For the last 10 years, my life has been dominated by social media. Every day I’d scroll through the apps as soon as I woke up, right before I went to sleep, and just about every other moment in between. However, one day I realized that I was wasting my precious time and destroying my mental health, which is why I deleted Instagram once and for all. I immediately felt 10 times better, even after I redownloaded it five minutes later.
Who knew it could all be so simple?
In those five minutes I spent totally disconnected from the metaverse, I felt spiritually aligned for the first time in my adult life: all my traumas were healed, I understood that my parents did the best they could with what they had, I no longer felt embarrassed by that dumb thing I said seven years ago, and all of my anxieties and mental health issues melted away — I even stopped taking my medications! Even though I’m back on Instagram again and have made 25 posts today alone, the experience of being off the grid for five long minutes will stick with me forever.
When I told my friends about my social-media-free epiphany, which I did relentlessly, they were surprisingly unimpressed. When I said to one of my friends, Tabitha, that I see life differently after deleting Instagram before I went on a very short walk and then downloaded it again because I got bored, she told me that I’m “still engaging with the platform” and that I’m “actually on it even more” than I was before. But, it’s like, obviously I had to catch up on everything I missed during that boring, unstimulating walk I just took, and then I also had to create even more content to keep up with the algorithm.
I guess that’s just how brainwashed you get as someone who’s glued to their phone all the time. Maybe one day she’ll delete Instagram for five minutes too, and she’ll understand that taking a meditative break from the app simply makes you a different, and much better, person.
I also received several messages from my followers when I made a 10-page story post about what I learned during my time away from Instagram. People DM’d things like, “I didn’t even know you took a break?” and “Didn’t you just post a story poll about what you should wear on your walk this morning?” and “You were just live-tweeting the walk you went on.” Even though I was trying to enlighten others who are still addicted to the anxieties and dopamine rushes of social media, I guess people just aren’t willing to listen. Their loss, I guess.
Because of my new lease on life, I’ve realized that the best way I can inform people about the mental and spiritual benefits of disconnecting from Instagram is to become a wellness influencer. Wish me luck!
