The way I laughed at this: “it’s such a flex to have an IG account with just a handful of photographs. Add in zero stories? I’m wet. A minimalist grid that looks current AND quiet is god-tier levels of cool.”
"Occasionally, I’ll even feel guilty for sharing these partial truths on Instagram, although I suspect that’s what we’re all doing, all the time..." - I found this a particularly interesting thought. It sparked something in me I first considered many years ago, and have found to still be true. When something real, unvarnished, and distinctly negative appears in stories or on the timeline, it can sometimes feel like one has flipped over a stone and found something unpleasant beneath it. Distinct from "sad stories with a ray of light" at the end, or performative martydom, I find these rare moments of raw honesty can be a huge turn off for some people. In fact, I'm guilty of thinking that from one person they're "invasive to the sanitised feed", vs being an opportunity to reach out to another person who may be suffering. Does that make sense? Maybe it's just me.
Forever trying to balance being a real human bean and using my Instagram as a CV of sorts for my DJ career. I recently made the decision to forego growth (which in some ways, would have required me to become a full time content creator if I wanted to get booked) and just stick with what I know + love.
I love your prediction for 2026. I hope it's true. I've been off IG thanks to @nicantoinette for two years now (never on TikTok or FB). I let go of my website last year. All I have in the online sphere is my Substack and I'm loving how it feels. "If you want me, come find me," kinda vibe. Hah! Love it.
“For now, I long to be less legible. To live in a world that’s less ableist and easier to navigate, and I don’t have to rely heavily on social media for connection. To be messier, less annoyed by other people’s poor reading comprehension.”
Legibility is the perfect word here! Leaving social media made me illegible to anyone I didn’t choose to be read by. My connections have deepened with those I care about and I do not think on folks I have no need of knowing. I do feel slightly disconnected at times but this then feels like a nudge to reach out to people I miss, to cultivate meaningful connection that goes further than surface level.
This really clicked for me. Especially the distinction between “performative offlineness” and something more tactical and iron-willed....curated? The groundcover metaphor lands beautifully here. It reframes quiet as necessary rebuilding beneath the surface. Something tangible I can put into practice for sure.
Thank you for this piece! I looooove Tik Tok but IG not so much. If it wasn’t for my photography, I would have gotten off ages ago. I hate the surveillance culture it cultivates whereas I find Tik Tok is more conducive to discovery and connection. However I will say I enjoy posting on my IG stories - Tik Tok stories don’t hit the same.
In terms of my general sentiments toward tech’s impact on connection, this resonates: “Have you recently tried to reach an actual customer service rep at FedEx? JetBlue? Vanguard? Or been to an emergency room lately? It’s terrifying and all connected. The depersonalizaion of the world feels normal when our intimate lives have become depersonalized, too, which has happened by allowing our avatars to stand in as a proxy for entire personalities and lives.”
Thank you for sharing this, all of your wonderings here -- online vs offline what to share and what to keep close... - resonate with where I've wandered in the last two years...
Loved this! I first found your writing through my pal Holly Whitaker and am so glad to be here :)
I was going to comment when I first read this but didn't because I felt a bit self-conscious that my comment would be too, idk, extreme sounding? But I haven't stopped thinking about your piece over the past few days (plus everyone's honest sharing in the comments) so... I'm back to say that I quit my last social media platform in the summer of 2023 and doing so was, without exaggeration, one of the top 5 best decisions I've ever made in my life.
Concurrent with that was the decision to stop sharing photos of myself and my life on the internet (through my Substack newsletter, which I have since migrated to Buttondown because Substack started feeling too much like social media to me this year) to reclaim my offline life for myself and to stop feeling like I was cannibalizing my life for content. I just hit a point in 2023 of what I've since been calling "parasocial energetic burnout," wherein I had shared so much of myself with so many thousands of people on so many platforms for so my years (I've been writing/sharing personal stories in some form - blog, newsletter, podcast etc - since 2007) that I just simply couldn't do it anymore.
I've gone through an intense recalibration of my own desires, work, boundaries, relationships, and finances in the years since, and while there have definitely been some challenging aspects to my choices I do not for one second regret them, and in fact I feel profoundly grateful to my 2023 self for doing what needed to be done in order for me to be well. The social media decision felt in many ways like early sobriety to me, similar to how on the day I quit drinking I did not want to quit drinking. What I wanted was a different answer — literally any other answer — to the question of how to no longer be in so much pain while still remaining alive. But as I once heard Carmen Spagnola say, “You probably already have the answer to your question, you just hate the answer.” I hated the answer of sobriety so fucking much, just like I initially hated that social media turned out to be the only other thing in my life that requires complete abstinence in order for me to be okay.
