Uninstalling Instagram off my phone over a year ago, I realized, has triggered a sense of indifference in my share of newsfeed-dom.
While I've found that it's quite common to feel like your existence, along with its opinions, actions, and otherwise interesting observations, no longer matter once you leave college, somehow you find other mediums that you will settle with to feel like you matter in some way.
For us, it was Instagram.
Feel connected, and share your life while you're at it!
But I found myself unable to share my life with the knowledge that the number of "likes" determines how much they agree to your level of coolness. Your acceptance relies on a number. I never got to the point where I had a lot of followers to feel like the number mattered, but I still felt this pressure to be liked in some way. So I stopped posting. And then eventually, when I realized how obsessed I was looking at other people's desirable lives (people I didn't even know!), I took it off my phone, along with the involuntary distraction it provided against focusing on school.
I never intended to get off of Facebook, but a few months ago, I had a scare. A scare that literally gave me so many nightmares in a row that I had to get rid of it about a month ago (I will come back to explain this after I graduate). Even though I do catch myself mindlessly typing in "F-A-C-E," I otherwise don't miss it very much. It did nothing for me except give me something to scroll through (and none of it was interesting anyway. Although, my plan is to get back on it after some time).
Then I silenced my phone. I initiated this because I realized that in therapy, my clients could hear my phone vibrate within my bag, within my drawer. I didn't like this. So I silenced it, and never changed it. In doing so, it helped me realize that almost none of the texts I receive are important enough to need to check my phone immediately.
All this to say that I kind of feel humbled by how unimportant I realized I am. That my lack of social media presence, my lack of phone presence... none of it really impacted anyone. And it's rather peaceful that I can post to mediums where I don't exactly know who is looking (ie. this blog, vsco).
