I’ve been wanting to write about Instagram for a while now, but have struggled with how to do so. I didn’t want the piece to be just another anti-social media, anti-young people, judgmental rant. If that’s what this ends up being, then please stop reading. My intention isn’t to shame anyone for using a platform with one billion active users.
Since I’ve been on Instagram, I’ve watched the platform change from an unknown, messy product (no captions and bad photos), to a place that housed gorgeously curated pictures of friends, accomplishments and travel, to its latest iteration as a marketing machine. In my opinion, it has gone from good to bad to ugly.
In that same period of time, it’s become difficult to ignore the influence Instagram has on my thoughts and feelings, which include:
- Narcissism – look at this great photo of me
- Jealousy – I wish I had _____ like them
- Judgement – look at that ridiculous post
- FOMO – why wasn’t I included?
- Materialism – I need to buy that
- Despair – there is so much injustice/stupidity/pain in the world
In short, I realized that the platform inspired few positive emotions and behaviors, despite it ostensibly being a way to keep in touch with friends and stay up to date on what they were doing. At its best, when those negative feelings were less prevalent, the platform made me feel numb. I could scroll through dozens, hundreds of photos or stories and register next to nothing about what I was seeing.
As a result, I’ve mostly “quit” Instagram for the past year and a half. What that means tactically is that I deleted the app itself and set a five minute timer for the website, so I end up scrolling briefly once or twice a week through the browser on my phone. I wish I had better self control, but I don’t. The timer has served as a reminder to get in and out quickly and, more recently, as a deterrent from going on in the first place. Five minutes isn’t much time to do anything.
Not that my experience is your experience. There is plenty of evidence that users find positive elements to being on the platform, and I fully believe that. My cousin interacts with other artists through Instagram, something which brings him a lot of joy. It’s also how he shares his art.
But if your experience is like mine, or if you feel like your experience is similar, I think it’s worth pursuing. I’ve started cataloging, at the end of my five minute sessions, what I’ve gained from using the platform. And what I’ve found is something I think I’ve known subconsciously for a while: I don’t get anything from it.
I don’t catch up with friends. I “interact” with them, via generic comments, likes and shared memes. I don’t stay up to date with what my friends are doing, beyond a basic “X is in Y this weekend with Z.” If anything, knowing what my friends are doing at all times might detract from my willingness to reach out and talk to them, because their updates won’t surprise me. And, most glaring of all, half the content I’m shown isn’t even from friends. I’m being sold things, that I neither want, need, nor, if we’re being honest, knew existed. Think how many interchangeable startups market their products in your Instagram feed.
So I’m left with this odd feeling, that there is a popular product out there, taking up space in my life, and I don’t benefit from it. And it’s not that I’m against technology, change, or mindless entertainment. I enjoy mindless entertainment just as much as the rest of them, but there’s a difference. I can watch ten hours of Love Island and feel bad about how I’ve spent my time – but the show doesn’t make me feel bad. It’s the wasted time I regret.
And the evidence is strong, both quantitatively and qualitatively, that Instagram is wreaking havoc on people’s wellbeing – particularly adolescents – in a way that binge watching TV or spending all day on instant messenger wouldn’t have back in my day. We’re talking elevated levels of the emotions I described above, for prolonged periods of the day, every single day. Before brains have fully developed. The Wall Street Journal published a great article about this earlier this month, but you don’t need to read it to believe it. Anyone who’s familiar with the platform knows these things are true:
- “One in five teens say that Instagram makes them feel worse about themselves”
- “40% of Instagram users who reported feeling unattractive said the feeling began on the app”
- “Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one presentation showed.”
That leaves us with a platform that, as Derek Thompson puts it in The Atlantic, looks an awful lot like another addictive substance:
“Here is a fun product that millions of people seem to love; that is unwholesome in large doses; that makes a sizable minority feel more anxious, more depressed, and worse about their bodies; and that many people struggle to use in moderation.
“What does that sound like to you? To me, it sounds like alcohol—a social lubricant that can be delightful but also depressing, a popular experience that blends short-term euphoria with long-term regret, a product that leads to painful and even addictive behavior among a significant minority.”
And I’d argue – based on my own experience above – that the average user’s experience of Instagram is more damaging than having a couple of beers at dinner with friends. Harmlessly scrolling through photos of expensive meals, tropical trips, parties and life achievements does its own form of subtle, subconscious damage which, built up over time, manifests as much more serious dissatisfaction with our lives.
