I deactivated my personal Facebook and Instagram accounts yesterday! (Spurned on by Tsh's post) I said I would deactivate for the summer and if I'm still as convicted then do the full delete. It just feels like time. I appreciate that you named the good things these apps have provided, or tried to provide. Instead of beating ourselves up for 'wasting time' I think it's valuable to see the very honest desire for connection that drove our use of social media most of the time. Still, I'm glad to be turning a new page for this chapter of my life. A more present one, a quieter one, a deeper one. At least that is my hope.
I woke this morning realizing I had nothing to 'check' on social media and I did feel a bit twitchy. I'm anticipating a bit of a detox response.
PLEASE do share the 'mundane' of life! I'm kind of hoping eventually we'll all end up on Substack mommy blog style. Somehow that forum (old school blogs) seemed to invite authenticity in a way the algorithm driven shiny #hashtagged social media world never could.
My 2 year old has also become very attached to the most random objects. Once she wanted to go to sleep clutching various spices from the kitchen after 'helping mama cook.' what a fun, delightfully bizarre, imaginative time in life.
Uggg...the old INSTAGRAM dilemma! I am teetering on dropping it all together. So much time wasted and then I don’t even remember what i looked at. Substack writers stay with me...i think of the thought provoking writings throughout the week & I believe whole heartedly that it is much kinder to my 55 year old brain! I am very new to substack and so enjoy sharing my love of process art projects...it’s just as fun writing & pulling together my thoughts as it is reading others writings~it’s a win/win, not a competition, i don’t feel the comparison. I pray that we all see a shift in connection on the internet & i hope for our children that it looks very different a few years down the road. Wish me luck as i slowly get more comfortable in dropping other social medias!!! Xoxo
I use the "Family Album" app to catalog and date all my photos of my kids! I've been doing that for 3 years, and all grandparents can be invited (if desired) to the app to see the photos you upload. There is no specific place for a caption, but you could leave a caption as a comment under the photo.
My counselor one time said, “and you’re *such* an external processor” in a session and I thought, “I am?” Uh yes. For better or for worse I do not know what I think until I say or write it...
Welcome to the quieter side, Annelise! There will be a period of reaching for your phone when you observe something worth posting, but I urge you to stop for a beat and ask yourself "why do I want to post this anyway?" The answer for me was usually that I had a clever caption in mind that I knew would get a laugh or I had the perfect song in mind to accompany the photo that would make me look clever or it was a genuinely beautiful moment that would get a "😍" response from a high school friend. Either way, for me it mostly about the reaction from others. Now when I take pictures, they are just for me (or grandparents), and so I take fewer, but the ones I do take are always worth it. You'll find that you can still scroll IG in your browser so long as the account is public, but you'll get locked out after a handful of clicks. That's fine. You got your update and can now move on. I briefly got my scrolling hit from YouTube and Reddit - I do NOT recommend it. Anyway, I think you'll like life without Instagram. And if you don't, you can always start a new account and nobody will think less of you for it ♡
P.S next time you're on Facebook, say hi to my great aunt Carol. She'll send you a really beautiful sparkly gif of a tattooed angel on a Harley or something 😘
I’d like to say I’ll be fine but I know the twitchiness will set it. I will say that having taken two significant chunks of time completely off in the last year, I know for a fact that everything works better without the constant background noise. I’ve already caught myself thinking up captions or stories today... and I’ll have to wait for my next newsletter to see if anything is still worth saying. I think the waiting period lends itself to more fully formed thoughts vs. reactions though.
I'm a new subscriber and I was so glad to get this email in my inbox today! I deleted IG permanently as well just a few months ago. I'd tried taking lengthy breaks before (even breaking for almost a year), but every time I got back on social media, the same problems were present for me (and all the same ones you mentioned -- and my husband was dismayed, often, at the willful torture to which I was subjecting myself). I don't know if I'm just actively looking for voices that are on this same journey or if more and more of us are feeling this way -- like social media is simply no longer fulfilling and is actively damaging. I hope you keep writing about it because there aren't enough people talking about this (I've written one post on the topic, but I've realized I need to write more). Have you discovered the Writing Off Social podcast and newsletter yet? The newsletter has been such an encouragement to me and I'm looking forward to checking out the podcast soon. (I'm an audiobook junkie, so I'm often in the middle of so many audiobooks that I neglect podcasts.) Thanks for writing on this topic.
Our husbands could compare notes 😂 Also, I have to be honest in saying that my family suffered because of said “willful torture”. I said something to my 8 year old about getting off so I spent less time on my phone and he said, “oh! Maybe you’ll be less crabby” 🙈
I deactivated my personal Facebook and Instagram accounts yesterday! (Spurned on by Tsh's post) I said I would deactivate for the summer and if I'm still as convicted then do the full delete. It just feels like time. I appreciate that you named the good things these apps have provided, or tried to provide. Instead of beating ourselves up for 'wasting time' I think it's valuable to see the very honest desire for connection that drove our use of social media most of the time. Still, I'm glad to be turning a new page for this chapter of my life. A more present one, a quieter one, a deeper one. At least that is my hope.
