I quit Instagram. Again.

context and creativity, experiments and change

In August, I was surprised by an itch to get on Instagram. The desire was surprising because I had happily been off Instagram for a year with no intention of returning. I let it sit for a few weeks and when it didn’t leave I talked to my writing mastermind about it. They wisely reminded me that getting back on didn’t mean I had to stay. I could try it and see what I thought. When another friend gave me that same advice that same day, I thought, “ok, let’s see what happens” and downloaded the app. 

Last Friday, I met with my writing mastermind and we, once again, talked about social media. After that conversation, I was, once again, done with social media. I had been waffling back and forth for weeks because I realized I don’t like Instagram anymore. 

That’s not totally true. I found some delightful house accounts to follow. Their pictures made me happy. I got ideas for my own house. Had I ever wanted ducks waddling in my yard in front of my backyard library? Maybe not, but now I do. I got a great idea for a style uniform. There are people I have followed on the internet for a long time and I love seeing their work. Elise Cripe. Kristel Acevedo. Jasmine Holmes. I’ve made friends on Instagram: that’s where I met the women in my writing mastermind. I heard about this podcast episode that I plan to listen to. I sent memes to my friends. I picked up my phone often if I had the app downloaded. 

Of course, that’s the part I wasn’t crazy about. I read less. I looked at my phone more. I felt compelled to scroll through the app even if I didn’t have anything I wanted to say. And finding stuff to say on instagram is hard, though I did try. One evening, I wanted to post to stories. It was just a picture of the Dutch Blitz game I was playing with three of my boys—they weren’t even in the picture because I hate putting their pictures online. But the picture felt contextless. It felt like a half-truth. It was a lovely moment, but it said nothing about the fact that one of my kids has been having a hard time at school and they’ve called us and we’ve called them and it’s an ongoing situation. Both the game of Dutch Blitz and the school difficulties exist in my life. 

I don’t feel bad about not sharing the school situation online. (Though clearly I am bringing it up now. This feels very different in many ways.) Instagram doesn’t deserve everything. But the picture alone felt fake, though the picture was also very real. I could never settle on what needed to be shared there or even what I wanted to share. 

Because Instagram isn’t the only thing that has changed. In 2020, we were deep in quarantine¹ and a writer I respect commented that she was taking a break from Instagram. I thought, “huh, I’ll try that too” and I hopped off. It lasted a very short time. Instagram was one of the few outlets that I had then. It was where the work went. I was home with four small kids, one of whom was medically fragile. I had barely started seminary. We went nowhere. I needed the outlet that Instagram provided. I am grateful for the place it has had in my life. Now my work goes many other places. It shows up here. Some of it goes to seminary.² But the bulk of it goes to my work at church. By the time I finish there, I’m tired. I’ve been creating and showing up and it’s good work. I just don’t have more work left after I’ve finished.³ My own creative capacity for Instagram is very low, if not non-existent. I don’t need Instagram to make meaning of my life or to sharpen my creativity. At one time, I did.

Part of this is connected to what Instagram wants. Though I’d love to debate what a content creator is and what’s different between that and being a writer and how there’s nothing wrong with being a content creator but to call everything that warps our understanding of our work, most of that is connotations. It’s word association games. Nevertheless, I’m a writer and Instagram wants reels. Pithy statements. Hot takes. Tweets in a picture form. And while you can do whatever you want there, there’s something to be said for using a space the way it’s designed. If I’m going to write and share and it be hidden by an algorithm, why would I bother for a platform where I don’t even “own” my content? No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t make sense. 

It’s not just me leaving Instagram. I’ve read post⁴ after post of people who, for one reason or another, are leaving behind Instagram or Twitter or whatever space they have used before. I’ve felt a collective angst that something that once brought such joy has turned into a space we aren’t sure how to navigate. It’s how I feel about a lot of change. I insist I can make what has worked before keep working. I feel nostalgia for what something was and it clouds the reality of what it is. I simply don’t want to learn something new. I’m convinced that I will miss out on good things if I move on. Social media is so new that we don’t have generations, or even decades, of practice with managing it. We are all making it up as we go. 

As we go, we’ve learned a lot more about social media and who it is actually for and who’s the commodity that’s being sold. I’ve kept this a conversation about the creative and contextual side of Instagram but there’s a whole dark side of social media.⁵ It’s addictive. We are losing ourselves there. Even so it’s become a place where many people sustain their business or find an outlet that they need—the process just has to include a lot of hacks to shortcircuit how it works.⁶ Thankfully, right now, I don’t need it for either and I can simply delete the app. 

I didn’t even say I was going. It felt anti-climatic to do so. When I hopped back on, I said it was an experiment. Everyone was so kind and for a brief moment I enjoyed it.⁷ Then it became a torment; the question “what should I post today” took up a large amount of real estate in my brain. I don’t like to feel like my life is a show; I love the privacy that not being on social media allows. So it’s goodbye again and I don’t regret it. 

1. We have a medically fragile child and that greatly impacted how we experienced the pandemic.

2. It’s probably a whole different story that seminary feels more like output than input now

3. Despite the fact that I’m far from done. I move on to parenting my kids and then doing seminary work.

4. Full disclosure, Breanne is part of my writing mastermind. That group has been so life-giving for me.

5. I’ve also been talking about what it’s like as a person who posts on social media and not as a person who also consumes social media. I’ve been bombarded with ads of things that I really do like. My brain feels crazy after stories move constantly across the screen. I get mad at posts. I feel anxiety over the state of the world. I am much less present in my own world. Some people are vicious online. Comments are either raging or silent. People attack in dms over a difference of opinion. It no longer feels safe to explore and grow or change your mind or make mistakes there.

6. I’m bad at these hacks. I set time limits. I delete the app. It still just takes up so much space in my brain.

7. There are people on IG that I have actual conversations with in dms and I will miss those people.