You hit the nail with this one. I completely agree with you on all the points. I have been on an on-off relationship with Instagram for two years. I am now a product owner but I am a blogger. Although I started my social media handles as an extension to my blog I soon ended up neglecting my blog and using more of social media because there was more engagement here. But honestly I feel the majority of the response on Instagram is just smileys and nothing meaningful. As you mentioned the slow death of Facebook which I agree with, there is another new trend where Facebook pushes more of Facebook page and group contents. Or rather I feel that way. Thanks for this video. Makes me feel I am not alone!
on and off is a much more realistic picture of how a lot of us engage with instagram, since I noticed most people who talk about quitting eventually come back. It’s really good for our nervous system to take regular long breaks or gradually step back, rather than an all or nothing approach. Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective!
I caution against oversimplifying the power of social media as just a few lines of code. Social media companies operate similarly to other big corporations, hiring top talent and using scientific research to gain an edge. I do appreciate the idea of quiet quitting social media. I love how we're recommending this more and more. ❤The internet is still big and open to a lot of ways we can stay connected.
This was good to hear. I feel I'm at a fork in the road with IG, but after listening to this maybe it doesn't need to be all or nothing. I only opened my account this year, when I had work I was ready to show. It's already clear that I won't be exposed to any audience there unless I give IG the content it is looking for (that you described so well). I just don't want to go down that path, so am resolved to low growth. So be it. I'll keep it but take the pressure off to "post consistently". It barely does anything on its own and is not worth the pressure and diversion of creative time. By the way, many of the artists I genuinely admire in my field have followers in the couple of thousands. None of them are posting three second reels. Good example to follow.
that’s a good reminder that most artists I respect aren’t chasing current posting trends, perhaps because they don’t need to. Everyone else feels more of a pressure to do the thing that will get them seen, when I feel all the effort to satiate the algorithm gods takes time and energy away from actually making good/better art.
I think the more we talk about this the more validating it is. We can't all be crazy right lol! The more we hear social media isn't serving it's purpose for small business or people in general the easier it becomes to let it go.
Yes I really hope we can collectively do better for our own health, enough to threaten social media’s bottom line. if not they’ll keep doing what works in their favor.
Great topic to touch on! All of the ads on Facebook have me more annoyed than engaged. I’m lucky to get a LIKE on Instagram unless it’s family! 😂 I do however acknowledge that because I’m not posting regularly, it is failing me. At this point, I only use it to stay connected to community. As well as a portfolio, as you have mentioned. It’s exhausting to create content regularly. I’ve put the accounts that I wish to visit regularly into a folder in my SAVED option. It makes it easy to find what accounts matter most. I love your UA-cam channel! You are so relatable. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.❤
Fantastic video as always, I love how open and straightforward you guys are. The idea of maintaining social media as a portfolio is great, because it takes so much time for us to follow up with all the changes and algorithms. Thank you!
I finally got myself to stop doom scrolling on social media by switching to audiobooks 😅 It keeps me entertained while I'm working and I've been able to stay away from social media without being tempted to doom scroll all day long like I used to. As for marketing my business on social media, I honestly don't know what I'm doing 🤣 I just post stuff and don't think about it too much. I'm too busy handling everything else that I need to manage to run my business.
Appreciate this vid! I'm trying to cut social media out of my life as much as possible, but have been worried about potentially crawling back to some once I start making moves to kick off my own creative business. It's a very important topic to discuss and I'm glad to see more folk disillusioned with social media and its intentionally unfortunate effects on our brains (and privacy in the form of selling our data like hot cakes to literally everyone they can).
I agree with everything you said. I don’t have any rules for weaning off but i developed an aversion to Instagram once Meta bought it and everything changed (it used to be beautiful photography that was so relaxing and inspiring to view). Anyway, nowadays I tend to ignore/avoid it a lot like I do Facebook. 🤷🏻♀️ Turning off notifications completely might help some folks? Or maybe I’m just antisocial. 🤣
This topic was shared in writing in my recent newsletter and I’ve never gotten more replies on a newsletter. If you’re interested in keeping in touch there, you can join my email list on the Easy Sunday Club website. I send very infrequently - no more than once a month.