I woke this morning realizing I had nothing to 'check' on social media and I did feel a bit twitchy. I'm anticipating a bit of a detox response.
PLEASE do share the 'mundane' of life! I'm kind of hoping eventually we'll all end up on Substack mommy blog style. Somehow that forum (old school blogs) seemed to invite authenticity in a way the algorithm driven shiny #hashtagged social media world never could.
My 2 year old has also become very attached to the most random objects. Once she wanted to go to sleep clutching various spices from the kitchen after 'helping mama cook.' what a fun, delightfully bizarre, imaginative time in life.
Two year olds are a whole thing for SURE. Sometimes adorable, sometimes infuriating, always interesting.
Inspiring!! Good for you & praying that I can do the same very soon! It’s a process!!!
I also left Instagram and I don't miss it one bit. ✌🏻
https://open.substack.com/pub/theevergreen/p/15-reasons-why-i-quit-instagram?r=1ez0ld&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I definitely nodded my head to all your reasons! And no one who’s quit has said they regret it so far…
Dude I’m so inspired by this. And Tsh’s article was really good too. Instagram truly is toxic so thanks for sharing the stand you are taking with it 💛
Thank you!
Uggg...the old INSTAGRAM dilemma! I am teetering on dropping it all together. So much time wasted and then I don’t even remember what i looked at. Substack writers stay with me...i think of the thought provoking writings throughout the week & I believe whole heartedly that it is much kinder to my 55 year old brain! I am very new to substack and so enjoy sharing my love of process art projects...it’s just as fun writing & pulling together my thoughts as it is reading others writings~it’s a win/win, not a competition, i don’t feel the comparison. I pray that we all see a shift in connection on the internet & i hope for our children that it looks very different a few years down the road. Wish me luck as i slowly get more comfortable in dropping other social medias!!! Xoxo
Cheering you on! I’m not anti-social media, but it’s definitely a sticky wicket trying to figure it out. You might enjoy my post from today :)
I use the "Family Album" app to catalog and date all my photos of my kids! I've been doing that for 3 years, and all grandparents can be invited (if desired) to the app to see the photos you upload. There is no specific place for a caption, but you could leave a caption as a comment under the photo.
Thank you! I’ll have to look into that one.
I get this! I’m “forever an external processor too,” thank you for giving voice to that!!
My counselor one time said, “and you’re *such* an external processor” in a session and I thought, “I am?” Uh yes. For better or for worse I do not know what I think until I say or write it...
Welcome to the quieter side, Annelise! There will be a period of reaching for your phone when you observe something worth posting, but I urge you to stop for a beat and ask yourself "why do I want to post this anyway?" The answer for me was usually that I had a clever caption in mind that I knew would get a laugh or I had the perfect song in mind to accompany the photo that would make me look clever or it was a genuinely beautiful moment that would get a "😍" response from a high school friend. Either way, for me it mostly about the reaction from others. Now when I take pictures, they are just for me (or grandparents), and so I take fewer, but the ones I do take are always worth it. You'll find that you can still scroll IG in your browser so long as the account is public, but you'll get locked out after a handful of clicks. That's fine. You got your update and can now move on. I briefly got my scrolling hit from YouTube and Reddit - I do NOT recommend it. Anyway, I think you'll like life without Instagram. And if you don't, you can always start a new account and nobody will think less of you for it ♡
P.S next time you're on Facebook, say hi to my great aunt Carol. She'll send you a really beautiful sparkly gif of a tattooed angel on a Harley or something 😘
I’d like to say I’ll be fine but I know the twitchiness will set it. I will say that having taken two significant chunks of time completely off in the last year, I know for a fact that everything works better without the constant background noise. I’ve already caught myself thinking up captions or stories today... and I’ll have to wait for my next newsletter to see if anything is still worth saying. I think the waiting period lends itself to more fully formed thoughts vs. reactions though.
I'm a new subscriber and I was so glad to get this email in my inbox today! I deleted IG permanently as well just a few months ago. I'd tried taking lengthy breaks before (even breaking for almost a year), but every time I got back on social media, the same problems were present for me (and all the same ones you mentioned -- and my husband was dismayed, often, at the willful torture to which I was subjecting myself). I don't know if I'm just actively looking for voices that are on this same journey or if more and more of us are feeling this way -- like social media is simply no longer fulfilling and is actively damaging. I hope you keep writing about it because there aren't enough people talking about this (I've written one post on the topic, but I've realized I need to write more). Have you discovered the Writing Off Social podcast and newsletter yet? The newsletter has been such an encouragement to me and I'm looking forward to checking out the podcast soon. (I'm an audiobook junkie, so I'm often in the middle of so many audiobooks that I neglect podcasts.) Thanks for writing on this topic.
Our husbands could compare notes 😂 Also, I have to be honest in saying that my family suffered because of said “willful torture”. I said something to my 8 year old about getting off so I spent less time on my phone and he said, “oh! Maybe you’ll be less crabby” 🙈