram acquaintances to create small talk. The classic ‘deer in the headlights’ reaction happened a few times.

There were also days when I felt a little lonely, like I was missing out on stories everyone must be talking about and laughing at the hilarious memes people come up with. It felt like I was removed from the global group text or something. But then I thought… when was the last time I spent an hour (or more) scrolling on social media and afterwards said to myself: “that was really enjoyable, I’m so glad I did that”. The answer is never. It’s not an exercise class that you drag yourself into and then happily leave 60 minutes later patting yourself on the back. The doom scroll typically ends with some form of guilt, void, exhaustion, greed, judgement, insecurity, or sadness. Not to mention, people are now talking about scroll-apnea (the phenomenon of holding your breathe while scrolling)… great.

Afternoon naps with Neumann.

Let’s talk about the dark side of social media for a moment, specifically about comparison. As I talked through this with Scott one night, we came up with something I’ll call the collective comparison that happens on social media (and Instagram especially). Using myself for the example: as I scroll and consume the content from this app, I start to compare myself to the varying successes of Instagram users rather than any specific individual. I follow people who are really into cooking (the chefs), really into pilates (the athletic types), have successful businesses (the career-ers), have big families with gorgeous homes (the momfluencers), you get the idea. My eyes can easily differentiate between these accounts, but my brain consumes the collective information and starts to merge the individual successes from each of these accounts into one superhuman who somehow has it all. As if comparing myself to one person isn’t daunting and stressful enough, the athletic chef CEO mother who travels often and is stunningly beautiful with five children, a huge home, and 1000 supportive friends is simply impossible. I’m toast.

I considered never returning again.

But before you think I’ve gone to the extreme, hear me out. I’m not here to tell you to start living offline and I won’t judge your screen time stats or how much scrolling you do. The whole purpose of this experiment was to find what works just right for me and my anxious brain. Social media isn’t one size fits all. There are wonderful benefits to these platforms, people build whole careers and empires off them, it’s incredible! I’m just trying to figure out what my perfect goldilocks Instagram experience looks like.

These don't actually have a nice scent, but it felt like a good pose for the photo.

The original plan was to be off social media (in my case, Instagram) for the entire month of August. Dust off the old digital shelves on September first and return to ‘the gram’ the same way I used to return to classes in September - a little nervous and sad that summer was ending, but also excited to catch up with the other kids and hear what they have been up to. As I went to download the app this morning, my shoulders got a little closer to my ears and my gut said ‘not just yet’.

I don’t want to fall back into the same patterns. I need a plan before I enter this crazy arena again.

Ideally, for me that is, Instagram would be the coffee shop I go to a few times a week for a quick hello and a jolt of energy. A place to hear the talk of the town, but not a place to linger. I wouldn’t start my day there, and I wouldn’t spend my sweet evenings there either.

A summer memory from Crema - a place that felt like stepping back in time (before we all had instagram).

I mean, that’s the ideal. Translating that into reality is where things get tricky. Social media often feels like an ‘all-or-nothing’ type of commitment and honestly, I don’t know if my return plan will work. I’m currently debating a trade - Substack for Instagram. It’s the place I’ve been hanging out digitally lately, there aren’t any advertisements and I’m always learning something new to bring up in conversation. It’s pretty awesome.

Maybe my goldilocks instagram experience is not being on instagram at all? Maybe this long-term relationship is finally coming to an end?

🙊

Well there you have it, my time off social media was just as you would imagine. It felt like a vacation from work - refreshing, freeing, and one less responsibility to keep track of. A whole month without curating my day-to-day activities around horizontal images and videos that disappear 24 hours later gave me the space to make better decisions for myself. I can’t believe I’ve been posting snippets of my life on this app for 11 years! Part of me is surprised we’re still using Instagram, but also, this is not the same app we signed up for back then. So much has changed. Social media is constantly evolving and growing into something new and I’ve seen more and more people transition into an ‘offline’ approach these days. Influencers leaving their followings for a new lifestyle, what do you think? Is social media going out of style or is this just another chapter in its evolution? More importantly, how is it making you feel lately?

Let me know in the comments - there are no judgments here, just pure curiosity. Thank you so much for reading, I’m very grateful. And please remember to breathe, I can’t be held responsible for scroll apnea.

*Six month update: I am still off Instagram and social media (other than substack) and it’s glorious. Best decision I made for myself in 2023.