By the end of last year, I felt strung out by Instagram. Maybe you’ve felt it too. You sit down to read a book and before you’ve gotten through a few pages, you feel the irrepressible urge to check if anyone else liked the Reel you posted last night. Or you pick up your phone to answer a text and realize a half an hour later that you fell into an Instagram rabbit hole about some celebrity drama you don’t actually care about.
We know that Instagram and adjacent apps like TikTok are designed to be addictive, that the dopamine hits they inconsistently dole out are balm for our insecure, uncertain hearts. But I still feel ashamed and gross when I emerge from a too-long swim in their shallow waters. Time is the resource I value the most. Why do I give it away so easily?
I’m definitely not the first to say it, but Instagram feels especially icky these days. Instead of seeing posts from my friends or sharing my art and knowing it will actually reach my followers, I am mostly being served memes and ads recommended by the algorithm. So, probably, are you.
Yes, I laugh at the relatable memes and send them to my friends.
Yes, I hesitate for half a second on an ad for leggings that promise to make my butt look amazing (“for half the price of Lululemon!”) and then that half a second of hesitation leads to the algorithm pushing those leggings on me over and over until yes, dear reader, I buy a pair. (And yes, they do look good, but I really, REALLY don’t need another pair of leggings.) I am a fairly frugal, usually disciplined person who likes to think they don’t “fall for” targeted advertising, but I have tripped and fallen a time or two while mired in this current Instagram iteration.
I am particularly vulnerable during late-night dissociation scrolls, which have become all too familiar. All I want is to get ready for bed and go to sleep, but doing so feels insurmountable, so instead I sink into a sort of fugue state, sometimes for hours, scrolling past astrology memes, celebrity gossip, graphic images of war, and ads for Kelly Clarkson’s scammy weight loss gummies, not really seeing any of it.
So on a whim at the end of December, I deleted the Instagram app off my phone.
I knew my hiatus would need to be limited. I use Instagram for my art business (sharing upcoming events, classes, and new work) and my vintage business (announcing in-person pop-ups or cool vintage pieces I have for sale). But right after the holidays, when I am exhausted from reminding people about the weavings in my shop and sales are slow anyway, it seemed like the right time for a break.
I told my followers I was leaving and with a little push from my thumb, the app was gone. I’d like to offer up some of my reflections from this month with no Instagram, and how it will hopefully inform how I approach using the app going forward.
I got some of my brain back. What I mean is, instead of going through my day seeing the world as possible Instagram stories or reels, I began to look at my world with writer brain and human brain again. I would experience something and think, could I write about this in What is Woven In? Instead of, Could I put this on my Instagram stories?
I took photos of my day to day life and instead of posting them to stories as I would have before, I sent them directly to friends or family. I get a lot of joy out of this. Sending and receiving silly pictures from a normal day-in-the-life is one of my love languages.
Instead of interrupting my weaving to take process videos for Instagram Reels, I just worked. I noticed a significant shift in my ability to focus on the work itself when I was freed from constantly wondering how to make “content” out of it. (I am not shaming myself or anyone else for being in the “content” mindset—it’s how we’re told we can make a living doing what we love.)
Still, I did pick up my phone all the time out of habit. I found myself opening the news app, the weather app, my Gmail app, and my photos app a lot. I expected this to fade away as the days went on, but it really didn’t. I will say my Gmail inbox is a fun place to be these days, having become more active in writing communities here on
and subscribing to a lot of interesting new publications. So while the compulsion to look at one app did fade as time went on, the compulsion to pick up my phone remained.I did miss out on things. Most of my close friends knew I was going to be off Instagram for the month, but I still missed their posts about travel, updates on their art or businesses, and just general little moments from their everyday lives.
It made me aware of how much I depend on social media to make me feel close to people by viewing what they share publicly on Stories and Posts. Without Instagram, I need to actively reach out to ask “How are you?” or “What are you up to today?” It’s a reminder that actually being close to people requires the effort of reaching out and engaging, versus passively consuming what they post about their lives and assuming I know what’s going on with them.
In addition to using social media to keep up with friends, it is also where I got a lot of my news about current events and opportunities for activism. Without it, I have to work a lot harder to stay informed.
Ultimately, though, I think this is a positive thing, as long as I actually do work hard to stay informed.
wrote recently about shaky and dissolving “boundary between the horrific and the benign,” the surreal daily juxtaposition of videos of extreme violence alongside funny cat videos and ads for eye de-puffing cream. (Seriously though, how do they know I just recently became insecure about the bags under my eyes!?) This has become a part of all of our daily experience on social media, and deserves being questioned and prodded at on an ongoing basis.What is the why? As an artist who has built my entire business using Instagram, taking a break feels like a risk. If I don’t constantly remind people who I am and what I make and what I am selling on the app that we all spend tons of time on, can I still make a living?
I don’t know. I do know that Instagram treats artists differently now. Posting about my work doesn’t at all mean my followers will see it—I’m lucky if a few of them do. My own feed tells the tale: I follow plenty of artists but see mostly recommended meme accounts and ads when I scroll.
As
wrote in their “I Quit Instagram” essay:Artists make technology and digital spaces special places to be, and then those places turn against us. Or they weren’t designed for us in the first place. They are designed to keep us there for as long as possible. That is the whole point. To be an artist, a writer, an herbalist, a creative and thoughtful person - we are risking so much at the hands of the apps that keep us sucked in.
The question is, then, can Instagram be used well and mindfully in a way that I can share beauty generously with my followers (the creator role) without getting sucked in to the easy, sweet nothingness of the scroll (the consumer role). I don’t know the answer yet, it but it very well might be no.
I don’t want to come back yet, so I’m deleting Instagram for February too. February 1st came and went this week, I dragged my feet on downloading the app again. I did add it back yesterday, and felt an immediate wisp of anxiety in my chest when I thought about making my presence known with a story repost or a selfie saying hello I am here again. When I experienced this physical reaction to something that should theoretically be a benign tool—but definitely is not—I knew I am not ready to return.
So, because my schedule allows it, I deleted Instagram again for February too. And while I sit in the discomfort of eventually needing to use it again to run my businesses, I am in the position to give myself a little more time to turn inward to examine the why of my presence on Instagram, and maybe more importantly, the how to best support that why.
Have you noticed your Instagram experience changing in recent months/years?
Have you ever taken (or wanted to take) a hiatus? If so, what was your experience?
Reading and Resources
“I Quit Instagram” Screens and Minds #2The Off the Grid podcast, about marketing without social media.
“Everyone’s a Sellout Now” by Rebecca Jennings on Vox
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Its such a hard balance, and I feel all that you are saying as well. Thanks for being an example and taking the lead so that I could also follow that this month. It's relieving mainly!
It’s a conundrum for visual artists like us for sure!