I deleted Instagram
Do you know what Instagram is for? Why do you use it? Why do you unlock your phone and open it up?
What have you learned from Instagram that is worth all the screen time you give to it?
My screentime on Instagram was averaging around 1 hour per day… Check yours…
Have a look at this study from Gallup:
“Teens spends average of 4.8 hours on social media per day”
What are these teens learning? Investing 35 hours per week on this activity. What are they getting back from it?
Spend 4.8 hours per day training a sport you love… or practicing a musical instrument… or studying a subject you are keen. The result from this daily immersion is you'll get REALLY good at anything. There is no other outcome apart from you becoming better.
If you dedicate 4.8 hours a day to a craft: learning how to draw, sculpt, paint etc I bet you that after 2 weeks everyone would already be impressed by your development and skill level. (You’ll be impressed with yourself)
Spend this time in Social Media and what do you get from it? After 2 weeks of being on social media apps (for 4.8 hours a day!), what do you get from it? Time passing by? Anxiety? Comparing yourself to others? Looking at people doing more stuff than you? What is it you really learn from it? You have fun? You are kept up to date?
These were the questions I started to ask myself… what am I learning here spending 1 hour a day? What is this platform giving me that is worth 7 hours of my precious time per week?!
Sometimes I read one page of an interesting book and I retain the information. It's amazing! There are quotes I carry in my memory from books I've read years ago and I still make good use of them.
Or I still benefit from the swimming, running and football I used to do (and sometimes compete) when I was a kid and teenager. It’s a great rewarding feeling to train and realize you are improving.
I love the memories of every hour I spent with my friends, playing, competing, chatting etc. It's memorable and made me feel great.
Mobile pick up stat from the UK
Another crazy stat from a UK school (from my eldest secondary school — he is 11) is that the the average mobile pickup, from students that wanted to participate in the study, was around 180 times. You can find this inside your “Screen time” if you have iOS.
This is mine (on the left), my wife (middle… look at her using Instagram!) and my 11 years old (on the right).
I have to say that I was impressed/frustrated that mine was around 132! That’s a lot, but also quite proud that my eldest picks up “only” 33 times per day. Also, bonus point for Chess being in his top 3 🤓.
Going back to what the school discovered: Kids are picking up the mobile 180 times a day! My son is picking up his mobile 33 times (and I find it a lot already). I’m picking up mine 133 times and that is indeed a lot! Check yours and put into perspective what must be to pick up them mobile 180 times! That’s a HUGE number.
I thought about it and I didn't get anything from using Instagram. I used to see my friends, actually… years ago, I used to follow my friends and see a bit of their lives through photos.
Instagram is now bombarding me (and you) with people I’ve never seen before, with cats doing things, with parrots doing tricks, goats screaming, with snippets of stand-up comedy, people wanting attention, weird opinions from non-experts and even weirder opinions from experts… and much more… rich people travelling, girls with perfect bodies dancing, people dancing in the middle of the sidewalk, people doing stuff everywhere.
All this stuff in video format, reels, stories, photos, in search results etc. Wherever I was on Instagram, they'd feed me with content I never subscribed for. And it was/is infinite. The more time you spend, the more they’ll show you.
7 hours of my week on that. 7 hours (or more) of your week on that.
So things got weird
Things got really weird when my wife's cousin (19 years old) stayed with us for a month. She was studying fashion and there was a course here in London, where we live, that's why she stayed with us, no big deal.
She had instagram and all the other social apps. She said we could follow her on Instagram and we did. This cousin looked like a supermodel. She was beautiful and had a big following (won't share her @ for obvious reasons) but she wouldn't share much… She would post photos of her in restaurants, street, near graffiti… these things. Nothing indecent.
Because I started following her (Instagram probably didn't know she was the cousin of my wife staying in our house) and thought I was into younger girls… my instagram feed became this:
Why are there so many see thru nipples? How old are some of these girls?
Not only I learned nothing from giving 7 hours a week to Instagram, but now the algorithms think I'm into soft porn. And wait a minute… Why the heck is there soft porn with very young girls on Instagram?!?! Why would they recommend me that? Do they just recommend that to anyone?
No filter at all, from following one 19 year old (part of my family), Instagram algorithm just fed me with younger girls. Not only I am barely seeing people I follow or care about, but I discover I could easily explore a very bizarre rabbit hole with border line young girls… not because I wanted, but because it lives inside Instagram and they switched my feed for that. Completely out of my control.
So things got weird. Again
I told my friend I was deleting my Insta, explained the reasons, and they shared this story:
“You won’t believe this… I was creating a fresh, new account for my daughters (they are 12 and 14, into running and bouldering and wanted to share progress with friends). It was a supervised Instagram account, where I’d post and let them see related videos etc. I barely followed anyone and decided to explore and check what Instagram had when you searched for content. To my surprise, this is what Instagram was recommending to me”…
(again: fresh new Instagram account and this is what is recommended to a user that was posting bouldering videos with their 12 and 14 yr old daughters)
A few screenshots my friend shared with me:
What?! Why? Whaaat?
I decided to delete my Instagram and replace my screen time with reading books (which is something I already loved to do). Now I can do that even more… and it makes so much sense.
My account is still there, I’m thinking about deleting it or not (I still really like the memories I have from my photos), but maybe one day Insta go back to normal and I can use it again.
Everyone in this world has the same 24 hours in a day.
It's up to you to decide what to do in those 24 hours.
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