So tie up the bow, take off your coat, and take a look around

Pic is completely unrelated to my post; I just don't have very many photos saved to my laptop. This was Mothers Day 2016.

A few years ago I read an article comparing the biggest social media networks at the time--Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram--and the author posited that Instagram was the nicest place to be online because users couldn't repost and couldn't post links, so everything was an original thought. I spent a few minutes looking for the article just now but couldn't conjure it up. I think it was from Wired magazine.

This was before Instagram Stories existed, before "verified" users could post links in their stories, before third-party apps made it easy to re-post someone else's thoughts to your feed or to your story. And I have to say, I do think Instagram was a nicer place to be before it became more Facebooky. I mean I know that FB owns IG, but by and large IG remained its own "thing" for quite a few years. Then it added Stories, ostensibly to become more like Snapchat, and now there's this Reels feature, which seems a lot like TikTok; but I really think that the re-posting and linking are dragging me down the most.

I was telling my family at dinner today that I had deleted Instagram. Theo asked why I delete it so often (he knows that I delete it every few months, for a few days or a few weeks at a time). I told him I get overloaded and I'm not sure how to calibrate my consumption (or my posting), so I just delete the app entirely until I feel ready to face the overload again. It seems like a silly solution when I write it out like that. But I remember hearing from Gretchen Rubin (one of my fave self-helpers) about this concept of "Moderators" and "Abstainers." I am 100% an Abstainer. I can give anything up cold turkey. Rarely do I give anything up forever, but I can go on long jags of "not doing this" or "not eating that." I've done it since I was a kid, just for kicks. Being a lifelong teetotaler may have contributed to that tendency to relish in complete separation from a vice. Having a mild form of OCD may also have contributed. Moderating is a LOT harder for me, though. I'm not sure exactly why.

Anyway, so I told the fam that the tipping point this time was when I looked at my Screen Time app and was shocked by the number of hours I had spent on Instagram during the previous week. (Don't ask, because I won't tell you. It's way too embarrassing.) I theorized that a good chunk of that time was following links and going down rabbit holes. Matt wondered if I follow too many people on Instagram. I immediately concurred that yes, I definitely do.

And so within a few hours, I had downloaded Instagram again, with the intent of ruthless culling. (Because OCD.) Within about 15 minutes I had removed 150ish accounts. Most of these were people I had never met, many of whom post links that send me down rabbit holes. Some of them were people I know but that had already unfollowed me, most likely because of my posts about politics or racial justice, I'm guessing. If you read this blog, by the way, it's very UN-likely that I've unfollowed you on Instagram. I don't think I've ever unfollowed someone who didn't unfollow me first, and if I did, it was accidental.

So I feel like every few months or however frequently, I come back to the blog, because I realize that's where I can express myself best. In more than a few sentences, and in a place that people have purposely gone to see what I have to say. I've been writing my nonsense here for 18 years now. 18 years! Some of it has been nice. Some of it has maybe been challenging or controversial. So: for any random person scrolling through Instagram expecting it to be a "nice place to be," being interrupted by strong opinions about unpleasant topics is, well, grounds for unfollowing. It's tricky to mix politics and friendship.

And it's not like I'm never going to post about politics or racial justice again. I definitely will. And I will continue to write about it here, and I will continue to talk about it with my people. I just need to take a break from putting myself out there quite so frequently and so visibly on the Gram. I am always looking for a balance. I'll let you know if I ever find it.