For five days, I deleted Instagram off of my phone and recorded any noticeable changes throughout my day. 

Before discussing this experiment, I feel it’s important to mention the fact that this is not my first time taking a hiatus from social media. Back in 2020, I deleted Instagram for three months in an attempt to heal my relationship with social media as I encountered some mental health struggles, and the results from doing this were extremely beneficial in the end.

Additionally, at the beginning of 2022, I deleted Snapchat for three months. This was, again, an attempt to remedy some hardships I was experiencing that were amplified by my use of social media. Both times, I believe it was necessary for me to take these actions, and I recommend this to anyone who is considering a break from online interaction. All of this is to say that I’m no stranger to cutting on my connection from certain platforms. Truthfully, I would have loved to instead try a break from TikTok this week. However, my job is to create and post TikToks for a relatively large company, so this wasn’t a possibility. 

Throughout the past five days, I noticed many of the same repeated occurrences everyday, the most significant one being my habit of overcompensating by using other social media apps for longer than I normally would. Specifically, of course, TikTok. While it is my job, I definitely use it more than I would like to. I set limits for my social media app use – collectively, I can only use Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok for 2 hours everyday. At least one day this week, I still hit my limit on this without using Instagram.

I also noticed that when I’m in a public setting, like waiting in line, waiting for class to start, etc, I would try to click open Instagram because, unlike TikTok, it doesn’t make sound when you open the app. Because of this I’d find myself checking my email more or opening Twitter and Snapchat. There were also a few times where I needed to look something up on Instagram that I couldn’t, such as someone’s name, an account I was interested in following, pictures from my aunt’s wedding, and the new product launch for the company I work for. 

My main takeaway from this detox project is that Instagram is less of an addiction problem for me personally, and more of something to stare at during the quiet moments of the day. My problem with social media addiction lies more in TikTok, which was made even more apparent with the lack of my Instagram access. 

However, for many, Instagram is a significant factor in social media addiction, which is a real problem that many people deal with in our digital world. One study revealed that “there is a significant negative relationship between self-control and social media addiction (Instagram)” (Purba et al., 2019). 

Another study, dealing with the relationship between social media addiction, self-esteem, procrastination, and academic performance, found that “once self-esteem decreases, Instagram addiction and procrastination increase” (Pekpazar, 2021). This study demonstrated that social media addiction positively affects procrastination, which then has an adverse effect on academic performance and therefore self-esteem. The overall takeaway is that in general, social media, in this case – Instagram, has negative implications in an educational context. This is not surprising given the nature of the digital society we live in. This study also points out that “limiting, controlling, or prohibiting the use of social media is not an efficient solution” and that social media literacy awareness is a better way to avoid these issues, especially for university students.

References

Hari, J. (2022). Stolen Focus. Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd.

Pekpazar, A., Kaya Aydın, G., Aydın, U., Beyhan, H., & Arı, E. (2021). Role of Instagram addiction on academic performance among Turkish University Students: Mediating Effect of Procrastination. Computers and Education Open, 2, 100049. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2021.100049

Purba, A. W. D., Istiana, & Wahyuni, N. S. (2019). The Correlation Between Self-Control and Social Media Addiction (Instagram) In SMA Harapan 1 Medan. ICONSIER 2019.