It has been almost three months since I decided to leave Instagram for good. It didn’t turn out to be as straight forward as I was expecting, which is why I’m now writing an update about it.

Turned out that leaving social media can be an interesting human experiment. As I mentioned in my previous post about the matter, I already left Facebook some years ago and didn’t end up missing it. I was expecting leaving Instagram to be just as easy, but to my horrid amazement, it has a much tighter grip on me.

The first month was actually the easiest and I felt genuinely free. Then I just caved in for one reason or another. Maybe it was a weak moment, but I re-installed the app on my phone and activated my account again. I honestly felt weak for doing so. The urge to check what was happening online grew stronger and stronger, even though I had literally no reason to expect anything having improved during the time of my absence. I instantly remembered why I hated social media.

I really can’t remember the last time I got anything even remotely satisfying or meaningful out of Instagram, but somehow it still keeps me addicted. Leaving it completely has proven much more demanding than I initially expected.

Even though I caved in, I didn’t end up using the app actively. Even though my account is back up now, at least for the time being, I rarely even open it. Whenever I do, I just can’t get anything out of it.

I did make one new post. I felt like a major sell-out, but I guess I couldn’t resist it after a one really good photoshoot that I made with my friend. The post was pretty well received and got a good amount of likes, but getting a bunch of likes wasn’t enough to get me hooked again. It felt nice, but still kind of meh.

At least I have gotten out of the habit of mindless scrolling, which is actually a pretty good accomplishment. My screen time has been delightfully low during past few months. That being said, I still kind of miss the good old days of social media. When ever I check Instagram, I do it in a hope to see something genuinely engaging or interesting. That is very wishful thinking. I mean, there really is no denying that the baseline content, generally speaking, is just trash.

Apart from that one rogue post, I haven’t been posting anything else since then. So even though I slightly caved in, it looks like I’m continuing a mostly social media free life. If I’m extremely bored, I might scroll a one (1) minute before realising that it is only making me ever more bored. For the most parts, I honestly couldn’t be bothered in wasting my time on that.

In the mean time, I’ve been working on couple of book projects. I love the idea of publishing a photo book. Preparing that has certainly been a much more productive effort than focusing on social media. In addition to a photo book, I’m also trying to get some of my novellas (yes I do write fiction if I haven’t mentioned before) published. Giving up social media has given me the required mental space and resources for pursuing more meaningful projects, but the irony is that if I get anything published, I will no doubt need social media to promote them. So as you can see, this whole thing remains a dilemma.

On a scale of 1—10, I’d say this attempt at exiting Instagram is a solid 8. Not an entire success, but still better than completely returning to old habits. I love the idea of no social media at all, but I can see myself settling for a very occasional, moderate amount of healthy use.