I used to love instagram. I loved posting up pictures of my little adventures and connecting with loads of random people I never would have met if it hadn't been for instagram. I've been exposed to all sorts of life-changing things like sustainability, van life, wild camping, digital nomadry, psychology etc which were not easily accessible concepts before social media/the internet - I'm old enough to remember life before the internet when the library's outdated book selection was as good as my access to information got. Social media and the internet have definitely enriched my life, so I do think it's unfair to demonise social media and blame it for our problems and accuse it of giving us burnout because of how we choose to use it.
I'm not a big social media person generally. I don't have facebook, I have a twitter I only ever use for contacting customer service when companies don't have live chat because I hate phones. I don't do snapchat, I don't do tiktok, or tumblr or quora or reddit. I neither have nor want linkedin - I don't care how 'useful' people think it is, to me it's just one more bloody unnecessary thing I have to update.
Although I'm not a big social media person, signed up to instagram and pinterest the minute they came out because I'm a visual person. I don't need a massive following to feel fulfilled or validated. However, I'm becoming increasingly tired of the relentless advertising on Instagram, which is preventing me from seeing the accounts I actually follow, and frequently consider leaving it, but stay because of the friends I have made on there over the years
As a rebel/questioner, I find it really off-putting that I have to follow a bizarre set of 'rules' and have a posting schedule just to be involved. It degrades the quality of stuff I put out if I'm throwing up anything simply to meet a posting schedule to be accepted by an algorithm that isn't even human yet appears to have opinions on which humans are more valid than others. I also hated feeling like I have to act like a brand in order to use social media - it's so dehumanising!
As a branding focussed graphic designer I know better than most what branding is, and in design and marketing terms it's the face and voice of your company: a set of parameters and guidelines under which a team of people generate content that sounds and looks consistent to make the brand feel like one unified entity in order to gain the trust and loyalty (and ultimately ££££) of customers. Most users of instagram already have their own face and voice and are just one little fish with no ultimate goal other than to connect with other little fishes.
As I am building Tashlentine, I am seeing the usefulness in having a brand on social media in order to keep my 'voice' consistent and it actually helps me to decide what kinds of content I create and share, but generally speaking I absolutely detest the way social media has trained us to squish our lives into little boxes and compartmentalize ourselves into hashtags and schedules and niches is very limiting. We are multifaceted human beings who grow and develop and change. We should not minimize ourselves to fulfill the needs of a mathematical equation. Equations need to smarten up and expand to fulfill our needs.
Most of all I hate that the platform that was created to unite creative people has made it so that people can't create just for the fun of it any more. Creativity does not thrive under restrictions like this, it strangles it, and makes people turn away.
I had a long break from Instagram over COVID. I realized I didn't just not post because I hadn't been anywhere to post about, but because I didn't have anything that fit my Instagram 'vibe.' That's not how conversations work in my book. To me, social media is a conversation you visually throw out there, and people choose to join in or not. People go to social media to have a community. If they want to go shopping, they'll go to Pinterest.
So, I spent this weekend unpacking my discontent, getting to the heart of my beef with Instagram, and figuring out what I actually want from it and how to make it work for me instead of me catering to it. I'm having a much-needed social media detox. However, when I say 'detox,' I mean something different to most people.
I see a lot of people saying they're taking a break from social media for a detox because for whatever reason they're feeling a bit under/overwhelmed by it. The thing I don't see anyone talking about or doing, when they make their comeback, is fixing what caused the under/overwhelm in the first place. The term 'detox' is fine, but people using it seem to forget what it means - or focus on only one definition of it anyway: abstinence.
Abstinence does not make the heart grow fonder guys. The amount of time you spend on social media is only part of the problem. I don't believe you need to get away from something to feel better about it. I think if something makes you feel shitty enough to make you leave in the first place then that's a pretty strong sign that something is broken and needs sorting. If it was working fine you wouldn't feel the need to leave. Abstinence does not make the heart grow fonder; setting boundaries, removing things that are causing the overwhelm and replacing them with better things is a much more effective solution
Aside from the pesky ads (and don't even get me started on and the explore page), you have full control over who you follow, how and when you use it. We are in the drivers seat here, but we've have been so conditioned by self-proclaimed 'experts' who ram down our throats how we 'should' use it that we seem to have forgotten that we actually have a say too. When was the last time we even stopped and asked ourselves how we want to use it?.
I spent the weekend hitting unfollow on hundreds of accounts. I realized I spent more time moaning about Instagram than I did enjoying it. Is that Instagram's fault? No. It's mine. In a society where it's increasingly popular to play the blame game rather than take responsibility for our own actions and acknowledge the roles we play in situations, it's important that we grow up and do take the necessary steps to be responsible for our own happiness. I followed accounts that weren't aligned with my values or interests, and some positivity accounts actually gave me negative vibes. I also felt guilty about unfollowing people I knew in person. However, I had to remind myself that it's okay to follow only what I want to spend my time looking at. I need to train myself not to go on the comments sections or the explore page because the content there is not what I want to spend my time looking at.
I'm part Serb and part Scot (among other things) I have quite a short fuse. But isn't it a stupid thing to sit scrolling through your phone getting mad at the wankers in the comments section you don't have to read of an account you really don't care about and don't have to follow, when you could be doing better things? When you could be filling your cup with things that light you up, inspire and expand you? And usually these things reside outside of a screen.
And it's amazing some of the bizarre people-pleasing emotions we get caught up in when it comes to 'taking out the trash' and decluttering our lives.
It's taken me a long time to learn that I should care about maintaining my own equilibrium far more than I do about maintaining other people's feelings. That's not my job. It's their job to manage their emotions. Therefore, I've trimmed my follower count down from almost 600 to about 300, and I'm still going. I took my time with each account to see how I feel about the content. I set timers on my phone that boot me off once I hit my allocated time limit, and all notifications are on mute.
I still have some slight nerves about posting different stuff in the future - things that are aligned with my journey now and my values. Being a people-pleaser has been ingrained into me my entire life so my brain goes straight to 'But what if nobody likes what I have to say now? What if they unfollow?'. This has to very firmly be mentally tippexed out of my brain and replaced with 'so what if they unfollow? Isn't it more important to have and use your voice and attract the people who want to follow than purely appease the people who follow you right now?, than to be silent, in case what you say doesn't interest the people around you right now? The right people will come' At Speakers Corner crowds move on and the speaker doesn't have an emotional breakdown over it.
So, snip away my friends! Give your social media a trim. Go on someone's account, pick 3 posts at random, and see how they make you feel. Listen to your gut, your heart, your soul. Make a note of what drains you and unfollow it, and what lights you up. Find more of what lights you up. Follow and unfollow with awareness. And if you follow me and my stuff doesn't fill your cup, then by all means, hit unfollow as fast as you possibly can. I'm here cheering you on from the sidelines for doing what's right for you!
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