Why Quitting Instagram for 2 Months Was Amazing (and what I learned)
It’s no secret that I’m not in love with Instagram, and I often fantasize about how to quit Instagram while still being able to market my business effectively. Taking a break from Instagram is often recommended by productivity experts and self-care experts alike as a way to take care of your mental and emotional health, as well as not wasting time getting sucked into scrolling.
In fact, I give quite a few tips and ideas for how to wrangle your social media time as an online entrepreneur in my eBook, “Distraction-Free Living: How To Stay Focused & Present With Life and Work”. Having boundaries around your time and attention online is key to accomplishing your goals with work while still feeling like you have a life.
And while I’m a pro at productivity, it wasn’t until I couldn’t use my Instagram app for a full 2 months that I realized how pervasive social media apps have become in our habits and subconscious.
I hadn’t planned on quitting Instagram
In the middle of June, I noticed that every time I went into the Instagram app on my phone, it would start closing automatically. I figured it was a normal app glitch, uninstalled it, and then reinstalled it…
…and it didn’t work - at all.
I’d tap on the app icon, and my phone would just show a blank white screen.
I hadn’t been hacked, I could still login from my desktop, but I couldn’t use the app on my phone at all.
Ok then.
Marketers often talk about how you don’t own anything about your audience or your content on your social media platforms, and what would you do if you suddenly lost access to your profile or that app just disappeared?
Well, it was time to find out, because I was living it.
Below, I’ll share with you the personal and business observations I noticed while I was off Instagram for a full 2 months.
I was more purposeful in posting content
Since I could still access my account via desktop (or the browser on my phone), I still had the ability to post content — but I couldn’t use many of the features that are available only on the app (like stickers, music, etc).
I continued posting my normal feed posts that are “postagrid” style — Postagrid was one of the ways I learned how to make Instagram fun and creative for me again, and it’s a method I’ll stick to for the foreseeable future.
I used Tailwind (affiliate link) to schedule my feed posts. And while you can use Tailwind to schedule Stories and Reels, it won’t offer you the same features for that content as posting natively in the app.
My VA was able to log into my account from her phone and post my Instagram Stories natively to take advantage of those features.
There was no “checking Instagram real quick” in between meetings or while I was having morning coffee. There was no endlessly scrolling Reels, under the guise of saving content ideas for later.
Overall, my content and interactions on Instagram were just much more purposeful because it wasn’t as easy.
I kept trying to get my social media “fix” other places
A funny thing happened after about 2 weeks with no Instagram on my phone…
…I looked at Facebook for the first time in probably over a year.
I don’t know why, other than my subconscious needed that social media “fix” of scrolling and liking and paying more attention to others than myself.
I saw and observed what I was doing. I knew what was happening, but I felt the itch anyway.
The insightful thing was, when I started scrolling through my Facebook feed (as opposed to just going to a couple of groups I go into for business or local events), there were so many people that I had no idea who they were.
No idea where I came across them, how I knew them, or what they did. It was eye-opening for sure.
I took the time to unfollow tons of accounts and profiles that I either didn’t remember who they were, or weren’t relevant anymore.
It was almost like Facebook didn’t know what to do with me at that point, because I started seeing tons of ads and random posts. If you remember that scene from The Social Dilemma, where the app is trying to serve anything it can to get the teenager to engage with the platform again…well it was exactly like that.
I’ll admit, I was pretty irritated that I was letting myself be sucked into a different (but similar) social media app simply because I didn’t have easy access to Instagram.
After a few weeks of that, I pulled in the reins and stopped mindlessly scrolling Facebook to scratch that itch.
No one noticed
I was not at all surprised by this next observation, but it bears mentioning — no one noticed that I wasn’t on Instagram watching their stories, or liking, commenting, and DMing.
No one asked if I quit Instagram, no one asked if I was just taking a break from Instagram, no one said a thing.
To be clear, I didn’t expect anyone to notice and I was not hurt or sad by it. But this goes to highlight something about all social media platforms, and definitely Instagram…
Everyone is the star of their own show.
We go through our days thinking in Instagram captions, imagining Reels, or trying to connect by DMing, and on and on.
We miss being present in the moment because we want others to live it with us.
“We miss being present in the moment because we want others to live it with us.”
I can’t tell you how many times someone has been surprised that I didn’t know what they did that day, or what they were working on, or that they had gone on a vacation — because they had documented all of it publicly, so they (consciously or subconsciously) thought everyone knew.
It made me realize that yes, there are a handful of people I am close with online that I actually connect with in real life off of social media. But a social media relationship is no substitute for an actual relationship.
Life went on
I had (unintentionally) quit Instagram during the summer months. As a mom of 2 Littles, we had a lot of activities, trips, and fun days planned.
Despite not documenting them, these moments and activities still happened (she says with sarcasm and humor).
I decided to no longer post pictures of my family back in 2021, so this wasn’t a big leap for me. There were a few times that I captured a picture and then immediately thought “this would be a great Instagram Story” — but the feeling quickly disappeared and only happened a couple of times anyway.
It reminded me of summer days growing up, when I was gone all day between the pool, the beach, and the park, and my parents only needed to know in general where I’d be when. There was a freedom in it; a presence of enjoying the day.
Life went on in the most glorious and amazing ways this summer, without taking pictures and posting them.
There were conversations and people I wanted to reconnect with
One day, I decided to try reinstalling Instagram on my phone for the umpteenth time, and it magically worked.
I was surprised, and a little anxious to be honest. What did I want to do with this newfound power again?
I found myself reconnecting with a few people who I had a fun and engaging relationship with, purely on Instagram, and caught up on the latest Stories and goings on from them.
As soon as I found myself going into the app purely out of habit and boredom, I immediately went in to turn off all notifications and set a daily timer of 20 minutes. You can find out more about using some of these boundaries and tips in my eBook, Distraction-Free Living.
I still schedule my Postagrid feed posts and my VA is still doing 75% of my Stories.
It prompted me to test a clear Instagram strategy to make a decision about my efforts on the platform
Since I hadn’t been active on the platform for more than 2 months, I decided it was the perfect time to test a consistent strategy for my marketing on Instagram to decide how much time I wanted to put into it in the future.
Years ago, I used to post funny, thoughtful quotes around entrepreneurship, motherhood, life, and coffee — which was some of my most engaging and shared Instagram content.
I decided to repurpose those quotes into a Reel every day for the month of September to just see what happens.
As an entrepreneur with tons of experience in marketing, I know that consistency is one of the most important factors in any social media strategy, so this opportunity is a real test of if Instagram is a platform I want to continue to use in the future for my business.
Conclusion
Although I didn’t intend to quit Instagram, that is essentially what happened for 2 months. It was an eye-opening experience, thought-provoking in amazing ways.
➡️I learned that being hamstrung by not having access to the app made me more purposeful in the time I spent post content via web browser.
➡️I also observed that I was trying to get that social media “fix” elsewhere, no one noticed I was off the platform, and life went on regardless.
➡️The silver linings were that I loved reconnecting with a few people with whom I only have an Instagram relationship, and it prompted me to create a clear and consistent test with my Instagram content to see if I want to continue with the platform to market my business.
Want to be more focused and less distracted in life and work?
Download the Distraction-Free Living eBook and learn how to beat common distractions (like your phone, computer, and email) — and be more present with your life and work.
