Last fall I installed a widget on my iPhone’s home screen that shows me which apps I’ve used and for how long.
I expected a ho-hum graph. Instead, horror:
- ~30 minutes of Safari
- ~25 minutes of Messages (E-mail, SMS, iMessage, Signal, etc.)
- ~20 minutes of Games (Crossword, Wordle, Chess.com, etc.)
- ~15 minutes of News (Reddit, BlueSky, NYT, etc.)
- ~10 minutes of others
…and ~90+ (ninety!) minutes of Instagram.
Daily.
Let’s talk about Instagram
I loved Instagram. Loved.
At launch, it was a one-dimensional stroll of what my friends were up to—it was like early Twitter, except with photos packaged in skeuomorphic quaintness.
Totally free. No ads. No algorithm. Felt personal.
It was great.
But then…
Facebook happened. And Snapchat. And TikTok. And the endless pursuit of more money.
Product managers optimizing for time-on-app and click-through-rates boiled this frog with multiple tap/swipe/discover experiences—Stories! Explore! Reels! Search! DMs! Ads! Ads! Ads!
Four weeks ago, as I felt I was about to croak, I broke out the back of my finest napkin and tally-ho:
Stories(short videos/photo collages, 24-hour expiration)- First friend’s stories. Two ads. Second friend’s stories. One ad repeated over three frames so it would be harder to skip. Third and fourth friend’s stories. Two more ads…
- Mostly low-effort re-shares, memes, and/or rage-bait. Of the latter, >20% factually inaccurate, misleading, and/or troll-army in provenance.
Posts(vertically-scrolled photos, permanent content)- Two or three photos of notably better quality than
Stories. - Ad.
- Relevancy collapse into endless low-grade candy content algorithmically proven to pique your curiosity to grab your attention, your time, your wallet.
- More ad.
- Two or three photos of notably better quality than
Reels(mostly TikTok reshares)- No one asked for this.
In sum, time-on-Instagram comprises:
- 40%
Ads, - 30%
Stories, and - 30% between
DMs(5%),Posts(5%), and spoon-fedReels(20%).
Therefore: for every hour on Instagram, only 9 minutes brought me the value I wanted—a casual, medium-effort photo feed to stay up-to-date on my friend’s whereabouts and what-have-yous.
Network TV plays 8 minutes of advertising for every 22 minutes of show.
We’ve been boiled alive.
And so…
Three weeks ago, I deleted Instagram. Cold turkey. I’m calling it a summer break, but maybe it’s forever.
Here’s what today (a lazy Sunday) looks like:
Surprisingly, I don’t miss Instagram. At all.
Ok, ok. So I do miss a few things:
- I miss the casual vignettes of what my friends are up to that I would never know to ask about.
- I miss the opportunity to publish a little snippet about me or a something I’m proud to have made, knowing that I’m not imposing much time nor vanity on others.
- I miss the unimportant, non-urgent banter offered by direct messages for when a text message seems too intrusive.
What I miss more than anything is my digital home room.
What was once that space has been commercialized and invaded and, at least for now, I’m opting out.
Updates
Update 1: Days after my writing this, the U.S. Surgeon General released an Advisory, noting, “while social media may have some benefits … there are ample indicators that [it] can also have a profound risk of hard to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
I suspect the same applies to adults.
Update 2: Instagram has been sending me e-mails once a week to let me know what I’ve missed. I have also started to see re-targeted ads directed at me in other mediums. They are playing the FOMO card hard.
Just how valuable of a “customer” am I?