Lessons From My Instagram Detox

For the past 14 months, I’ve been off Instagram. Recently, I’ve reflected on how the past year has felt without this particular piece of social media in my life, and I had two realizations. The first was that I was wrong about what leaving Instagram would do for me. And the second was that I underestimated the impact that disappearing from my digital life would have.

Part of the reason I left Instagram was that I was trying to be on my phone less and be more present in my life. I thought that deleting Instagram would be a simple and effective solution. But it wasn’t. The "reaching for my phone" behavior persisted, it just changed to checking my email, playing a mobile game, or scrolling on LinkedIn. There’s always something else to busy yourself with when your goal isn’t the thing itself (Instagram) but distraction.

I started to pay closer attention to when I would do this, and it turns out that I most frequently reach for my phone when I’m faced with something challenging. It could be a tricky scene I’m writing, responding to a difficult email, or even a task that should be fun, like making an itinerary for a vacation. Because it’s still hard. And my default response to "hard" became distracting myself.

It's definitely something for me to work on, but in a way, it made me feel ok about rejoining Instagram. If the problem lies with my behavior, not the app itself, then maybe I can rejoin in a healthy way if I own up to that. The first step in solving any problem is being aware of it in the first place. If I know what situations make me misuse social media and apps on my phone in general, then I can keep one hand on the wheel. If I feel myself steering away from what’s difficult, I can gently steer myself back on track.

That’s what this post is. Me getting myself back in the fast lane. Keep writing, keep posting, and do it loudly and proudly. I want to share more of myself with the world. Because the second realization I had is that, without an online presence, I was being forgotten.

About 6 months into my time off Instagram, I started to feel lonely. When I stopped popping up on people’s feeds with my stories and posts, did people think about me less? This could be entirely untrue, of course, but that’s how it felt to me. Without constant reminders of my existence in this digital space, did I cease to exist? Pics or it didn’t happen? Posts or you’re not real?

I wanted to figure out how to exist in a digital space without diminishing who I was in the physical world. And it turns out that was a hard question to answer. I’m still trying to answer it. But I no longer think that the solution is to disappear completely. We spend so much of our time online sharing things with each other. Messages, videos, memes. It’s our common language, and it’s one that I want to speak fluently. I plan on sharing more updates on what I’m writing and the passion projects I’m involved in, because they’re a part of me, and I want to share my whole self.

It’s scary to put yourself out there, especially to share anything creative and personal. And that’s exactly the reason I want to do it. Fear is often the first step on the path of growth, and I have plans for massive growth. More on that later.

For now, I’ll just say that it’s good to be back.

#backfromthedead