leaving instagram

Instagram never cared much about what my friends were posting until I stopped using Instagram. 

A large part of my decision to take a break from both Instagram and Facebook was specifically because I wasn’t seeing posts from my friends and family anymore. Just before I checked out from both social media giants, I did a few counts of exactly how many posts in my feeds were from people I actually knew: on average, out of the first 30 posts, there were only two, three at most. The rest were advertisements, suggested strangers, gag reels, and random politics. I found myself scrolling through a lot of unrelated and unwanted content longing for something from the people I know and love. 

Social media built its success on fanning our smoldering FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), drawing us back time and again, over and over to ease our worries that we might miss something amazing our friends would do, or a flash mob, or news that might make us angry or elated enough to comment. But more recently and just as robustly, Instagram kept introducing more and more sponsored content, inadvertently creating (at least for me) a different kind of FOMO that it didn’t intend and couldn’t fulfill. The flood of aggressive advertising was making me miss the people I came there for in the first place, the very thing its new algorithm and business model were no longer built to feature — and the very thing that could have made me stick around (and at least be counted as an impression for those advertisers). It made me detach from Instagram for failing me — and, oddly enough, even for failing its sponsors.

Ironically, less than a month after I stopped visiting them, Instagram and Facebook launched very intentional FOMO campaigns directly at me. I started getting app notices like “Anne commented on Tosha’s post that you haven’t seen.” “Giuseppe posted a story that’s about to expire.” “Revisit a memory with Cynthia.” “Dionne liked Kevin’s video that you missed.” “Duane is live, now.” If they had cared that much about my friends to begin with, I might never have left. They were now using the very content I had been missing to try to lure me back: teasers about what my family and friends were doing without me. It has been an intentional — and very aggressive — departure from the algorithms that drove me away. Otherwise, they’d be sending me notices like, “an amazing kitchen gadget solved the problem of those pesky spatulas … and you missed it!”

Granted, I brought this upon myself. I dove wholeheartedly into social media when it arrived in the mid-noughties, first because I needed to know the platforms well for my job in communication, and then because I was able to follow my own family and friends on a daily basis. I broadened and reconnected with old schoolmates and work friends. Then I discovered that I could explore any number of interests from around the world. For instance, I began to follow the presepi crafters in Italy (presepi are those traditional Italian nativity scenes), an interest I couldn’t have pursued otherwise, and as an added benefit, I also could practice reading and writing in Italian. Those connections led to Italian antique dealers (which led to a lot of new gay Italian acquaintances), and artists and art historians across Europe and here in the United States. I also started following my other heroes (writers, musicians, chefs, human rights champions, and more) as if we were chums, and then press sources, cultural organizations, you name it. Connections grew exponentially during the pandemic and by 2021 I had over 2,000 “friends” across Instagram and Facebook. I wished everyone a happy birthday faithfully. I compulsively made humorous comments on a lot of posts (much like in real life), and offered condolences on every passing. I posted my own travels, holiday decorations, and food adventures, humorous posts of my own, and more political commentary as politics turned sour. And of course dachshund videos, and a lot of other people’s content, more clever or informed than my own.

Slowly, over time, the scrolling got longer and my attention got more scattered, until that day I counted only two posts out of 30 that actually meant something to me. Stopping was easy. Using my time for something more productive was harder than I had imagined. I could fill several related essays with the melancholy that set in from the combination of the current state of the world and how intertwined with social media my high-extrovert need for connection had become. But, over the five months without social media, I did manage to read one book and start another. I wrote and drew a little. Bob and I took a road trip. I ate my dinner without posting it. My siblings keep a family text chain going on our phones, so I have kept up with family news there. But I haven’t figured out how to keep up with friends. FOMO is real, I just need to sort out what I really miss and really need.

One interesting thing is that, over those five months, out of all those thousands of people I followed, only three even noticed I was gone. (Or at least that’s all who checked in to see if I was okay.) Which makes me wonder if, while Facebook and Instagram were serving me advertisements and recommendations, how many people did I not notice disappearing. How many friends slipped out of the party while I was dancing with strangers? Looking back, I know I must have missed a few. I also know that friends who actually announced that they were leaving social media got a round of well wishes and heartfelt concern for how the rest of us will keep up with them. And then I didn’t. I went back to scrolling, and I assume that the folks who didn’t notice when I slipped out did the same. But I learned that FOMO has a sister FONBM: fear of not being missed.

A friend recently showed me on her Facebook app that there’s now a little “Friends” button that clears out all the advertising. Good step in the right direction, Facebook. I hadn’t seen this development because I’ve honestly not been back even for a glimpse, afraid to get sucked back in at the same intensity as before. (Would that be FOGSBI?) My winter break project might be to purge my Instagram and Facebook friends lists to the essentials, just real life friends, family, and work-related accounts, so that I’ll waste less time and stay connected and informed. We’ll see. Or maybe I’ll read another book.