Looking Through a Screen

It’s been over a year that my Instagram has been deleted. All three accounts. One, of course, was my personal account. Then I had my art account and finally an inactive one for a group that required it. At one point, I decided to combined my art and personal account together, but ended up deleting it. However, that resulted in losing 200+ followers. I still had my inactive account. Inactive meaning, I didn’t post anything but I still went on it and had 100 or so followers. Eventually, I deleted the accounts all together. 

Why?

There was too much comparison. On my personal account I couldn’t help comparing their highlight reels of their life to mine. The art account had art peers that I followed. Their pieces would show up and I would stare at them wishing I was as talented. Finally. The inactive account. This was for a fitness group for girls. I thought it would help me but it was the wrong time. They would share their progress and all I thought about was how I wished I was as skinny as them. I joined so I would exercise more. That sounds good, right? Here’s the thing. I spent most of my day exercising. I would go to classes, do my homework and would immediately go burn off calories. I burned off more calories than I ate, of which I ate 500 calories or less a day. I was not in the right mind set to join that group or have an instagram account. 

My best friend had been trying to convince me to delete Instagram for years. He saw it was mentally draining and I was exhausted. I was so exhausted.

“Social media is a distraction to drag people into being on it a lot. How? They make people feel lonely, not as good, less than they are etc, so they keep looking to see what they should/ want to be.”

He said that the night I needed it most. I needed to talk to someone, anyone. I scrolled through my followers and realized maybe 10 of them were friends I trusted, out of 200+. Followers are not friends. That revelation resulted in a breakdown. I called him, the person I could text or FaceTime and I knew he cared. I deleted Instagram that very night. His first words? Finally! About time.

Last time I wrote about social media, I still had Facebook. Now that has also been deleted. I kept going back to Facebook and spending too much time on it. My excuse was I needed to post blog links there to get the word out. Even that didn’t seem worth it anymore. 

I do indeed have Snapchat but this I use as a messaging app and just posting whatever goofy things I want and not caring. 

Do I still wish I had Instagram and Facebook? The short answer is no. The long answer is also no. There are people I lost connect with because of it but it’s all for the better. I asked a friend recently if there was a way I could contact him. He responded with I think I follow you on Instagram. I told him I deleted it and he gave me his number. I wanted to connect with him as a friend and not a follower. My point being, stop living in the virtual world. Live life in real time. Connect with friends and not just as followers. Don’t get your life get sucked into social media like I did. We need humans, friends and really social interaction. Go start living outside the virtual world. 

Happy 2021 to you all.