Why Can’t I Delete My Instagram?

Graphic by Mikayla Alpert

Instagram has always been somewhat of an anomaly to me. When I first downloaded the app, I was about to start middle school. I had zero idea how the app worked, and everything I posted was soul-crushingly embarrassing. I was an early adopter of the platform, at least by my friend group’s standards. Hardly anybody that I was close to was on it yet, their childlike innocence still preserved from its piercing talons. It was one of those things where I could really take it or leave it. I was more concerned about my American Girl Dolls at the time but Instagram was still something that I found mildly entertaining.

By the time that my 14th birthday rolled around, everybody had made an account. Whispers of whose post had garnered the most likes filled lulls in between classes, and nobody went anywhere without documenting it for their followers. We had entered a new era of what it meant to be a kid, defined by how many comments your selfie got, rather than games of make-believe. I’m not trying to say that I’m completely innocent. The app is enticing, and I have certainly bought into it on more than a few occasions. 

The number of people that are on it is part of what makes it so hard to resist. Nobody likes to feel out of the loop, and Instagram feeds on that. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they originally made their account to stay up to date on what their friends are doing. That sounds innocent enough, right? Well, it is at the start. All too quickly, checking in on your friends becomes comparing yourself to celebrities and obsessing over your follower count. The rate at which the app can turn toxic is insane, and it’s almost impossible to avoid it completely.

For some reason, human beings are obsessed with receiving validation. I haven’t been alive forever, so I don’t know if we’ve always been like this, but I have a suspicion that the answer is yes. If you’re suffering from a severe lack of compliments in your life, Instagram can be a great place to quench that thirst. Though you may have to suffer through an endless slew of photoshopped bodies and appetite suppressant lollipop advertisements to get there, a singular positive comment could await you at the end of the road. But that comment isn’t guaranteed, and I have to wonder, is the possible mental scarring that could come as a result of time spent on the platform really worth it?

For so many, it’s simply a price that must be paid in order to live in today’s society. It doesn’t actually have to be paid, though. I often find myself forgetting that if I wanted to, I could delete my Instagram account right now. I haven’t, though, and I don’t have any immediate plans to. Leaving the app is something that people always talk about doing. It’s like, everybody knows that being on it is a waste of time, but we’re all still there. Have we convinced ourselves that, somehow, we deserve to be subjected to this toxicity?

And for those of us that use it as an opportunity for an ego boost, why have we allowed ourselves to go so long without being told that we look great? When did we stop complimenting people, and start retreating into the “protection” of our phone screens? Our world has become consumed by a parade of double-taps and follow requests. But what do we really have when all of that is gone? Because if there’s one thing that the internet never lets you forget, it’s that nothing is permanent. A trending topic from yesterday won’t mean anything tomorrow.

It’s almost as if we're living in a wasteland where everybody wants to matter, but nobody truly does. That’s what Instagram culture is. And yet, I still have an account, and you probably do too. The issue that faces us now is less about boycotting the platform, and more about what we choose to do with our time spent on it. We have the option to reject the narrative that the app has, and will continue to, write. And once we do? Who knows what could happen.