When I first got Instagram in 2019 or so (many years after other people got it), one of the first things I thought about was its audience. My impression of the Instagram audience was that they were relatively low-attention span follower types – like teenagers basically, but also like many kids in their early 20’s, who would eventually just get bored of Instagram.
I felt like I was outside of that group, and I gave it a try because I was curious.
The first few days were positive experiences. I learned that the world could feel like a much bigger place, with many more activities to try and places to see. I dived into a range of content on hobbies and other interests of mine, and there was virtually no limit as to how much I could see and hear that interested me (despite being experienced via a phone screen). I found many posts to be surprising and awe-inspiring. I found other posts to be informative, or intriguing. I found some posts to be educational.
I let my profile go public to see if it would help me get any followers, but it didn’t, and that was OK with me. Later I would set my profile to private anyhow and be completely unaware of how many followers I even have. Getting followers is not important to me – caring about how many followers is something influencers do, and I don’t consider myself to be an influencer.
Instagram became a regular indulgence for me. I would scroll the feed, read about news, see what other people are doing and be amazed by all the crazy stuff that people can do out there.
I got hooked.
I used Instagram for about 30 minutes a day.. For years.
Add that up, and we’re talking about a lot of time wasted.
We’re talking about 1000 hours here.
Had I put that time into learning programming or something, I could have finished 2-3 years of part time studies (at 300-500 hrs/year).
And I didn’t get anything back for all that time I spent. In fact, there’s something I lost.
I lost some mental health.
Every half hour that I wasted also resulted in a subsequent period of time that I would feel bored or uninterested in my surroundings. Plus, being constantly aware of all the cool things that other people are doing in the world made me feel inferior.
The brain is meant to give its attention to the things that give back. For example, here are some things that I could have done instead of using Instagram:
- Talking to people I know
- Meeting new people
- Learning programming
- Learning woodworking
- Taking a part-time course
All those things would have given me something back in exchange for my time, but Instagram gave me none of those things.
Conclusion: Instagram sucks because it not only wastes your time, but it makes you feel inferior and bored, AND it robs you of an indeterminate number of opportunities and experiences. If you\’re looking to improve your productivity, relationships and mental health over the long term, don\’t get Instagram because it will do the exact opposite.