Saying Goodbye: Why I Broke Up With Instagram
Have you ever noticed how the “pull to refresh” function is like a slot machine?
Did you know marketing wisdom claims that starting a post with a question gets more engagement? And, seriously, can you believe that moral OUTRAGE gains more clicks than kindness?!?
I stopped posting to Instagram in November of 2020. And in so doing (or, not doing, I suppose), I noticed some things. First, for a platform that claims to connect, to create community, to build networks, nobody seemed to mind that I was gone. One friend messaged to ask where I’d gone. Yes, of over 1k followers, ONE reached out, and it was someone I also knew IRL. (I <3 you!)
Second, and here’s a confession: I didn’t mind that I wasn’t missed because I didn’t miss Instagram either. The dominant emotion during my time away was … relief.
You see, something happened to me in mid-November. Rather, it happened in me.
I was planning out an Advent series of posts based on a devotional I’d written. I spent hours reading up on SEO, studying my click conversion rate (whatever that is), and agonizing over the best time to post and what to post and what NOT to post …
… and I was overwhelmed …
… by the sleazy insincerity of it all …
… and by the hopelessness …
… of gaining *enough attention* to succeed (somebody define “enough” for me, because I can’t) in this mad race for attention, all while I didn’t have attention enough to pay attention to all the things in my REAL life crying out for my attention let alone this cyber universe of ceaseless clickbait attention-seeking with the (false) promise of a gloriously connected world where everyone is kind and we all ride unicorns.
Here’s the thing about attention. It’s finite.
There was an article in the NYT not long ago about its very finiteness. I could give you the title, but I forgot it—guess I wasn’t paying enough attention (ha!). (I looked it up, you’re welcome.)
If I’m scrolling through Instagram (i.e., giving IG my attention), I’m not giving my attention to anything else. Multitasking is actually a myth. When we “multitask” our attention is continually switching from one task to another, not working both at the same time.
So in that overwhelming moment in November, I deleted the Instagram app off my phone.
And while I was on hiatus from social media, I watched The Social Dilemma, then Childhood 2.0, then The Creepy Line.
Then I read the NYT article, “The Coup We Are Not Talking About,” and the book Breaking the Trance.
“There’s nothing truly social about social media.”
And I realized something.
Since I set up my very first Facebook account a millennia ago, I don’t feel more connected to friends, family, the world. I feel more isolated.
I don’t feel more understood.
I feel *used* by advertising algorithms reading every. single. word. I. type. to target advertisements and upend my feed for maximum engagement, whether I want to be engaged or not.
There’s nothing truly social about social media. I’m a commodity and my attention is what is being sought, bought, used, sold. And not just by the algorithms.
There are many reasons why we use social media—any of us. Maybe we’re on it to impress people, to feel popular, to get a laugh. Maybe we like to get into arguments, get outraged, get um, satisfied (I mean we *all* know you can find anything online).
Or, as may be the case for many of my writer or blogger friends, we’re on social media trying to build a Platform.
Because we want to sell books.
We’re nothing more than advertisers, but without the benefit of complex algorithms. We’re out there pounding the pavement of the digital streets because we have a product to sell, and it’s ourselves.
Guess what? I hate sales. I have always hated sales. Those boxes of $.50 candy bars I was supposed to hawk door to door for school fundraisers? I never won the “highest sales” awards. The ones I sold, my parents bought, mostly out of pity (or because, chocolate).
There’s not much I dislike more than selling things. Except for one thing.
I abhor feeling like a fraud. Feeling disingenuous, false, sleazy.
I don’t like thinking about people, real people who I know are on the other side of those social media posts, as consumers to be convinced, manipulated, controlled. I also don’t like being that consumer. I don’t like, as I comment on a post, wondering if the human on the other side isn’t skimming my comment with the thought, “Yay! My conversion rate is rising!”
I don’t like feeling faceless, stripped of my personhood and my individuality, of all the things that make me *me* because I’ve been turned into a number on a data sheet.
I learned so many things about social media—how its advent has correlated to a dramatic rise in teen suicides, how it is being used to prey on children and the vulnerable, how even brain science has discovered that it’s not as Social as we want to think it is.
When we have face-to-face connections, share a cup of coffee with a friend, chat at the water cooler (thanks for wrecking all that, COVID), certain areas of our brain light up like a starry night. Primal areas, higher level areas, areas that release hormones used for bonding. Basically, face-to-face interaction makes us human.
What does social media do in our brains? The same thing video games do. The same thing surfing blogs, online shopping, or any other screen-based activity does. It stimulates the reward centers of the brain. Very little *social* is happening at all. At least not in any beneficial way.
It’s not a platform made by humans to connect humans, it’s a platform made by business to hook, entrance, and manipulate consumers, all the while pretending to fill a need within all humans—the need for social connection.
Does social media fill this fundamental human need, the need for connection?
No. It. Does. Not.
For those who are offended by this—because I know some will be—I’m sorry. I know some truly do use social media to connect with far-flung friends and family. I also know many gravitate toward the online world because it’s “safer” or easier to deal with, less threatening, especially for those with diagnoses like anxiety or ASD. I know this first hand because I am one of those—agoraphobia, panic disorder, PTSD.
The thing is, You are not a commodity. I’m not one either. My time away helped me realize that I can’t be true to the things I value most on social media. And so I can’t be. On social media.
Back to attention in all its finiteness, and to the reason for the image I shared with that original Goodbye Instagram post…
For Christians (like myself), we are currently in the season of Lent. Lent is a time of fasting, prayer, reflection.
Lent is a time of paying attention.
I refuse to give my attention to platforms that value nothing about me beyond my buying potential, that have caused (yes, caused) a dramatic rise in suicides, as well as social strife and disharmony, that profit (yes, profit) off exploitation of the vulnerable, and that foster a near-universal Machiavellian disingenuousness.
I challenge you, no matter where you are on your journey, to consider your attention.
Think of it like a wage. You only have so many $attention-bucks$ each day, and you can’t put them in the bank for later, so where are you spending this most valuable resource?
Where do you Want to invest this resource? Where are your $attention-bucks$ Needed most?
“I refuse to give my attention to platforms that value nothing about me beyond my buying potential.”
Going forward, I’m investing where the need is greatest—my family. And professionally I’ll invest where the reward and satisfaction are greatest.
Rather than investing my $attention-bucks$ on the momentary blip of social media where my attention is sold to the highest bidder, while I desperately hope someone, anyone, will pay attention *to me,* I’ll be sharing articles on my website and elsewhere (as time and attention allow). In fact, I’ve been researching internet security, parental controls, and a heap of other topics, so I may have some interesting posts in store.
If you haven’t already, feel free to subscribe to my posts and infrequent writerly newsletter. Though if you don’t want to spend your $attention-bucks$ on me, that’s ok. You can always reach out to me directly. One thing you can be sure of, I won’t try to sell you a chocolate bar.
I spent an hour or so on that original Goodbye Instagram post, and in that hour I snapped at my kids: go outside, don’t drag in snow, clean up your paints, let me finish something for once.
It’s an hour I will never get back, nor will they.
With tremendous relief I can say it’s the last hour Instagram will ever take away.
Below, find the books referenced above. These are affiliate links because they are a. easy and b. are really, really easy. If you purchase through this link, I may get a teeny-tiny commission, but at absolutely no cost to you!
I stopped posting to Instagram in November of 2020. And in so doing (or, not doing, I suppose), I noticed some things… First, there’s very little “Social” about Social Media.