I wrote a while ago about the formula Happiness = Reality – Expectations, which I found via Tim Urban in Wait But Why. In the context of Instagram, it seems fundamentally important. What is Instagram if not a place for us all to outrageously inflate our expectations of what our lives should look like? To see athletes and models with beautiful bodies we’ll never have. To see our peers able to afford trips we couldn’t imagine taking. To see others hitting milestones that seem so far away for the rest of us. To see meals that look nothing like the bland chicken and broccoli we eat most nights!
Tim Urban articulates this well:
“Social media creates a world for Lucy where A) what everyone else is doing is very out in the open, B) most people present an inflated version of their own existence, and C) the people who chime in the most about their careers are usually those whose careers (or relationships) are going the best, while struggling people tend not to broadcast their situation. This leaves Lucy feeling, incorrectly, like everyone else is doing really well, only adding to her misery.”
The most common justification for using the platform – and one I’ve made myself – is that it helps you stay connected to your friends. There’s this concept that being away from Instagram would be like stepping away from your social life, a belief that has gained traction during a pandemic when we’ve all seen each other much less than normal. And I understand that.
Another justification – that I’ve also made – is that your Instagram use is different. That other people you follow post garishly obnoxious photos, but that you simply share fun moments with friends. And I understand that position as well.
But I don’t think we do enough to challenge these beliefs. Being away from Instagram shouldn’t hurt your friendships, and I don’t believe that it does at all. The minute you drop away from the platform, people adjust quickly. So you no longer share an update of your plans each weekend – either way, if those friends were invited they’d know about it! And maybe it’s unnecessary for them to know if they weren’t.
As for our individual Instagram behavior? I think it’s worth questioning the intention of everything you post on the app. When I’ve gone back and done so myself, it’s been a bit disconcerting. A picture from a trip to Brazil? What does that do but send the message that I travel to cool places? My engagement to Anne? Everyone in our lives found out the old-fashioned way, so what does that do but say “FYI – I’m engaged to a beautiful woman!” As a piece in The Guardian put it: “Almost every user adds fuel to the flames. Even as we’re being made miserable by the unreal lives that we follow, we share an unreal version of our own lives.”
On top of it all is what life without Instagram can be. Imagine a long car ride without mindless scrolling. Or seeing the Eiffel Tower without posting a photo. Imagine the world’s most delicious, frisbee-sized chicken parm that only you know you’ve eaten. Maybe those experiences could have more meaning if they’re lived, instead of documented.
So what can be done about this? Let me suggest one option, tailor made for today’s Instagram: The viral activism post. Here’s one I made in a few minutes, on Canva, whose templates include “Coronavirus Post,” “Black Lives Matter Post,” “Climate Action Post,” and “Instagram Ad,” in case you thought all this hadn’t been commercialized:
Maybe it’s a bit too cutesy, but I think the message is pretty straightforward. Talk about a final act of performative justice! Imagine the social currency you’d gain by leaving the world’s hottest social media network in such a brazen, cutting edge way. Worth thinking about.
Like I said at the beginning of this whole thing, my purpose isn’t to shame. My choices won’t work for everyone, and that’s okay. But I’d love to hear what you think about this.
Am I onto something here, or I am way off base?
Let me know.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading:
A Day of Grief and Human Glory – Peggy Noonan, WSJ
“We experienced 9/11 as a spiritual event. We saw an old-fashioned kind of masculinity come back. We looked for meaning. We grieved the firemen. Three hundred forty three of them entered history that day when they went up the stairs in their 70 pounds of gear, and tried to impose order on chaos… So many of them, as you can hear in their last phone calls, and in their faces in recent documentaries, understood they were on a suicide mission. But they stayed and wouldn’t leave. Because they were firemen.”
Life Happens in Public. Get Used to It – Ryan Holiday
“There is no change, no attempt, no reach that does not look strange to someone. There’s almost no accomplishment that is possible without calling some attention on yourself. To gamble on yourself is to risk failure. To do it in public is to risk humiliation. Anyone who tries to leave their comfort zone has to know that. Yet we’d almost rather die than be uncomfortable.”
What I’m Listening To:
How to Use Spirituality to Achieve Your Highest Purpose – The School of Greatness Podcast
“Humans have the ability to imagine a future that doesn’t exist and create it.”
Dorie Clark on Playing the Long Game in Life and Business – Elevate Podcast with Robert Glazer