IG is wack for your mental
I took a 40 day hiatus from social media due to my phone breaking (long story) and I was genuinely excited to get back on IG and sharing creative photos and travel I did in the mean time.
Not only did I lose a lot a followers in that 40 days OF NOT POSTING but any time I post (normally stories, around 1-2 pics) every 3 days or more, I lose followers. A usual cadence I’ve kept up with for years.
This has been an on and off again issue affecting my mental with IG is feeling like if I BREATHE I lose followers for posting a normal photo.
I could write a whole column on how deeply I understand the epidemic on teens / mental health / social media because I feel it as an adult without the raging intoxicating emotions.
If you take up an ounce of room it’s too much. If you show a bit of authenticity, it’s too much. Or not enough. Or trying to hard. Or too little. It’s exhausting.
I’m past the point and just post whatever I want these days. But I work in marketing as an occupation and can’t avoid social media entirely.
But after my hiatus, I probably would if I could. I stopped worrying about what everyone was doing and really only cared about what I was doing. In that very moment! I fell back in love with my real camera and not the iPhone camera. I started writing again. I felt more in tune with who I was.
The only contrary is I realized how hard it was to reconnect with others when they don’t know what you’ve been doing. I felt like I had gone on a journey they just couldn’t understand. Like the whole world was the same but I was different.