i gave up instagram. here's how it went

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I’ve never done “Lent” before. The years old liturgical tradition of giving something up before Easter wasn’t part of my upbringing. If you’re not familiar, Lent is the forty day period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, celebrated by more traditional denominations such as Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, and various Protestants. One of my best friends is Anglican, and because of her I’ve been looking up a lot more liturgical traditions on Google than I usually would. I grew up non-denominational, specifically in the “Baptist church with a cool website and modern worship” kind of way rather than charismatic or prosperity ones. I found out quickly in my first two years of Baptist college that many people associate “non-denom” with the people lying flat on the floor and speaking in tongues rather than the lead pastor wearing Chacos and a t-shirt. Needless to say that I didn’t have a priest draw a cross on my forehead with ashes or give something up for forty days. My mom used to give up chocolate or wine during that time, but I didn’t know anyone else growing up who really committed to Lent.

If you remember, Dear Reader, last year I set out to accomplish goals every month for my personal development. I decided that in 2025, I would try more new things, specifically giving up instead of consumption. It took a while to narrow down what I should surrender for forty days. It couldn’t just be anything. Chocolate is yummy, but I had been much better about sugar since the start of the year. I don’t really drink, and as much as I would like to, I shouldn’t give up exercise. I started narrowing down what I really enjoy: shopping, reading, eating…I love life, and Lent is about preparing spiritually for Easter and observing the forty days Jesus wandered in the desert. There are few things that make humans respect Jesus’ discipline than giving up food for a few days.

Giving up chocolate would have been difficult, but the more I mulled it over, I realized that I was doing that for a selfish reason: my body image and weight. Sure, the desire to be healthy is good, but not when the motivation is purely for vanity’s sake. No, I needed to give something up that I really didn’t want to.

Ever since I gave up TikTok on December 31st, 2024, I have been seriously contemplating deleting my presence off social media completely. That isn’t to say I don’t miss the ‘clock app’ every day. I miss watching Brittany Broski do voice impressions, I miss ASMR cooking videos, and I miss laughing my head off at the comment sections on almost every single video. I knew that in 2025 that I wanted to make room in my life to finally get back into art, read a whole lot more, and start a written project (cough, this Substack!). I want to be a better steward of my most priceless resource: my time.

I was right: not doom-scrolling on TikTok does open a lot more hours in the day. However, I’m not perfect. I started filling the time with other apps, the most serious offender being Instagram. Short form content plagues the other apps: reels, shorts, even freakin’ Substack has a scrollable video page (booooo, Substack, boooooo). To add more context, I moved away from my friends and family to the middle of nowhere for my husband’s job. While I’ve tried to make the best of it (not all the time; I’m a sinner just like you), I really miss three things in particular: decent grocery stores, good coffee, and being a short drive from my closest friends. I considered Instagram to be a lifeline, the only tether I have for messaging, memes, and posting silly videos of myself to my stories so that my friends can see what I’m up to.

My relationship with Instagram has changed over the years. I am not so goofy on my stories; I am fed up with how bad the Reels algorithm is; and I am sick of having notifications and it being thousands of memes instead of productive conversation. Trust me, I’m just as guilty for sending tons of memes, but I had a serious wake up call to how much time I have been spending on my phone and how my relationships are suffering for it.

I had an epiphany: the connection I thought I had with all my friends wasn’t really connection. I have fallen into the same trap as many people have: I’ve replaced real soul connections with flimsy Internet ones. Social media is responsible for the death of common courtesy, human decency, and the replacement of what true friendship really is. How often did I send a lazy meme instead of picking up the phone and asking genuine questions?

There was also the slow revelation about how Instagram has negatively affected my mental health, While I scrolled, I found myself in the worst places mentally: comparing my life, weight, skin, followers, houses, lifestyle, and friendships with other people I don’t even know. Everyone I saw was skinnier than me, happier than me, and had way more friends than me. The crazy part is that I have so much to be grateful for, and yet I chose to make myself miserable by playing the totally unfair and demonstrably harmful game of comparison.

I clutched my phone as I thought through what giving up Instagram meant. No more meme group chats. No more friend’s Stories. No more random friends sending me the same Lord of the Rings video twelve times with a This made me think of you message. No more cat videos from my mom. No more stalking my ex best friend. No more gasping at yet another baby announcement and shoving my phone in my husband’s face with a Can you believe this? They’re pregnant. Again!

The truth hit me like a piece of popcorn thrown during a Minecraft movie showing.

The most important people in my life would reach out regardless if I had Instagram downloaded or not.

I still have Messenger. I still have Snapchat. I still have Discord. Heck, I still have a working phone number where I can get good ole fashioned text messages, even phone calls! Deleting Instagram wasn’t deleting my friends: it would just help me manage my time better and force the people I love to reach out in different ways. I also have to reach out differently: I found myself calling friends a lot more often. Phone calls are a lost art among my peers, but they are essential for keeping up with my friends and family. A simple hey I miss you, can you talk right now? does way more wonders for my mental health than sending a meme to a group chat that no one will open.

the author enjoying some well earned bbq

Easter is Here…What Now?

Despite all that I’ve learned, I’m excited to check the app. I only broke my fast once when headlines screamed at me that my favorite blonde pop star posted on Instagram. I pulled up my account on a browser, careful to not open anything else except Taylor’s story congratulating longtime bestie Selena Gomez on her new album. Honestly, not even worth it. I told my husband I would only interrupt Lent if Taylor announced her version of Reputation, and as that has not happened…I have to wait.

Unfortunately, just because I deleted Instagram doesn’t mean I don’t sit on my phone. I spend much less time on my phone, but I turned to something even more evil than TikTok or Reels: Shorts.

I thought Reels was bad…YouTube Shorts is a collection of odd viral videos, poorly captioned movie scenes, and edited down Grey’s Anatomy episodes. While I appreciate getting to watch Christina Yang without all the bloody medical bits, I think I have to delete Youtube off my phone, or figure out how to get Shorts off the app. While Reels and TikTok have some sort of learning algorithm that shows you content you want, Shorts is the other way around: my main page is now inundated with content informed by what I’m watching on Shorts. Sometimes I want to scream at the developers at Google for making such a terrible product. YouTube’s strength is its longform content. I am not there for horribly edited Modern Family scenes. If I wanted short form content, I would redownload TikTok.

I am not exactly sure what steps I will take, but here is an idea:

• Redownload Instagram and check my direct messages.

• Post a story promoting this Substack post.

• Delete the YouTube app off my phone.

• Evaluate the usage of all my social media apps.

• Take steps to wipe my Facebook profile, but keep my user for Messenger.

• Consider making a new Instagram account with only my closest friends, and not follow any companies, influencers, or celebrities.

I highly recommend sitting in some self-reflection about your social media usage. It doesn’t have to be for a religious reason if you don’t want to, but consider this: Do you call the people you love enough? Are you obsessed with stalking a person who hurt you badly in the past? Will you remember the memes you sent, or the important real life conversations you have?

I am not perfect (huge shocker, I know), and I’ll still struggle with balancing my creativity with my need to consume. My steps will be slow, but that’s what a journey really is. Frodo didn’t hop and skip to Mordor, and I won’t solve all my problems by deleting social media entirely. It has its place; it is keeping it there that is the hard part.