I took a week's break from Instagram ... and here's what happened

 

I survived !

 

Honestly speaking, one week away from Instagram doesn’t sound like a big deal in the bigger scheme of things – but considering how big Instagram is part of my life – it really felt like a long time when I decided to go off the radar.

So what transpired this? Nothing major happened that made me take an Instagram break. It was a cumulative aggregation of observations I had been making and the realization of all of it, just made me do it. I just have been feeling very overwhelmed lately with how Instagram has been taking over my life.  I realize how Instagram consumes the day, the mindless scrolling, opening the app first thing in the morning, sitting in the parking lot for a few extra minutes casually checking the feed, spending too much time thinking about the caption for a post, worrying about how a recently posted is going to perform, obsessively refreshing the post to see if it is garnering engagement … we’ve all been there.

I just had to take a break.

I won’t lie – I very much feel the pressure of posting consistently on the blog and Instagram. There are times when I worry more about how the post will perform when I should I be worrying about creating content that makes me happy to create and share. Sometimes a break helps reset the perspective.

Let me share what I thought of this one week detox from Instagram :

• Starting the day right: I mean not waking up and instantly reaching for the phone to check Instagram – now that feels good. I tried to think what I did pre Instagram-age when I woke up. I had a nice morning routine ( which I will share in another post ) and I was skipping that getting into the vortex of scrolling and then scrolling some more. The tone for a successful day cannot be set by looking at curated images of what others are doing. If there’s one important thing I learnt from staying off the gram – I’ll say it has to be the rule I set for myself about morning usage of the app. I’ll get to that in-depth later.
• Disconnect to Connect  : I know “be present” is a term that gets casually thrown around a lot these day but not trying to document every moment was so refreshing. We went to my favorite cafe and I think for the first time I dint have the urge to share the beautiful coffee or a moment from our evening out. I wasn’t thinking about editing the picture to match my feed or the caption to go with it.
• Time Management: It have me an opportunity to reflect on where my time was seeping through the cracks which further helped me strategize my time planning for the day. No earth shattering realizations but definitely some small wins. Complaining about there not being enough time in the day is obvious if you are easily distracted to check the phone constantly. That realization was huge.

I won’t lie – I very much feel the pressure of posting consistently on the blog and Instagram. I also love engaging with the community, returning the love, answering DMs, responding to comments.  When you’ve put your heart and soul ( and so much more) into building something – stepping away from it for a bit is hard. There’s a myriad of emotions –  being away from the work you do is so addictive that it pains taking a break, fear of how that will impact the work you are doing, will it lead your community to care less about you, will out of sight lead to out of mind?

But sometimes you just need to step back and reconnect with other thing. Sometimes you have other things happening in your life that take a front seat. And sometimes – you just have to take a break. Not for any specific reason. Just for yourself.

It was liberating. It was refreshing.  It also helped put things in perspective – you can really live without checking the app constantly, you don’t have to document every moment of your life and the biggest most ground breaking one  – there is no such thing as FOMO related to curated images of people on the gram – unless it is something or someone who you really care about. All else can wait and will be right there when you log back in.

Have you done an Instagram detox? Do you contemplate doing one? What are your thoughts on the obsessive use of social media? I have to know your thoughts. Lets have that conversation – xo Neha