This is so in line with what I have been feeling about social media. Thank you for a very thoughtful commentary. I've just finished "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari . It was in-depth on social media and many other distractions that take away from our quality of life. It was a profound and relevant read 😊
I enjoyed listening to your share. Thank you. As a singer & actress I have taken more of a stance that social media is my portfolio. However I've recently been promoting my event business and its drawn me back into a more addictive space with social media. I hate how i find myself picking up my phone every few minutes after ive put it down. Im going to keep working on not picking it up in the empty space. I also been noticing that when I pick up my phone while watching tv its usually during an emotional moment. Makes me feel like im avoiding or looking for a distraction during those times.
I and so many others relate to your struggle with picking up our phone infinite times throughout the day. Since this video there seems to be a big wave of artists deleting their work off IG or stop posting or moving to Cara app due to meta’s recent announcement that they will use our public posts to train AI models. I wonder how this will play out long term.
Great video. It's crazy this is becoming a more echoed sentiment by creatives. I would love to escape all the existing social media, but I don't want to lose my (tiny) platform or access to all the artists I love. When is something going to pop up to fill this void? Something that's just... Not greed driven.
There’s a huge wave of artists moving to Cara app that protects artists work from being scraped for AI models. I’m curious how this will play out long term.
I appreciate your insight so much. I find myself deleting IG and then redownloading it a couple of days later. Treating IG like a portfolio seems like the right idea. I’ll also try to follow your three methods of weening off.
I think the only thing that keeps me on Facebook is that most of my family uses it, and I live abroad, but also I rarely check it as now I’m a mom and just tired of looking at it… overall, I want to start writing letters or postcards… though I don’t want the recipient to feel obligated since social media is easier and cheaper 😅 I know we have email, but it doesn’t feel very personal either.
i am using all my social media accounts on another phone . on that phone i use less of the time, that phone is not good at scrolling it strucks while scrolling.
Email list/marketing has been my go to now. If these platforms were to disappear tomorrow, emails will still be around.
can’t agree more. email has been a much more reliable source of communication to my audience and customers.
You hit the nail with this one. I completely agree with you on all the points. I have been on an on-off relationship with Instagram for two years. I am now a product owner but I am a blogger. Although I started my social media handles as an extension to my blog I soon ended up neglecting my blog and using more of social media because there was more engagement here. But honestly I feel the majority of the response on Instagram is just smileys and nothing meaningful. As you mentioned the slow death of Facebook which I agree with, there is another new trend where Facebook pushes more of Facebook page and group contents. Or rather I feel that way. Thanks for this video. Makes me feel I am not alone!
on and off is a much more realistic picture of how a lot of us engage with instagram, since I noticed most people who talk about quitting eventually come back. It’s really good for our nervous system to take regular long breaks or gradually step back, rather than an all or nothing approach. Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective!
I caution against oversimplifying the power of social media as just a few lines of code. Social media companies operate similarly to other big corporations, hiring top talent and using scientific research to gain an edge.
I do appreciate the idea of quiet quitting social media. I love how we're recommending this more and more. ❤The internet is still big and open to a lot of ways we can stay connected.
This was good to hear. I feel I'm at a fork in the road with IG, but after listening to this maybe it doesn't need to be all or nothing. I only opened my account this year, when I had work I was ready to show. It's already clear that I won't be exposed to any audience there unless I give IG the content it is looking for (that you described so well). I just don't want to go down that path, so am resolved to low growth. So be it. I'll keep it but take the pressure off to "post consistently". It barely does anything on its own and is not worth the pressure and diversion of creative time. By the way, many of the artists I genuinely admire in my field have followers in the couple of thousands. None of them are posting three second reels. Good example to follow.
that’s a good reminder that most artists I respect aren’t chasing current posting trends, perhaps because they don’t need to. Everyone else feels more of a pressure to do the thing that will get them seen, when I feel all the effort to satiate the algorithm gods takes time and energy away from actually making good/better art.
I think the more we talk about this the more validating it is. We can't all be crazy right lol! The more we hear social media isn't serving it's purpose for small business or people in general the easier it becomes to let it go.
Yes I really hope we can collectively do better for our own health, enough to threaten social media’s bottom line. if not they’ll keep doing what works in their favor.
What a great reflection on the current state of Instagram. Thank you for sharing your thoughts in this video!
Great topic to touch on!
All of the ads on Facebook have me more annoyed than engaged.
I’m lucky to get a LIKE on Instagram unless it’s family! 😂
I do however acknowledge that because I’m not posting regularly, it is failing me.
At this point, I only use it to stay connected to community. As well as a portfolio, as you have mentioned.
