I Deleted Instagram And Nothing Changed

This might be a click bate title but I’m so over people saying that doing this one thing will somehow magically change your life. I’m someone who believes that something good comes from hard work and dedication. While we’re still in the 2020 resolution phase I would like to express my opinion about how YOU can change your digital life. It won’t and it can’t happen overnight but I’m sure you already know that. This is also not my full plan, it’s just a few thoughts about this topic.

In October I started deleting the Instagram app from my phone. I realized that I spend a lot of my time using the service without any extra benefit so I deleted the app. From time to time I still downloaded Instagram and check it out for a couple of minutes, but that happened once every few weeks. Does that change how I used my phone? Sure, I was using Twitter more and watching a few more YouTube videos instead. Deleting one app isn’t how you’re going to successfully cure your smartphone addiction.

A couple of weeks ago I created a plan. I decided to fully delete my Instagram account (personal one) since it didn’t provide any value to me anymore. I’ve become a big fan of deleting services and accounts that I don’t use anymore. Since I started using a password manager my internet presence is more organized and I like that. Organizing my online accounts and having everything under control is another benefit of using a password manager that no one talks about. For the record, I use Bitwarden, in my opinion, it’s the best overall password manager. 1Password is also good.

I’ve limited my use of Twitter and Reddit to 15 minutes a day. I also disabled most of the notifications. I use my phone when I want to even though I sometimes still have the addiction reflex of checking it even when there’s nothing to do. I’ve started reading The New York Times and it helped with relocation of my time usage. I think that smartphones are great tools when we use them right. I might still use my phone just as much, well maybe a little less than I used to; however while I use it I’m doing something good for myself. I read articles from The New York Times. Yesterday I’ve to spend 40 minutes using The New York Times app and I’m proud of that.

I’m not saying that you should read The New York Times; however, I’m saying that if you want to combat your smartphone addiction try replacing your current behavior with something more productive or meaningful. I’m not saying that I know what I’m talking about but I can say what is currently working for me. This may change and I will try my best to report back and tell you about my experience.

Oh if you want to start reading The New York Times I would recommend to start with section called Smarter Living or The Privacy Project.

Everything I talked about here has no scientific ground as far as I can tell. I’m running a few personal experiments and see how they work out. This is not my full plan of how I’m dealing with smartphone addiction and there are probably some other factors that have an impact on my behavior.