Oh Instagram, how I dislike you..

Last summer, I deleted Instagram from my phone for the summer. I felt a sense of real trepidation as my finger hovered over the delete button. There was a part of my brain that also recognised how ridiculous that was. I wasn’t about to send my worldly savings to another account, or perform a life-saving operation. But something in my wiring had been adapted to see deleting this pink and shiny square from my phone as a REALLY BIG DEAL.

Needless to say, I survived that summer. Initially, it felt weird and there was that feeling of something missing. A feeling of loneliness. The feeling of boredom. An emptiness that I wanted to fill easily and frequently. I missed seeing a few of my friend’s updates, but then I remembered that, I genuinely only ever saw a few of my friends’ updates anyway. The rest was algorithm algorithm algorithm. But of course, that logical remembering mind wasn’t the part of me that wanted it anyway.

I watched as that hunger redirected itself. I wanted food, caffeine, to spend money. Gimme gimme gimme! It’s only on reflection now that I could see that for what it was. Withdrawal! But it gradually eased off and I felt more at home in myself again. I took beautiful photos that I knew I wasn’t going to share, and made them beautiful anyway. I found it easier to leave my phone behind and go on walks, even letting go of the need to know my step count, or voice note someone (my Achilles heel). It got easier.

When September rolled around, and it was time to come back into the world with the ‘back to school’ energy flowing, I re-installed the app.

Like any break or change, the shift in perspective that it created was good. I could see, really clearly, how little there was on my feed that I actually wanted to see - in fact, how little I had invited into my feed at all. Out of twelve posts that I looked at, only three of them were from accounts that I actually followed. The others were sponsored or account suggestions.

So this year, I did the same. Exactly the same feelings, exactly the same boredom, the itchy need to consume something. Hard to resist. And then greater ease.

As I download the app again, a tool to help me to share my upcoming group work, I feel the trepidation again. Because I know what I’m getting myself into. Like most people, I can’t ‘use responsibly’. It’s a great place to go for distraction, for numbing, for escape. Some people say they use it for inspiration. I’ve never managed that.

But I feel that each time I consciously step away, I learn something. Each time, I take a break and witness my discomfort, and sit with it, I am somehow building something within myself.