Comments

  1. Amy (sketchkvetch) says:

    This makes so much sense! I felt so relieved when I stopped pressuring myself to post on Instagram every day (gave up Facebook in 2016). I have muted a bunch of accounts on IG to lessen the noise, but I still feel guilty when I whiz through, liking and moving on as quickly as I can. I will definitely watch that TED talk.

    • Joana says:

      Hi Amy,

      I, too, thought maybe I should and could just keep my social media accounts going on “in the background.” This past weekend I tried limiting my IG checking to once per day at the end of the day. However, as the week resumed, I started to feel the “seduction” of the feed again (not to mention that I was dismayed to see that I had lost 7 followers by not posting for a day. Eyes rolling…)

      Watching the TED talk was just the push I needed to move forward. To be honest, aside from 4 people in Europe who I keep in touch with via FB, and the 9 or so people I tagged in my IG post today (you included!) who I keep in touch with either in person or via email, as I scrolled down the list of my “friends” across both sites I realized that the majority are people I know and have kind feelings towards but don’t really have any real relationship with. Trying to”like” all of their posts is overwhelming and leaves me feeling either cranky or guilty. And the urge to fall into comparison and judgement is very real.

      I remember watching the movie about Mark Zuckerberg and being pretty horrified (my main memory is that the original aim of the site was to compare and rate hot girls on campus.) How that took off and became what it is today is sort of mystifying. However, I think it’s the same base urge that drives us to look when we pass an accident on the road.

      I’m looking forward to deleting both my FB and IG accounts – can’t wait to get the IG app off my phone – but I feel it’s prudent to send out one more reminder before the weekend is up and I press DELETE!

      Hope you have a great weekend!
      🙂 Joana

Leave a Reply