“I Quit Insta to Fix My Mind”

Hello from the other siiiiiide.

- Hannah Smothers

A few months ago, I had a nightmare where I could only speak in Instagram captions. Then a friend told me the same thing had happened to her. (Literally. Unbelievable, but true.) And she found a cure: she deleted IG. It hadn’t been easy, but she was happier and her mind felt clearer. I was jealous of her Kondoesque elevated state of being, so I decided to try it, too. First parameter: I’d erase the app for two months. I asked a friend to change my IG password. I also set goals: purge my mind of meme-speak, break my scroll habit, and actually think about how I felt instead of posting about it (deep, I know). So here’s how that went...

WEEK 1

What to Do With Photos?!

Two friends came to visit on my first day. They’re wonderful and photogenic, so when they did things like sip wine, I went into a fugue state and took some 75,000 photos. Normally, I would’ve posted them with a caption about how ‘Wine and sunsets are great, but good friends are greater!’, but I had nothing to do with them now. If an image doesn’t make it to Instagram, does it even exist?

WEEK 2