Leaving Social Media: Instagram Fell First
I love taking photos. I don’t like Instagram anymore.
A bit of context
I joined Instagram as soon as it became available for Android devices in April 2012. For around three years I pretty much enjoyed the creative and social aspects of the app, with its cool vintage filters and simplicity of use.
Although I didn’t post regularly, I reached an average of 60 to 70 likes per post in 2015, which was more than acceptable for me. However, in April 2016 I went through a breakup that left me feeling betrayed, lost and hurt. I only posted 11 photos that year, most of them taken during the first six months, and they got a total of 869 likes.
By then, I was already feeling some kind of pressure to keep posting sunsets and moon shots to get more and more likes and, well, maybe I should travel to Japan again and try to match that one single photo of the Tokyo Tower at sunset which made me feel so proud?
I had also started to upload photos taken with my DSLR. Many people had been doing the same for a while already, but to me this felt like cheating, as if I was betraying the original purpose of Instagram. But, since I was getting more likes and everybody else was doing the same, why should I stop?
But let me get back to my breakup once more. I had created my Instagram account a few months after my ex and I started going out; consequently, many photos became an undesired and unwelcome trigger to memories of our relationship. I often found myself checking his profile, until I decided to make my account private and to “soft-block” (block and unblock) the accounts I didn’t want to follow me anymore — mainly my ex and some of our mutual “friends.” I felt lost, I didn’t know what to do with my life, and I wanted none of them to know about me. They weren’t friends anymore; they had become mere voyeurs.
I just needed time and space for my heart to heal.
Changes to the app didn’t help
As any other app out there, Instagram added new features, improved others and removed those people didn’t use anymore. However, I barely used the newer ones; I seldom uploaded videos or used “Instagram Stories” and “Instagram Direct,” and I didn’t like to upload multiple photos simultaneously, an option that requested too much effort and time in order to achieve the same quality through the whole set. In short: I always preferred quality over quantity.
However, one specific update ultimately pulled me out of the app: the switch from a nice and ordered timeline to a messy algorithm-based feed which kept showing me posts I had already seen many DAYS before and no, thanks, I don’t want to “like” this particular post because [reasons], so will you just please move on and show me all recent posts? Thank you.
But that would never happen. Facebook feeds were already curated by algorithms; why would Instagram be different?
Attention seekers
I uploaded my last photo in June 2017. By then, I had already entered a daily loop of endless scrolling through the “Explore” section just to find posts about things I couldn’t care less about. These included:
- Perfect women in perfect bodies
- Tons of makeup artists — while I never wear makeup.
- Tattoos — well, this one I liked, actually.
- Dentistry — seriously. What. The. F.
- Clickbait posts from accounts asking for likes and follows while promising to always follow-back
I wondered where the beautiful and honest content, the one I had seen back in 2012 and 2013, had gone. Why was I losing my time seeing crap on Instagram when I could be reading a book instead? Furthermore, when was the last time I had actually read a book? And ultimately, why wasn’t I creating content instead of just mindlessly consuming it?
I don’t remember when I decided to uninstall the app, but it happened weeks before finally deactivating the account in December 2017.
Do I regret deleting my account?
For starters, my intention was to just deactivate it, but I somehow messed things up and ended being unable to recover it. Thus, I guess it is deleted now, and I only regret not having downloaded my oldest photos before that.
Instagram started as a very simple app that engaged people with an interest in photography, but it ended up being a complex set of random features created solely to boost its user base —in other words, to make more money — , leaving the more artistic side apart and taking Instagram very, very far away from that awesome photography app some of us enjoyed for its simplicity.
So basically, no, I don’t miss Instagram. In fact, the feeling is somehow similar to the one I experienced after I stopped smoking more than two years ago, which, on the other hand, says a lot about our addiction to dopamine shots that social media give us every single day of our lives.
When Instagram was only available for iOS devices, I used the Japanese My365 photo app. Although I wish the old Instagram could come back, I know this will never happen. I may download My365 again, but if you know of any similar apps — Flickr not included, please — to share only and nothing else than photos, please, let me know; I’ll be more than happy to check them out!
I left Facebook a few months later; here’s the story!
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