I left Instagram
Last Thursday I logged off Instagram for the foreseeable future.
I lack the desire to keep up with steadily decreasing metrics.
I don’t want to make reels. I don’t want to watch them.
I don’t want to keep feeding the belief that I need this platform to have an impact in the world.
It has been four days, and my decision to leave is having more of an impact than staying plugged in. The emails and texts of resonance have been illuminating. When I texted a friend, my good-bye post was the top performing post of the last two years, she replied, oh, I believe it! I bet it resonated with more people than you would expect. Many of us are craving that escape but aren’t brave enough to take it.
Her response, and others like it, got me thinking about the courage it takes to leave a legacy social media platform like Instagram. It also took me back to my studies at the Digital Wellness Institute and some of the research I’ve explored on why taking a break or leaving social media is hard for many of us.
Social media is addictive by design. Engaging with platforms like Instagram drives surges of dopamine to our brains to keep us coming back to them repeatedly. A study from Harvard University also shows that self-disclosure on social networking sites lights up the same part of our brain as when taking an addictive substance1.
Additionally, social media creates a significant amount of social pressure because it is part of the fabric of our culture. Last year, I was ready to log off Instagram, but I had a new book coming out. Many publishers require authors to promote their book/s on their personal social media channels. I’ve also spoken with writers who are struggling to land a book deal because they have little to zero social media presence. There is an expectation in our culture that you must have a social media platform to exist and be marketable in any relevant way. I imagine this is partly why celebrated poet David Whyte has an Instagram profile, though I am sure someone else is posting on his behalf. I remember seeing a quote from him pop up in my feed back in 2019. Oh, God, I thought, this is the beginning of the end.
My addiction to IG
I’ve struggled with addiction to Instagram for the last six years. Since my first self-imposed, seven-week Instagram sabbatical in 2018, it has been impossible to use the app without the lingering feeling that it has more control over me than I do of it.
Like many of the rock bottoms I’ve hit in my life, the relationship I had with Instagram went south long before I gave it up. I knew deep down that I needed to step away from the app indefinitely. Until last week, I was unwilling to make that change. Despite the self-awareness that I regularly used Instagram to check out and numb and that it was taking away from my life rather than adding to it, I kept logging in.
Back when I regularly attended A.A. meetings, I often heard the saying, self-knowledge avails us nothing. This means that we can know something cognitively, but knowing it alone isn’t enough to change our behavior. This rang true of my addiction to alcohol and drugs, and it rings true now of my addiction to Instagram.
Despite the research I’ve studied, mindful practices I’ve engaged with, and extended sabbaticals I’ve taken from the app, each time I log back in, within a day or two, I feel shitty. Not enough. Drained. Apathetic. I lose myself in mindless scrolling that starts innocently as “research” or checking in on a friend. I hide in my bathroom scrolling away. I check my iPhone first thing in the morning, right before bed, and all through the night when I am up with my kids. My attention scatters. I get lost. I struggle with coming back into presence, turning away from the app and toward the present moment.
Things get sticky when I convince myself that I need to stay on Instagram.
If leave Instagram, I’ll miss something important.
My practice, my work, my livelihood will suffer.
I need Instagram to learn about current events.
I need Instagram to promote my Substack.
I’ll just check something quickly and then get right off.
Anytime I try to convince myself of something it’s inherently questionable. When that persuading part insists that I can check Instagram quickly and get right off, it reminds me of the countless times I started the night saying, I’ll just have one drink. I’ll just take one hit.
One is always too many.
I have tried every which way to bypass my addiction to Instagram. Each time I have been defeated. I have tried practical approaches: logging in at certain times of the day, spending a designated amount of time on the app, hiring a VA to post on my behalf. I have also tried pseudo spiritual practices: telling myself that it’s all just “energy” and trying to convince myself that the reason I am not manifesting a better experience on Instagram is because I am stuck in some unconscious low self-worth pattern from childhood.
Nothing worked.
On Wednesday afternoon at Valley Children’s hospital with Zen asleep on my lap, I typed a post, added some photos, and hit publish.
The next day I deleted the app from my phone.
It’s an inside job
These past few days I’ve reflected on my big why for leaving the app. What pushed me to muster up the courage to log off indefinitely rather than take another extended break?
The simple answer is that I am tired of feeling bad.
The answer underneath is that I am tired of trying to be likeable.
The desire to be liked is one of the biggest shadow aspects many of us must face when accessing our relationship to social media. We avoid this shadow in many different ways. And yet, we all feel the pangs in our chest when our posts continue to not be seen or the reflexive judgment of someone we envy doing something we tell ourselves we could do better or the loneliness we experience when we are preforming our lives instead of actually living them.
Wanting to be liked is human. It is how we evolved.
Trying to be likeable for faceless followers is hollow.
And herein lies the courage.
It takes courage to admit when we’re addicted to something, especially something as socially acceptable as social media. It takes courage to log off a platform, especially when it is connected to our perceived likability. To our perceived self-worth.
We are hard wired to want acceptance.
No number of followers or likes or clicks is going to make us any more likable than we are in this moment.
No number of followers is going to soothe the pains of our childhoods.
No number of followers is going to make us feel better about ourselves.
As they also say in A.A., it’s an inside job.
What I want
In the weeks following Solomon’s birth in 2018 I practiced the first 40 days, a post-partum ritual suggested by my acupuncturist. In this practice, I stayed in bed with Solomon for 40 days, drinking broths, trying to get the hang of nursing, with my social media turned off. It took the miracle of a geriatric pregnancy (yes, that is what the medical field refers to when you are pregnant at 35 and beyond) to pull my attention away from Instagram. I had no desire to document my post-partum anxiety, sleepless nights, old lady diapers, unwashed body, or the emotional pain I experienced with my family during those first weeks. In retrospect, it was a blessing that I felt no social pressure to pull out my iPhone and broadcast such an intimate life season on Instagram.
It was special. It was tender. It was sacred. It was harrowing.
It was not a performance.
When we take something away, we make room for something else. Taking away Instagram means more room in my life for what I want more of.
I want to give more attention to our children. We have three now.
I want to give more attention to my body.
I want to give more attention to my partner.
I want to give more attention to my writing.
I want to give more attention to the trees, the donkeys, the land, our community, and the moments of aliveness I feel as I breathe. And the grief. And the joy. And the mourning. And the sweetness. And everything.
Leaving Instagram is as much about reclaiming my attention as it is about my desire for presence.
I want to be present.
I want to be present.
I want to be present.
What happens after I stay off Instagram for the coming weeks, months, and beyond? I have no idea and I am curious to find out.
It takes courage to release the things in life that we long to release. It takes courage to follow our hearts, to honor our wants, to listen to our deeper calls, and to be present.
With care,
Ashley
If you are curious about taking a break from social media or logging off indefinitely, here are a few of my go-to resources and incredible essays—
’s essay on quitting Instagram’s essay, You Don’t Need To Document EverythingMoms’ group launches grassroots fight against social media ‘addiction’
10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts
https://marketing.wtwhmedia.com/new-harvard-study-shows-why-social-media-is-so-addictive-for-many/
I'd love to start a conversation in the comments.
How is your relationship to social media?
Have you ever taken a break or left indefinitely?
I look forward to connecting more around this!
Good on you!! Here's a gift from John O'Donohue as you practice presence:
A Blessing for Presence
"May you awaken to the mystery of being here
And enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift
And find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift, Woven around the heart of wonder."