Deleting my Instagram account

I just finished watching the live stream episode of Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. Elon briefly discussed his thoughts on social media and how he deleted his Instagram account. I have also been evaluating my use of social media and how it affects my thinking.

A couple of weeks ago, I deleted the Instagram app. I tend not to have social media apps on my phone but the Instagram mobile web version is limited so I usually kept it around. I realised I would spend a lot of time on it, just aimlessly scrolling through photos and accounts -- the typical issues.

The problem with deleting the app is you're just going to download it again. When I wanted to upload a photo, I'd download the app, see all the people I follow and get hooked again. So I deleted my account. If I want to share photos now, I'll just send them direct to people, or post them on my blog. You quickly realise you're not missing much anyway.

I think the issue with social media is the input side of it. I actually quite like sharing what I'm doing with family and friends. However, all this seeing what other people are doing or acting like, I think it messes with your mind. You start thinking "should I be doing this too?" or "I wish my life was like that".

I've also unfollowed everyone on Twitter. I only followed a few people but it was a similar issue. My reasoning for not deleting Twitter is I think it helps my business and projects moving forwards.

It's easy enough to check up on my favourite online people. Anyone who I was previously following and don't remember to occasionally check up on couldn't have been important to me.

I realise this idea breaks social media -- if everyone was outputting and not taking in input, the sites would fall apart. However, people have different experiences so these things will continue. Personally, I've not found any issues with this method.

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