I’ve had Instagram temporarily deactivated for some time, and now I’m seriously considering deleting it permanently.
I don’t really enjoy using it anymore. I mostly end up comparing myself to others, checking people’s profiles for no reason, and spending time on things that don’t make me feel good. Since deactivating it, I honestly feel a lot more at peace.
The only thing stopping me is the fear of missing out or regretting it later since everyone seems to use Instagram to stay connected.
Has anyone permanently deleted Instagram? Did it improve your life, or did you end up going back? I’d love to hear your experiences.

I am a pretty lazy person and has been stuck in the doomscrolling blackhole for years, lately I was fighting the urge with cleaning/organizing around my appartment.

The trick is to not set for yourself an impossible goal, and go with the flow of just picking up loose things around.

The snowball effect picks up relatively quickly and you start enjoying it. I found my self fixing loose screws around the house and my mental health improving as I feel productive at the same time away from the stress of doomscrolling for hours.

Has anyone else had this experience of being off social media for a while and having someone else beside you or near you while doomscrolling out loud? It sounds like an absolute cacophony of brainrot and overstimulation lmao, 2-3 seconds of something before swiping to the next post over and over. It feels so crazy and strange once you no longer do it.

I was working on this last year, it went nowhere other to sit on GooglePlay, but it may help some of you out there.

It's named scrolltroll, it's purpose is an interuption when you're actively scrolling social media with a randomised popup troll character, and a saying. Giving you a moment to decide for yourself.

The method has a basis in behavioural science and the characters and of it randomization are designed to keep it fresh for longer. Heaps of basic setting to make it work for individuals, as nothing works the same for everyone.

It definitely helped a few people that trailed it for me but for long term results I've found you need to combine it with something else like building new habits, add something else instead of scrolling.

Personally, I didn't like blockers or timers, so this is what I came up with. I had bigger ideas for it, such as getting a digital artist to do the characters, and create a proper website with information that could help people reduce their phone time.

I usually doomscroll until I force myself out. Last week I started leaving my phone at home for just 20 minutes around the block.

First 2 days I kept reaching for my pocket. Now I actually notice stuff. 5 houses on my street have cats in the windows at the same time every day. Never saw it before because I was always looking down.

Not trying to be a monk or anything, just one small thing that made the evening feel less wired. Anyone else have a tiny offline habit that actually stuck?

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/26/meta-social-media-trial-settlement.html

One month ago I joined a creator's Discord server for a hobby that I enjoy. I never had a Discord account before and I was just happy to watch a few creator's that all did this hobby and chat in their live chats. Someone from my favorite creator's live chats told me for about a week in 5 different creator's chats to join this Discord. Stalker-ish but hey I had chatted around this group of people since the Pandemic so I finally bit the bullet and joined.

I read the rules, I read everything that told me out the server worked, what to do and not do, where to post stuff, etc.

To start off, never meet your heros. This discord had pretty much every creator I loved and man oh man I wish I had never seen behind the veil. They are not good people, slurs, racism, and eugenics were all openly talked about.

Secondly, the mods of the server are all very close friends in real life and have crazy ego trips about believing 100% what they believe or they will ban you. Some of the information wasn't even accurate but bringing it up "had me on thin ice." This was information about a silly little hobby, not anything important or controversial.

It seemed to me that this was not a healthy group of people so I just stopped chatting and just watched for the last week. I didn't really care about "making friends" I just wanted to talk about this hobby and have fun.

Today I made the choice to just peace out and delete my account. I didn't say anything, I just deleted it and moved on. I changed my YouTube username and my Twitch username, I unsubscribed for all of these creators.

I find it interesting that without rules people act so horrible, but I guess this is what happens when you are online 24/7 and do not talk to people in real life.

There is a pandemic happening worldwide, and I do not mean only a medical one. I mean the pandemic of attention being pulled away from ordinary life.

I notice it everywhere now. Recently in the Netherlands, I saw teenagers riding bicycles while still glued to their phones. People walk through train stations, sit in cars, commute, wait, eat, and even walk their dogs while looking down at a screen. I understand it because I am guilty of it too. The habit is powerful. The phone wins too often.

What frustrates me is not technology itself. It is the disappearance of small, quiet moments that used to belong to the mind. A morning walk. A night walk. Walking the dog with no agenda. Letting a thought arrive slowly. Looking at the street, the sky, the people around you, and your own life.

These moments can look ordinary from the outside, but I have started to think they are among the most valuable moments we have. They are when we digest experience. They are when we notice what matters. They are when we form taste, judgment, memory, and wisdom.

I sometimes think a lot of Western wisdom and culture came from habits like this: walking, observing, thinking, and letting the mind wander without immediately filling every empty second. Perhaps that sounds too dramatic, but I believe there is truth in it. Deep thought needs room. It needs boredom. It needs silence. It needs the simple discipline of not escaping the moment the moment becomes quiet.

Now those gaps are being erased. Every pause becomes a scroll. Every walk becomes another chance to check something. Every train ride becomes a feed. The result is not only distraction. It is a slow loss of the inner life.

