I do not have Instagram. I do not have Snapchat. I do not have TikTok. I do not have BeReal. My friend Randi and I deleted our Instagram accounts last September. After one year without it, I’ve done a lot of reflection, and I’ve come to a few conclusions about social media.
My confidence stabilized massively in the last year. Maybe this would have happened if I still had Instagram; maybe it wouldn’t have. What I do know, though, is I am comparing myself to random people far less. I still have Facebook, and when I am on Facebook more, I find myself comparing more. My confidence falls, and I feel like I am not enough.
My friendships have not faltered. The closest people in my life did not like me less or treat me differently because I was not on their feed. True friendship goes far beyond the bounds of a like or a username. If anything, I feel more intentionally connected to my friends because I do not perceive my friendships through the filter of how often they post photos with me.
My perspective on pride has changed. I still think about myself too often—I guess we all do. However, I do firmly believe social media’s roots are in pride. We always want to be perceived, and we always want to control how we are perceived. Social media magnifies and realizes our desire for perception and turns it into an addiction. When I had Instagram, I found myself constantly checking who had liked my posts or stories or who had commented on my posts. I wanted to be cool and effortless and kind and beautiful and intelligent and…everything positive. My mental “perfection checklist” scanned every photo I took simply for its value to my Instagram.
I am significantly more productive than I was when I had Instagram. It is dangerously easy to spend hours on it. That’s the whole point, the whole reason for the app’s success. Instagram was only an obstacle to my homework, and amidst our busy lives, the last thing we need is a new distraction to evade.
I could explain more benefits to deleting social media, too: increased attention span, less political stress, etc. You get the point. I could go on and on, but my point here is that to delete social media is to regain many helpful facets of our lives. I have grown exponentially without the weight of it on my life.
Maybe I sound like a broken record. We young people have been fed so many statistics about the mental damages of social media in the last few years– we’ve practically become immune to every warning we see. I get it. Maybe I am being annoying. After seeing my personal transformation, though, I truly believe that social media has a net negative impact on each of us. There are benefits, but there are more harms—far more. You do not have to delete your social media to be a good person. But I plead that you consider—really consider—why you post what you do, when you do. Is your social media account making you into the best version of yourself?
