Deleting Instagram at the height of a Pandemic might have seemed a rash choice. It was April 2020, and I was more physically separated than my peers than ever, so why choose to remove one of the valuable mediums of keeping in touch with them? The truth was: I hated Instagram. More specifically, I hated the person it made me. Waiting for likes, for responses to my story, watching other people live their lives while I lay in bed – not fun.

It all culminated into one moment of resolve, and I deleted my account. That choice has actually been one of the best decisions I could’ve made for myself at this stage of my life. Let me tell you why.

The first real step to deleting social media is never the plan to do it. The plan is always there. The dissatisfaction of being on Instagram is palpable. It’s no secret that it can cause unhappiness with people’s lives. It is the perfectly designed dopamine rush which means it comes the equally potent pitfalls. Perhaps it is far fetched to call Instagram a form of a drug – but after deleting it, this becomes more believable.

Like shirking off any addiction, you have to go clean. Everyone can delete the Instagram app, but we both know it’ll be back in a week’s time. The true test is deleting the account. Even then, Instagram makes it deliberately difficult. If you delete your account, their policy is to keep it for 30 days. No matter what you try and do. There is no option to act rashly, to click permanently delete and lament the irreversible. Instagram calls the shots with your information. Thirty days – an entire month, to fall back in, to re-think such a foolish decision on your part.

The temptation was real. I missed my friends and making jokes with them online. Every time something funny happened, or really anything at all (it was lockdown, after all), I’d want to post it and add a witty caption. This urge is what lasted the longest. The desire to post, to take a picture, to share and wait for views. It was like the ghost of a leg that I didn’t have anymore.

It made me realize the first terrible truth. Was my desire to do things, to see people, to go to parties, partly because I could put it on Instagram to show off? Was I, in fact, partially doing things and seeing people in order to put it online? It was hard to admit to myself, but it was true. Instagram was no longer an extension of my life, but it had somehow become partially embedded in my desire to live it. These truths are difficult to come to terms with, but they are absolutely necessary, because they calcify and become one of the pillars that keep the resolve strong against those winds of weakness.

Another truth: Social Media friends are not your real life friends. This was true, at least, for me. Of course, I knew my followers in real life, they were in my wider social circle, at least. But they certainly weren’t all close friends by any means. The problem was, Instagram culture had made me feel that way. Effort and friendship is different on Instagram. It’s much easier to respond to a story than to meet someone for coffee. But when I deleted Instagram, pretty much wiped myself off the face of the (known) earth, very few of my occasional Instagram friendships reached out to ask where I’d gone or to see how I was. This is not to seem self-centered, or that I’d done it for attention, but it humbled me that my social media presence or relationship would not be missed.

I probably lost touch with more people because I deleted Instagram. People didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t know what they were doing. But this led me to another epiphany. In order to find out, we’d have to reach out and ask each other. So deleting Instagram put the effort and intentionality back into friendship.

The need to ask how people were did not come from them posting a story in Mykonos or a hospital bed, but from actively seeking them out and making that extra effort. Deleting Instagram made me realize who cared about me and who I cared about. It stripped away the convenience of friendships at our fingertips, and brought me back to friendships as something sought out, intentional, real.

So I ‘lost’ some friends and I realized not everything needed to be documented to be enjoyed, but I also learned that ignorance is indeed bliss. After deleting Instagram, I was truly out of loop. I felt like I had somehow aged 30 years. And yet, I loved not knowing because I didn’t need to know. Why did I need to see what an old classmate I hadn’t spoken to in ten years was eating for Sunday brunch, or whether or not a budding model was flying from New York or Paris? My brain was taking in all of this information that wasn’t serving me in the slightest. After a while, I begun to enjoy living the vocabulary of ‘oh, she did what?’ and ‘oh, he’s going out with who?’ Not knowing had never been such a source of comfort.

I don’t think Instagram is inherently evil. I know plenty of people who can use it as they please and it does them no harm. For the majority, however, it can be a vacuum of the over-idealized and unattainable. I used to think Instagram was what brought me and my friends together, but only in deleting it, did I realize that it actually brought an intentionality to my life that I won’t give up again.

If you have been experiencing the desire to delete it, do it. It might seem impossible at the beginning, and Instagram won’t give you an easy time of it, but it might be the one of the best things you can do for your friendships, your mental health, and your life. If you decide to delete it, and get left with the ‘what now?’ question, I’d tell you to go outside and live your life for yourself, you won’t enjoy it any less if no one else knows about it.