Not that that's the answer for everyone of course, but I just wanted to share it here in case anyone else is feeling like they already know the answer they need for their next steps and wanted a little boost of encouragement to do whatever it takes to be well <3
Tips for leaving IG if it has a chokehold on you (as it did on me), from most to least definite:
1. Delete your account completely
2. Delete your app, but keep your account so you can still occasionally look at IG on desktop (you won’t scroll forever bc the UX is not as optimized, also I very rarely open my desktop anyway) — this is what is working for me right now
3. When you observe yourself reaching for or spending time on IG, repeat “they don’t care about my health wealth or joy” — the “they” here is the owners of meta absolutely, but it’s also the influencers bc even if they are generally benevolent…they don’t know you and consuming their content is feeding them not you…and the random people from high school, college whatever…if they aren’t texting/calling or showing up in real life, they don’t care (which is fine, why should they, and do you really care about them either in anything more than a superficial way?). So yes repeat repeat repeat. It’s true. Reminding yourself that “they” aren’t invested in you, so why invest oodles of your time distracting yourself with their “content” I found to be pretty helpful. And just the general reminder to myself that YES I do have so many other things I want to be doing with my time that do so actively support my health wealth and joy.
I currently am NOT logged in on desktop (it would destroy my mornings even more than it already does) but i do delete the app from time to time. i'm going to work these mantras into my practice. so so so helpful!
Absolutely loved this. My relationship with instagram changed a lot when I went from entrepreneur to employee last year, but I still find the impulse to commodify myself/my life on IG so strong. It's been interesting (and so very frustrating) to notice. Thank you for reflecting some of those complicated feelings so beautifully.
The way I laughed at this: “it’s such a flex to have an IG account with just a handful of photographs. Add in zero stories? I’m wet. A minimalist grid that looks current AND quiet is god-tier levels of cool.”
Fantastic, simply fantastic.
"Occasionally, I’ll even feel guilty for sharing these partial truths on Instagram, although I suspect that’s what we’re all doing, all the time..." - I found this a particularly interesting thought. It sparked something in me I first considered many years ago, and have found to still be true. When something real, unvarnished, and distinctly negative appears in stories or on the timeline, it can sometimes feel like one has flipped over a stone and found something unpleasant beneath it. Distinct from "sad stories with a ray of light" at the end, or performative martydom, I find these rare moments of raw honesty can be a huge turn off for some people. In fact, I'm guilty of thinking that from one person they're "invasive to the sanitised feed", vs being an opportunity to reach out to another person who may be suffering. Does that make sense? Maybe it's just me.
“often, what seems inert is simply hibernating.” 🙂↕️!!
I hope you get to realize that essay one day - absolutely love your writing!
Forever trying to balance being a real human bean and using my Instagram as a CV of sorts for my DJ career. I recently made the decision to forego growth (which in some ways, would have required me to become a full time content creator if I wanted to get booked) and just stick with what I know + love.
I love your prediction for 2026. I hope it's true. I've been off IG thanks to @nicantoinette for two years now (never on TikTok or FB). I let go of my website last year. All I have in the online sphere is my Substack and I'm loving how it feels. "If you want me, come find me," kinda vibe. Hah! Love it.
“For now, I long to be less legible. To live in a world that’s less ableist and easier to navigate, and I don’t have to rely heavily on social media for connection. To be messier, less annoyed by other people’s poor reading comprehension.”
Legibility is the perfect word here! Leaving social media made me illegible to anyone I didn’t choose to be read by. My connections have deepened with those I care about and I do not think on folks I have no need of knowing. I do feel slightly disconnected at times but this then feels like a nudge to reach out to people I miss, to cultivate meaningful connection that goes further than surface level.
This really clicked for me. Especially the distinction between “performative offlineness” and something more tactical and iron-willed....curated? The groundcover metaphor lands beautifully here. It reframes quiet as necessary rebuilding beneath the surface. Something tangible I can put into practice for sure.
My thoughts exactly… on an IG break thru spring except for occasional messaging when traveling
Thank you for this piece! I looooove Tik Tok but IG not so much. If it wasn’t for my photography, I would have gotten off ages ago. I hate the surveillance culture it cultivates whereas I find Tik Tok is more conducive to discovery and connection. However I will say I enjoy posting on my IG stories - Tik Tok stories don’t hit the same.
