Is Your New Year's Resolution To Quit Instagram?
Social media fasts are nothing new, and ever since it became common knowledge that social media platforms are designed to be as addictive as possible (and to steal as much of our personal data, time, brainpower, and attention span as possible!!!!), there’s been mainstream discourse about how to quit social media. Or at least, how to have a “healthy” relationship with social media.
I remain unconvinced that such a healthy balance is possible, and I feel like more and more people are equally unconvinced about the tangible career benefits of participating in social media (one of the central reasons people cite as being impediments to quitting cold turkey). Many people I know have started 2025 with clearer goals about both their screen time and their social media consumption.
I quit Facebook around 2017 and instagram 2018 and have been “social media sober” ever since. My spouse never had accounts, so proximity to it wasn’t an issue. I imagine it could be hard to quit if you had someone in house still using it. Did I feel like I was missing out on some things initially- yes. Do I feel that way almost 7 years later- no. I truly think of it in comparison to being sober from alcohol, are there events, buy nothing groups, content, etc you will miss out on- yes, however the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. And I have found substitutions for all of those things, other orgs, websites etc that do the same. For anyone worried about losing contact with friends/family/people you don’t see often, in my experience, being honest and telling people “hey, these apps just aren’t good for me so I won’t be on here anymore, but please contact me via text, email, mail, whatever works for you” is sufficient and I find that my relationships with those people have strengthened and improved since. After I quit I decided that when I thought about someone, I would send them a text saying “hey I was thinking about you, I hope you’re well. We went to this place or did this thing, here’s a picture of the kids” something like that and it created this great line of communication. It’s truly such a thrill to run in to someone and genuinely ask what they’ve been up to, I remind them I don’t have socials, and then see them light up to share personal news.
Like getting sober from any other thing, it takes work and commitment and a dedication that you’ll never go back, but in my experience very much worth it.
I have a silly-but-functional-for-me setup where I only have instagram on my ipad. keeps me from using it when I'm out in the world and its clunky enough to sit and scroll on that even my "binges" are much shorter than they would be on my phone. I get a lot of crafting and cooking resources on there that I genuinely value, and being 27 it is a major way of keeping up with friends who aren't in my immediate circle, so I'm not anywhere close to fully ditching it.