It’s now been more than two weeks since I deleted the Instagram and Twitter apps off my phone. Honestly, it has been extremely freeing. My average screen time is well down, and instead of brainlessly doomscrolling I’ve found myself using apps for writing more and more.

I also don’t think I’ve had many withdrawal symptoms at all. The first couple of days I did find myself trying to open the apps, but I quickly remembered that they weren’t there anymore, and got back to writing.

The Drawbacks

One downside is that since I’m not posting on Instagram or Twitter regularly (besides my blog posts automatically shared on Twitter), there’s less engagement with the outside world. This could be to my detriment, and I really should make some kind of posting schedule. However, I figure if it means more time spent writing and editing videos, then overall it’s probably for the best.

Also, I use Instagram for business. You can still make posts using your computer, but you can’t post stories and you’re rather limited overall. I may have to reinstall the app simply for when I need to post certain things, which is obviously quite tedious.

Besides the writing app, I probably also increased my time spent reading the news. This is a good and bad thing, as clickbait is still very much the norm, and it means I don’t get as much social commentary.

Workarounds

For messages, I still use the Facebook messenger app. Thankfully since Instagram and Facebook are connected, I get notifications if someone has sent me a message (which you can always do by email too).

Twitter on the other hand, you can totally just use the desktop version. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but there’s some sort of bug on my desktop Twitter where when I try to scroll down the feed, everything gets jumbled up. I keep seeing the same posts repeated, and I also can’t click on them freely. This stops the doomscrolling in its tracks.

In conclusion

I used Instagram heavily for a few years, and Twitter a bit since about 2 years ago now. I feel much better having left them behind, and can focus more on the long-form content I wish to produce.