It’s exhausting to create content regularly.
I’ve put the accounts that I wish to visit regularly into a folder in my SAVED option.
It makes it easy to find what accounts matter most.
I love your UA-cam channel!
You are so relatable.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.❤
Fantastic video as always, I love how open and straightforward you guys are. The idea of maintaining social media as a portfolio is great, because it takes so much time for us to follow up with all the changes and algorithms. Thank you!
I finally got myself to stop doom scrolling on social media by switching to audiobooks 😅 It keeps me entertained while I'm working and I've been able to stay away from social media without being tempted to doom scroll all day long like I used to. As for marketing my business on social media, I honestly don't know what I'm doing 🤣 I just post stuff and don't think about it too much. I'm too busy handling everything else that I need to manage to run my business.
Appreciate this vid! I'm trying to cut social media out of my life as much as possible, but have been worried about potentially crawling back to some once I start making moves to kick off my own creative business. It's a very important topic to discuss and I'm glad to see more folk disillusioned with social media and its intentionally unfortunate effects on our brains (and privacy in the form of selling our data like hot cakes to literally everyone they can).
Ok this is such a great perspective and such an encouragement!!
I agree with everything you said. I don’t have any rules for weaning off but i developed an aversion to Instagram once Meta bought it and everything changed (it used to be beautiful photography that was so relaxing and inspiring to view). Anyway, nowadays I tend to ignore/avoid it a lot like I do Facebook. 🤷🏻♀️ Turning off notifications completely might help some folks?
Or maybe I’m just antisocial. 🤣
you’re definitely not alone as you can see in the comments. turning off notifications is a good first step!
Excellent information ❤ thanks for looking deeper at the heart of the matter ❤
This topic was shared in writing in my recent newsletter and I’ve never gotten more replies on a newsletter. If you’re interested in keeping in touch there, you can join my email list on the Easy Sunday Club website. I send very infrequently - no more than once a month.
This is so in line with what I have been feeling about social media. Thank you for a very thoughtful commentary. I've just finished "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari . It was in-depth on social media and many other distractions that take away from our quality of life. It was a profound and relevant read 😊
I’ll check out his book, thanks for the rec!
Thank you so very much.....Your words have helped me.
keeping up with social media is exhausting! thanks for sharing your thoughts
gets more exhausting by the year…
I enjoyed listening to your share. Thank you. As a singer & actress I have taken more of a stance that social media is my portfolio. However I've recently been promoting my event business and its drawn me back into a more addictive space with social media. I hate how i find myself picking up my phone every few minutes after ive put it down. Im going to keep working on not picking it up in the empty space. I also been noticing that when I pick up my phone while watching tv its usually during an emotional moment. Makes me feel like im avoiding or looking for a distraction during those times.
I and so many others relate to your struggle with picking up our phone infinite times throughout the day. Since this video there seems to be a big wave of artists deleting their work off IG or stop posting or moving to Cara app due to meta’s recent announcement that they will use our public posts to train AI models. I wonder how this will play out long term.
It's designed to be addictive.
Great video. It's crazy this is becoming a more echoed sentiment by creatives. I would love to escape all the existing social media, but I don't want to lose my (tiny) platform or access to all the artists I love. When is something going to pop up to fill this void? Something that's just... Not greed driven.
There’s a huge wave of artists moving to Cara app that protects artists work from being scraped for AI models. I’m curious how this will play out long term.
Very timing with the Facebook and Instagram news..
yea, there seems to be an exodus to Cara but I’m unsure how viable it is if only artists join.
I appreciate your insight so much. I find myself deleting IG and then redownloading it a couple of days later. Treating IG like a portfolio seems like the right idea. I’ll also try to follow your three methods of weening off.
Appreciate you supporting my similar thoughts, Lona! Quitting AND never going back is easier said than done.
I think the only thing that keeps me on Facebook is that most of my family uses it, and I live abroad, but also I rarely check it as now I’m a mom and just tired of looking at it… overall, I want to start writing letters or postcards… though I don’t want the recipient to feel obligated since social media is easier and cheaper 😅
I know we have email, but it doesn’t feel very personal either.
“I’m a mom and just tired of looking at it” sums it up for me too haha.
i am using all my social media accounts on another phone . on that phone i use less of the time, that phone is not good at scrolling it strucks while scrolling.
UA-cam is your choice instead of IG. Should we make youtube videos like you?