In terms of my general sentiments toward tech’s impact on connection, this resonates: “Have you recently tried to reach an actual customer service rep at FedEx? JetBlue? Vanguard? Or been to an emergency room lately? It’s terrifying and all connected. The depersonalizaion of the world feels normal when our intimate lives have become depersonalized, too, which has happened by allowing our avatars to stand in as a proxy for entire personalities and lives.”
Thank you for sharing this, all of your wonderings here -- online vs offline what to share and what to keep close... - resonate with where I've wandered in the last two years...
Your 2026 prediction feels on point too :)
/ holding the spirit of respair. xo
Loved this! I first found your writing through my pal Holly Whitaker and am so glad to be here :)
I was going to comment when I first read this but didn't because I felt a bit self-conscious that my comment would be too, idk, extreme sounding? But I haven't stopped thinking about your piece over the past few days (plus everyone's honest sharing in the comments) so... I'm back to say that I quit my last social media platform in the summer of 2023 and doing so was, without exaggeration, one of the top 5 best decisions I've ever made in my life.
Concurrent with that was the decision to stop sharing photos of myself and my life on the internet (through my Substack newsletter, which I have since migrated to Buttondown because Substack started feeling too much like social media to me this year) to reclaim my offline life for myself and to stop feeling like I was cannibalizing my life for content. I just hit a point in 2023 of what I've since been calling "parasocial energetic burnout," wherein I had shared so much of myself with so many thousands of people on so many platforms for so my years (I've been writing/sharing personal stories in some form - blog, newsletter, podcast etc - since 2007) that I just simply couldn't do it anymore.
I've gone through an intense recalibration of my own desires, work, boundaries, relationships, and finances in the years since, and while there have definitely been some challenging aspects to my choices I do not for one second regret them, and in fact I feel profoundly grateful to my 2023 self for doing what needed to be done in order for me to be well. The social media decision felt in many ways like early sobriety to me, similar to how on the day I quit drinking I did not want to quit drinking. What I wanted was a different answer — literally any other answer — to the question of how to no longer be in so much pain while still remaining alive. But as I once heard Carmen Spagnola say, “You probably already have the answer to your question, you just hate the answer.” I hated the answer of sobriety so fucking much, just like I initially hated that social media turned out to be the only other thing in my life that requires complete abstinence in order for me to be okay.
Not that that's the answer for everyone of course, but I just wanted to share it here in case anyone else is feeling like they already know the answer they need for their next steps and wanted a little boost of encouragement to do whatever it takes to be well <3
loved this <3
adore you sweet pea
My new phone came with a hidden folder option, and I tucked some social media apps there. My ADHD brain forgets they exist. It’s wonderful.
perfect hack, 10/10
I loved this and love you - reposting xxx
thank you for always keeping an eye out for meee
Tips for leaving IG if it has a chokehold on you (as it did on me), from most to least definite:
1. Delete your account completely
2. Delete your app, but keep your account so you can still occasionally look at IG on desktop (you won’t scroll forever bc the UX is not as optimized, also I very rarely open my desktop anyway) — this is what is working for me right now
3. When you observe yourself reaching for or spending time on IG, repeat “they don’t care about my health wealth or joy” — the “they” here is the owners of meta absolutely, but it’s also the influencers bc even if they are generally benevolent…they don’t know you and consuming their content is feeding them not you…and the random people from high school, college whatever…if they aren’t texting/calling or showing up in real life, they don’t care (which is fine, why should they, and do you really care about them either in anything more than a superficial way?). So yes repeat repeat repeat. It’s true. Reminding yourself that “they” aren’t invested in you, so why invest oodles of your time distracting yourself with their “content” I found to be pretty helpful. And just the general reminder to myself that YES I do have so many other things I want to be doing with my time that do so actively support my health wealth and joy.
I currently am NOT logged in on desktop (it would destroy my mornings even more than it already does) but i do delete the app from time to time. i'm going to work these mantras into my practice. so so so helpful!
Absolutely loved this. My relationship with instagram changed a lot when I went from entrepreneur to employee last year, but I still find the impulse to commodify myself/my life on IG so strong. It's been interesting (and so very frustrating) to notice. Thank you for reflecting some of those complicated feelings so beautifully.
thank you for reading!