I uninstalled Instagram on the 19 of August 2019 upon seeing that I had spent 4 hours on my phone using that app the day before. Horrifying. Youtube had to go as well, as it contributed to another 3 hours of surfing. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Some days, I feel like a warrior with laser beam focus, but for the most, my eyelids won’t stay open even if I put toothpicks between them. Either way, I have been extremely distracted, and these 2 apps were the main contributors.
It has been 3 days since, and I find myself spending my time much more efficiently. I’m sleeping earlier, more focused when I study, and I don’t spend my mornings curled in bed scrolling through stories (without my glasses even) like I used to. My goodness, I even fried sausages in the morning for my hotdog buns for lunch today.
I do catch myself occasionally tapping on the spot where those apps were. Following that, a pang of guilt that simmers through.
Instagram has been a window into my life for my family back home. My family (including my parents) follow my Instagram stories, and my brother will sometimes post on my dad’s account (lol) and it helps us feel a little bit closer. Keeping up to date with the small things like, what I had for lunch, or how they are spending their evening, it’s not life-changing information, much but it makes me feel connected. That’s what social media is isn’t it?
So deleting it feels like I’ve cut them off.
That would also explain the stronger waves of homesickness I’ve felt recently.
I also have friends who don’t have Instagram, and I feel like they don’t really know certain parts of me (through all my silly videos and stories) because they don’t follow me, and that they are missing out on getting to know me. Funnily, that’s how I feel about others now. I’m missing out on knowing not just my Adelaide friends, but those back home and across the globe as well.
I thought this was such a teeny bopper kind of issue, and I’d be way past it by now. But I never realised how integrated Instagram with my relationships with others had been with Instagram until I uninstalled it, which is why I’ve decided to document it at least once. Years down the road, I’ll look back and agree that it was indeed a teeny bopper kind of issue, and laugh and my younger self.
But that’s what journalling is, right? Writing down what was true to you at that specific point in time, knowing that you might think differently in the future yet not denying how real it was back then.
With regards to my online social life, simply put, if I had more self-discipline, I wouldn’t have to go through this. But I know the kind of person I am, and as I said before, desperate times call for desperate measures : )
Do you even dentist? 