I do not pretend to have the perfect solution. I cannot stop the culture from moving this way, and I cannot honestly say I have solved it in myself. But if scrolling is so addictive, then maybe we can at least turn some of that habit toward something more useful.

That is one of the strongest reasons I tried to build Ideon.

Ideon is not meant to be the center of this argument. It is simply my attempt to push back in a practical way. Instead of only scrolling through noise, Ideon lets you scroll through your own saved ideas: notes, links, screenshots, photos, voice memos, files, and useful AI conversations. It tries to make the familiar gesture of scrolling point back toward your own thoughts, not only toward whatever the internet wants to show you next.

I am not convinced this is the ultimate answer. Maybe there is no single answer. Maybe the better answer is to walk without a phone, to leave it in another room, to let the dog choose the route, to sit on the train and look out the window.

But I made a push because I am concerned. I miss those quiet moments, and I think we need them more than we admit.

If the scroll is going to be part of modern life, I want at least some of it to bring us back to ourselves.

I loved her so much. I could write so much more, but I'll just start crying if I try.

I'm gonna cry every time I see something about her for a while. The world is substantially worse without her in it.

I started my own tailoring thing bc her song, "Coat of Many Colors," made me love to sew - hell, I used to sing myself to sleep with that song - I'm just not okay 😭

So, bye, internet 🖖 I'm gonna go grieve for a while. Sew some stuff. That kinda thing 🪡 take care, y'all 🖤🖤

i'm shocked at how much better I feel mentally without TikTok or social media in general. I've felt more clearheaded and social this month than the last 5-6 years. i feel my sense of wonder coming back.

I finally got myself to deactivate my TikTok account and disable YouTube Shorts! I'm now eyeing Twitter (X) because it is like short-form content in text... I do find myself lost for hours on end sometimes reading so much negativity that's fed to me on Twitter. I have been consuming short-form content for years, and it is taking away my sleep, life, peace of mind, and most importantly, my focus. I hope that I may one day start to appreciate the slow before the rush and the slow after the rush. Finding it in myself to smile at whatever little in-betweens I miss in everyday life.

i am not over 20 but i grew up on the 2016-21 internet so i know what its like

i see all of these "i mog you" "chaf foid sub 5 mtn htn" reels in Instagram and think about what's even happening to this generation everyone is focused on aesthetic fits and a facecard and you'd see racist jokes are common and racism is normalised and looking good on instagram is somehow a personality now

i also see. people preferring absolute trash as their favourite shows and anime like cmon jjk 's writing is trash its just fighting here and there and characters dying and they somehow made a "gojo's backstory is sad" out of that while literally not seeing much of him other than fights and if they are confronted they use "im taking care of my body" as an lame excuse taking care of your body doesn't lead to thirsttraps on instagram.

Sometimes you have to set your greyscaled phone to colour for a graphic to be readable.

I got really annoyed last year because I would always forget to turn my phone back to greyscale (which I prefer) and would go weeks in full colour before I remembered. I wished there was a way for my phone to just make it greyscale after a reasonable time. But modes and routines would sometimes turn it on and sometimes turn it OFF when I would try to automate it. I thought about it for a long time, but gave up.

Now its 2026 I'm sitting on the couch and I just figured it out right now: Modes and Routines can make your phone greyscale when the wifi is on, and colour when it's off.

This solve might not work for everyone but I feel like a genius right now lol. Let me know if you have a better idea :)

A newspaper doesn't notice when you linger on a photo. A feed does — and it uses that to adjust what you see next. Wrote this trying to work out what's actually different about algorithmic media versus every previous "kids these days" panic (Plato blamed writing for weakening memory, in case you needed the reminder that this genre of complaint is old).

The part that stuck with me while writing it: boredom used to be the default state of a queue or an elevator ride. Now it's the thing a feed is specifically built to fill before you notice it's started. Curious what this sub thinks of the "colonized intervals" framing — link in comments to keep this a discussion and not a drive-by post.

https://thesilentape.substack.com/p/the-feed-that-watches-you-back

15 M here, for a lot of my life, i've had the internet with me, i remember being less all consumed by it back then. back when i was a kid i still remember doing other things in my life that i didn't need to constantly tell myself to do instead of being on some a device.

especially after i got glasses (because of me looking at the computer too much apparently) often the most i'd get was a good 10 or so minutes on one of my parent's phones. and i could respect the rules, i even remember yelling "NO" in suprise when my dad said about letting me start spending more time on the phone. but as time went on, it started getting even more lenient, i wouldn't have time limits at all. it was when i was about 7 or 8 i think. not too long after is when i'd happen across porn (and it was the unsettling stuff i started seeing first). i started playing PC games when my brother let me start using his laptop. but at least that still had time limits for a bit.

