It’s not like we had some big drama. A freeze-out. A blow-up. I just got tired of the way it was always nagging me. Making annoying little suggestions. Interrupting me at dinner. Insisting that I see this, buy that, think about things this way.
I deleted the Instagram app from my phone on Mother’s Day, my annual reminder to be a better person. I talk a lot about the evils of social media with my tweens, who know very well that we won’t even discuss iPhones until they turn sixteen.
And yet here I was, Insta-curious at all hours. I’d be ogling a stranger’s breakfast in Sri Lanka instead of helping my daughter with compound fractions. At some point, she would surely start to rage about this, so I figured I’d get ahead of it.
Aren’t we always seeking growth and improvement—a life that’s more joyful and meaningful, less stressful and toxic? A lot of people argue that Instagram is, on balance, pleasurable and even essential. It’s a way to keep up with loved ones, engage with politics, follow the news, discover long-forgotten interior designers, and spread the word about emerging novelists.
But it’s also a horror show where stage moms present their daughters to pedophiles, pornography is marketed to children, and misinformation is treated as gospel. I’m convinced that, if asked, “Does Instagram make the world a better place?” Many of us would have a similar answer. It’s not just the envy it engenders, or the brain rot or the vanity or the materialism or the self-loathing, but also its tendency to numb the mind and deaden the senses. Spend your life scrolling, but there’s always more to see. It’s an interminable to-do list, delivering the dopamine but rarely satisfying and for me, almost never fulfilling.
My friend Rob, a freelance graphic designer, thinks I’m crazy. He describes his account as a “fountain of inspiration” where he connects with new friends, clients, and occasionally, future girlfriends. “It’s all upside,” he tells me. “You just need to curate your follows.”
I was surprised by how easy Instagram was to divorce, and I say this as someone with a borderline addictive personality who’s incapable of stopping at one episode of Slow Horses, two laps around the Central Park Reservoir, or anything less than an entire sleeve of Thin Mints.
The strangest thing happened: Not once have I been tempted to check my account. When I logged into Facebook Marketplace to sell a sofa and accidentally saw that I had 153 missed notifications on Instagram, something in my intestines liquified. It’s like my body knows what’s bad for me. Meanwhile, people I met once at a party are attending Oasis concerts, sharing Bill Maher monologues, and clinking Aperol spritzes at Le Sirenuse, and I have no idea or FOMO, which is its own vacation.
But how do you keep up with everyone? You might wonder. This may be shocking, but I call them. I used to think I was still close to my best friend who lives halfway across the globe because she was sharing snapshots of her life 50 times a week. But all those Stories were just the highlights. After a few long conversations—the kind we used to have in the days of landlines—I learned she had thyroid issues and an emerging passion for Shaboozey.
Post-Instagram, my relationship with my fellow man is so much more connected. Especially the friends I muted for their relentless self-promotion. Not like I can blame them. For many careers, especially entrepreneurial ones, it’s probably foolish to neglect the two billion Instagram users around the world.
And yet. When given the choice and the tools, very few of us reveal our unvarnished, complete selves, which explains why so many Instagram accounts are cringe, mine included. I travel a lot for work, and while I was aware that spamming my followers with obnoxious content from a tennis tournament at the Hotel du Cap, a reporting trip to the Norwegian fjords, and endless links to my stories about them in Air MaiL, I was so excited. And also so insufferable. At cocktail parties, someone would usually sniff, “You’ve certainly been getting around.” And, “Who looks after your children when you’re always traveling?,” implying parental neglect.
After a few months in the wild, I’m convinced that being off Instagram is its own flex. The app was bad enough when it was mostly a place to spy on your high school boyfriend and shop Lululemon dupes. Now, it’s become the entire raison d’être for Lauren Sánchez Bezos and her imitators. It’s made the southern coasts of Italy and France completely unbearable from May to October. It’s turned so much of Paris—from the Café de Flore to the Louvre—into a backdrop.
Oh, sure. I’ve missed a few things. Most recently, my friends were concerned that I was not au courant on the Coldplay canoodlers. But when stories trend on Instagram, they always end up in the newspapers—in this case, absolutely everywhere.
But what scares me most is how little Instagram ultimately mattered to me. I’m trying, I’m really trying, but I can’t recall a single DM or posting spree or conversation there that really left a mark. It was just a way to pass the time.
In October, Instagram will celebrate its 15th birthday, and over all those years of my scrolling, the only people who really benefitted were Mark Zuckerberg and the shareholders of Meta. My usage was tracked and monetized to the millisecond. I only wish I knew what it really cost.
Ashley Baker is the Executive Editor at Air Mail Look
