Opinion My Instagram detox: Turns out social media isn’t all bad

Online friendships to communities, a huge part of my identity is linked to the many internet spaces I inhabit.

And here is the bigger realisation: A huge part of how I viewed myself and wanted to be perceived was linked to my digital identity on the many internet spaces I inhabited. I simply could not cut off Instagram.

Vidhatri Rao

New DelhiJanuary 20, 2024 10:43 PM IST First published on: Jan 20, 2024 at 05:38 PM IST

As far as New Year resolutions go, I had a fairly simple one: Staying away from Instagram for a month. The decision was taken after reflecting on 2023, which I concluded was a year of information fatigue and passivity at a personal level. The books remained half-read; the long overdue text to friends and family forgotten; movies replaced with reality shows, which were at best background viewing while doing other things.

On most nights last year, I would be “doom scrolling”, putting away things I had planned to do, consuming and consuming news on war, death, moral depravity, interspersed with endless food and pop culture content (who does not like paparazzi videos), most of them reels or shorts, often not getting through the 60-second mark as well, and certainly not giving any of this the attention it deserved. It would suddenly be 4 am. I would have to be at work in less than seven hours. I would feel bad, telling myself the next day would be different. But, of course, it would be the same.

After three days of strictly keeping away from Instagram, which my phone tells me was 2hrs 45 mins of my time every day, I opened the app on my laptop, allowing myself a small concession: 20 mins at night. I had to get a sense of what was happening. And here is the bigger realisation: A huge part of how I viewed myself and wanted to be perceived was linked to my digital identity on the many internet spaces I inhabited. I simply could not cut off Instagram.

So, here is what I miss about not having the app on my phone:

Daily expression of creativity — A lot has been written, said, and discussed about the Instagram algorithm, which is meant to keep you hooked. The ads keep flooding, the brands keep popping, and Mark Zuckerberg keeps getting rich in his many houses in sunny and dreamy California. But with Tik Tok going away, one of the platforms that has been able to let common Indians express themselves has been Instagram. People shoot on their phones, give professional editors a run for their money, and tell a compelling story in less than a minute. It is a good reminder of the creativity out there in this country and what democratisation of the craft of making art can do, irrespective of all the problems associated with the social media giants and their practices.

Internet friendships and community — The truth about modern friendship is that we either make friends online or keep up the existing ones by sending each other memes. A Pew Research Centre report from 2015 said that 57% of American teens aged 13 to 17 have made a new friend online; 29% of them made five new friends through online venues. This number could be extrapolated to India too. There are countless friends I have made online from different parts of the world who have similar interests. And most I have not met. However, they are a big part of my life. As for old friends from school and college who have moved away to different cities, and are living lives completely different than yours, a reply to a story, a meme saying it reminds you of them is all it takes to keep the friendship afloat.

Information and more information — Who does not like to stay updated, especially when information is currency?

Also read | Here’s how you can successfully take a social media break

Professional push — The news business has become primarily digital-oriented. Views matter most and journalists are seeking to become brands themselves. In this landscape, it has almost become an unspoken practice to push for personal work on all social media platforms. Getting validation from peers and readers is important — and often needs one to put themselves out there.

The performance of being online – The version one presents online is often very different from reality. It is curated, it is deliberate, it is thought through but made to appear seamless. This is not unlike the veneer we have when we are at a large work event. We want to put out what we think is our best version, some slip ups notwithstanding. And the sense of perception that this performance generates, again among friends and colleagues and family, can be helpful to how we want to be viewed. I would be lying if I said there was no fun in this performance and lying even more if I said I was not obsessively checking the number of likes on my pictures or the views of my stories.

vidhatri.rao@indianexpress.com