What I Learned After Taking a Break from Instagram
About a month ago, I decided to take a break from Instagram. I had no plan for how long I would stay off the app, because I wanted to just notice how I felt without it and see what I needed. If I felt super ragey and unable to stay off it, that might tell me I needed to take longer to try and interrupt the habit.
I didn't fully delete the app from my phone, because I do not know my password and I did not want to go through getting shut out, then having to create a new password that I would eventually forget too, and so on and so forth for all eternity.
Instead, I dragged and dropped Instagram to a brand new screen all by itself at the very back of the line. I effectively put it in timeout.
In place of its previous location in the top left corner of my home screen, I moved “My Feelings” app to it’s vacant space. If you are not in therapy or court-mandated anger management, you probably do not have this app. I downloaded it at the suggestion of my therapist because when she asked me how I was feeling at the beginning and end of each session, I would often be at a loss for any remotely adequate vocabulary (Fine? Tired? Okay-ish?). It turns out, I have very much not been in touch with my emotions and in order to heal, I gotta feel.
The plan to disrupt my Instagram habit was that whenever I instinctively went to it’s former location for a hit, I would see “My Feelings” app, and I would get a chance to think about how I was feeling and why I was reaching for this unconscious vice in the first place.
My first day abstaining from the ‘gram, I opened My Feelings app and clicked the light red “annoyed” emotion bubble followed by the light blue “meh” emotion bubble pretty much exclusively on rotation. It is annoying after all, to reach for french fries on your plate only to get a handful of wet steamed broccoli.
Damn feelings, I wanted to drool over a scroll that included professional photos of salads with a topping in every color. UGH what I would do to see the perfect non-wilted greens topped with quinoa and julienned carrots and radishes that looked just asymmetrical enough to believe that this salad was simply “tossed” by a casual business princess and not a professional chef and also maybe watch a reel of a dog wearing horn-rimmed glasses and typing furiously to a human voiceover about how “Janice” feels about “reply-all.”
I like what I like.
What also helped deter me, in addition to my banishment of Instagram to a far away screen and replacing it with therapy homework, was that silly little green dot next to your profile picture that tells your friends when you are “online.” I had just written a post in which I declared I would not be using Instagram, and the social pressure of wanting to not get caught failing by my friends or followers was another healthy motivator.
After the second day, my instinctive reach for the click dissipated. I was surprised, because I thought very much that I was addicted to the scroll. But it turns out, I wasn’t.
When I got home from work those first few days, instead of scrolling Instagram on the couch for 45 minutes, I opened my library’s cloud app on my phone and read a chapter in my current book. I would sometimes read until dinner time and other times I would fall asleep on the couch for an hour and wake up feeling refreshed.
I noticed something else that was equal parts frightening and surprising, I wasn’t as tired during the day.
I wasn’t someone who had used Instagram as a “before or after school activity.” I had used Instagram for short bursts in every unfilled sliver of time that appeared throughout my day. If I finished answering all the important emails in my inbox, I would open the app and scroll for a minute or two. If I was waiting for a staff bathroom to open up, I would scroll for the minute and a half while standing in the hall, waiting. If I made a phone call and was waiting for the person to pick up, I would scroll for 15 seconds. It was short, but constant bursts of time that effectively ensured my brain never rested for a single second while I was awake and not actively engaged in something else.
I had no idea the mental drain this had on me until I decided to take a break. I began to realize that I could get more writing done, but not because I had more available time from not scrolling, it was because I had more mental energy.
It may sound silly, but I truly had not considered the toll it took on my brain to read and consider every headline, every image, every caption and photo with however many likes. My brain was constantly taking information and trying to make sense of it, even if I felt like it was a “mindless” activity.
After about a week, once I had broken the habit, I did start to open the app for a minute or two once or twice a day. I was still curious to see what my friends were up to or if anyone had tried to connect with me while I was out churning butter in a field, singing the songs of my ancestors.
It felt like cheating on my proclamation to stay away, but it also felt good because after I checked in, I didn’t want to keep scrolling for no reason. I didn’t want to try and find the end of the feed that doesn’t exist. I didn’t care if I hopped off and missed seventeen very endearing videos of puppies learning to recognize a glass door, the hard way.
I had felt what it was like to have more space, do more things I actually liked that actually liked and fed me back, and I didn’t want to give that up again.
In my month off of Instagram, I read three books. I baked banana chocolate chip muffins and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I made pizza dough from scratch. I finished a baby blanket I’ve been making for a friend. I called my mom and actually listened without distraction. I listened to more podcasts than I can count - about history and writing and funny interview shows. I cleaned out the guest room closet and made donations of things I no longer need. I attended four writing group sessions and wrote more things, and more things I actually liked, than I have in quite some time.
I had more capacity, and I used it.
I reconsidered whether or not I want to be on Instagram at all, or any social media for that matter. I weighed the pros and cons, and now that I understand my relationship to it better and what I miss in my life when it takes over, I feel comfortable inviting it back with a newfound perspective.
I have connected with some truly incredible people through this dopamine-fueled app. I have learned of books that I’ve loved and have found other writers who inspire me. I have followed artists and entrepreneurs and comedians and activists who help expand my understanding of who I share the world with, in the best of ways.
I love writing, I love sharing, I love reading the works of others and finding new friends and mentors that I otherwise would never have exposure to. I don’t want to spend every free second on this app like I’d done before, but I don’t need to banish it - and all the connections that come with it - from my life forever.
So, you’ll see my green dot again here and there. Maybe you’ll see it like I do, lit with intention instead of zombie-scrolling. At least, for now.
Yours, probably baking,
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia
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