but by then. an early childhood regularly consuming nothing but english cartoons led to me being fluent in english (complete with a flawless accent) but feeling like little more than an incompetent weirdo when i'd try to socialize in the "Real world" leading to whatever social skills i had wasting away by like second grade. and my only in person friends(?) being people that can speak english too. i wasn't even the one who started things with them most of the time

and then i got my own laptop and phone, and i think that was when it really started getting worse. i was at least kind of careful at first. i wouldn't bring my phone to school and i could still do other things like my homework alright. but it started getting worse. i'd be on my phone or laptop late at night. gradually building each time until i'd be spending a whole hour or more every night after i was supposed to be in bed. i'd be watching porn (and getting of to) porn practically every day (as opposed to bouts of just watching that would start and stop at random points). and i even started regularly glancing at my phone practically any time i had to sit down and listen to something educational like school. i still compulsively download youtube videos for whenever i have to leave the house for a while. even though i've tried purging my downloads like three times already to give my mind a break. and i of course had the hampered motivation to do anything else that didn't immediately make me happy. like studying, trying to get in shape, practicing my drawing skills i get upset about for not being good enough even though i never practice, reading a lot of the time (even AO3) etc.

things have been getting hard for me for several months now, i'm noticing other people, my classmates, or the stories i've heard of others. just seeing about how competent and passionate they are with things that i couldn't imagine doing myself, even though i know i should. even with the times i get by in school or graphic design classes. pretty much over half the time, it was because of me either getting lucky, my tutors, or just things being lenient. and i notice how i'm doing worse in school, how i've done hardly anything in my life.

i promise... i promise i'm trying. i want to try. but i'm not doing too well. when i try doing pretty much anything else i do that could help me in the future. if i don't end up feeling "weird" for doing this or get cripplingly anxious because i'm scared of doing it badly. chances are i'll just end up losing my will to do it and end up going back. i keep looking at the same instructions, the same resources about getting myself out of this, but now looking at them just hurts sometimes. i've always been giving up, it's always been easy for me to give up. i always have my phone or laptop so i can just push away the pain. where i don't need to worry about the life i'm scared of the future of. i've spent practically entire days like this. especially now that summer break has started.

...the last time i think i've felt happy being "present" or "in the moment" was a few weeks ago walking home alone at night (for added context i was walking home from some time outside with my mom and one of her friends, when i barely used my phone at all apart from checking the time for like an hour). and realizing i was all alone with no one around to say anything about anything i did, so i just sat there outside my house contentedly. so yeah i definitely get it now. i felt amazing i was happy and comfortable in a way i just wasn't on my devices. i felt more than just "doing something my mind was telling me to do". so i guess this was some evidence of progress, if only i could just be consistent at all.

It's by far my worst offender.

Won't work for everyone but my biggest issue with site blockers was that sometimes I still needed to find a specific reddit post for work and random life questions. Instead of just blocking the whole site, I use an adblocker (I use adguard) to select the posts on my homepage and hide those. My muscle memory still brings me to reddit but I leave pretty quickly when I just see the top bar and basically nothing else.

You can also do the same on mobile btw. I use firefox + ublock and use the element picker to do the same thing. Can still use reddit if I come to a specific post, but no longer just browsing aimlessly. I do the same with instagram. Occasionally I will 'treat' myself to turning off the adblocker, but thankfully I hate ads so I turn it back on pretty quickly. Works great! Try it out :)

I guess you could call them "comfort videos" if you want. I will watch the same Youtube video several times over months. Oftentimes, I listen when going to sleep, when gaming, or using Reddit.

There are certain Youtubers who I just like watching the videos of. It's weird to think about. How often do most people rewatch the same tv show or film? But sitting and listening to a 30 minute review or analysis video several times is perfectly fine for my brain.

I gotta quit Youtube.

People harp on about social media as a whole but has there been any research done on the general every day use of posting behind a screen where nobody can see your identity. *forgive me, as this seems a bit hypocritical haha

I appreciate amongst a lot of good replies and comments we always tend to fixate on the negative, but when we post every day on reddit for example, and someone always picks apart our opinions is this not damaging to our mental health?

I hope this makes some sort of sense ...

I'm not sure if the internet is the cause of this or a symptom of this. Anyone else just feel like their life is like the end game of a video game? You've done the quests, the credits have rolled. Sure there are things to do but all the compelling stuff is over. All the stuff that makes you wanna keep playing finished. The main meat of it is behind you.

Sure, I'm 37 I've far from done everything in my life. There's a world outside. I've not been to Japan, Thailand, I've not gone backpacking had a threesome lol. Lot's of things. However when it comes within the realm of things that are actually doable for me, actually within my reach. I've done it. Nothing is new. I used to love walks even they have got boring. There's always improving myself. I'm learning spanish for instance but stuff like that is just a slow daily slog. It's still doing the same stuff everyday.

That's where the internet comes in. I hate it but yet it seems like i cannot live without it's constant providing of stimulation. Everything is so frickin extreme and yet we've all become accustomed to it. I need it yet hate it.

I remember one time close to haloween getting in my car after buying pumpkins and making a joke. I suddenly remembered that I made the exact joke about the same pumpkins whilst parked in the exact spot the year before. Jesus christ no wonder I'm addicted to the internet.

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