I (Finally) Quit Instagram

Some unexpected learnings from leaving the damn app. How mimetic desire affects us online. And some gentle encouragement that you can quit, too.

I quit using Instagram about two months ago. The app has been deleted off my phone, and my feelings about it have been overwhelmingly positive. I miss it not at all. Literally, not at all! Prior to cutting the cord, I was apprehensive that I’d “miss” the people on Instagram whom I don’t know in real life; the influencers I would tune into for one reason or another.

Turns out, I genuinely don’t miss those people at all, which tells me that I was ready to disconnect from the app. Perhaps I would have had a different reaction if I had pushed the decision earlier; but, I didn’t—I was tired of it, and even more so, I was tired of talking about how much I was tired of it. I couldn’t let myself be the person who talks about how much they hate something and refuses to actually do anything about it.

This post is my satisfied testimonial for being off of social media: for those in my generation in particular, but really for anyone from any generation who wants to quit the damn app—whatever your damn app is.

(You can totally do it.)

I did expect some of the effects of leaving social media: instead of scrolling, I turn to other things (like reading); I’m on my phone less; I don’t learn about all the latest events or pet death announcements or engagements of college acquaintances. I was prepared for those changes.

What I didn’t specifically anticipate (but in retrospect was obvious) is this: I’m less influenced. I’m not on social media, thus, I’m not as influenced by ads or influencers on social media. I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming, but what a nice surprise.

Here’s a crazy news flash: being off social media means you aren’t marketed to on social media. If you’re not scrolling through ads and sponsorships for this or that program, you aren’t tempted to buy this or that program, or hop on the trend that you never would have picked up otherwise, or get the thing you don’t need but saw a celebrity get. Being off of social media makes it less likely that you’ll convince yourself you need something because you keep seeing people on Instagram who have it.

There is a term called mimetic desire, coined by French philosopher René Gerard, which basically describes the phenomenon that our desires are influenced by other people.¹ Who and what we see around us impacts what we want and don’t want. We see this reflected in our behavior as early as toddlerhood: as soon as a kid sees another kid with a different toy, they immediately want it (and usually, they want the one that the other kid has in their hand).

This is not to say that we humans are overly impressionable without the capacity for autonomous desires, but to emphasize that we are inherently social creatures: we are affected by who we see, and what we see those people doing and saying and having.

Social media amplifies the phenomenon of mimetic desire a hundredfold: all day long, we can swipe through and see other people doing and saying and having things on an app that is perfectly curated to show us more and more of what we “like”.

We are constantly being marketed to throughout our days, and are constantly exposed to and influenced by what other people are doing. Save for retreating to an isolated mountain in the Himalayas, this is an inescapable part of life. However, by removing social media—in any capacity—we remove a lot of the marketing we are exposed to.

The result?

For me, the result has been that I’m not as influenced to buy things I don’t need (specifically, health and wellness products and supplements). If I don’t see it, I’m not tempted to buy it or try it. There is plenty of inspiration in the world, and if there is anything I actually ought to try, I’ll figure it out without Instagram. At the very least, I’ve figured it out so far.

Yet another result I did not specifically anticipate is that quitting social media has led me to cut back on other forms of media; most notably, podcasts. I have opted for driving in silence or listening to music instead of taking in dozens of hours of podcasts each week. This change came as a pleasant surprise: it’s like my mind capitalized on my quitting Instagram and encouraged me to continue removing excess input.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with podcasts; however, I do know that I (and certainly others) use it in a compulsory way, without much awareness. I often catch myself lining up a long queue of shows to listen to, anxious about the silence that comes without a constant stream of input in my ear. Not defaulting to ingesting media lightens the load on my thoughts—which are not as influenced by the content of that media—and encourages me to pay attention to other aspects of the outside world. Disconnect to reconnect, as the saying goes, describing the intentional choice to disconnect from technology in order to reconnect to other parts of yourself or of life. Reconnecting has, so far, been my experience of quitting social media—and I’m prepared to keep it going.

Overall, I’m experimenting with what it’s like to not have ongoing excess media in my brain. I’m not entirely offline; I still watch TV and check my email too often and watch child adoption videos on Facebook…and that feels ok, right now. I’m happy with the results so far of decreasing my media use, and plan to continue directing my attention away from the screen.

I know that the trend of disconnecting from social media is catching steam: I am noticing more and more people, on Substack and in the outside world, intentionally logging off. I only expect this trend to increase, as the sentiment is clear: we are not prepared to let our lives—and especially our children’s lives—be captured by the screen.

So, my dear readers, if you have been waiting for a sign that you should quit the damn app or reclaim your attention and energy from the damn phone, this is it: Stop waiting and DO IT.

You’re ready to quit.

Do it now!

Happy disconnecting,

Maggie

1. Luke Burgis is an excellent resource on all things mimetic desire.