In the last decade, I was pretty amazed by the evolution of social media, and the amount of content people consume daily. I had quite a few close friends in that cohort to be convinced that it wasn’t for me, not at least at the time, for my priorities did not align. This year, to be more social and meet new people while reinforcing some of the older bonds, I decided to join IG. It’s been rewarding in many ways, with a few pretty unanticipated. I just happened to find some free time to reflect and see if I wasn’t drifting away into something unintentionally, so here is another post.

The first week was mostly about finding all the people I knew. I wish IG was better integrated with FB, and I could have just ported all of my 2k followings from FB to IG with a click, but alas! I also don’t know the difference between FB and IG; they do the same things. Probably just that they attracted different communities, and that’s how it is now? Also very disappointing was the web interface, from chat to posts and stories. They clearly aimed for it to be a mobile-first platform more than a browser platform, which sucks for someone like me. If anyone reading this is on the IG team, please improve it. :)

Now that technical criticism is out of the way, I wanted to focus on the impact it has had so far. Ngl, it was definitely overwhelming, and I’m still trying to manage it better. It’s a lot of good stuff people post.

As a consumer:

This is not something that happened to me, but I can see how it can be so easy to feel low after a while of exposure to all the good times people are having, especially when you aren’t up to something as exciting, which can be due to any reason. At least 5% of the people you follow are likely doing something exciting this weekend, and it won’t be the same 5% all the time, but we see some 5% 100% of the time. We definitely didn’t evolve the ability to deal with this amount of exposure naturally. I could only think of two ways to deal with this:

1. Bounding my exposure to this by consciously taking actions to exercise self-control and restraint.
   • Initially, I did find myself checking the app more frequently than I would have otherwise. FWIW, I started using the Screen Time feature on iPhone to cap the amount of time I was spending in an app, and the Focus modes in iOS help a lot too. Pretty sure there shall be similar alternatives on android.
   • I’ve been also unsuccessfully trying to block time on Calendar and only use apps during that time, but it hasn’t worked for me. Primarily because texting is such a low bandwidth communication, it takes time to get any meaningful conversation going. I might eliminate long text conversations altogether, but I need to plan that move better. Open to ideas here!
   • I also have a rule to never scroll on the app, so all I do other than occasional texting is quick interactions with stories and maybe check the top few posts. No reels scrolling ever; never gonna let Mark’s recommender system get to me :p
   • Lastly, I mute a handful of people once in a while when I need a break from some distractions; it works!
2. Get better at how you process the things you do choose to expose yourself to (You always have to be in control and CHOOSE)
   • I didn’t realize how different people can be between online and offline lives until I saw it myself. Just being aware that there definitely are things we do not see, and most of what we see is the best snippets of their lives helps. Because then, you don’t subconsciously end up comparing your regular to others’ best and feel bad about it.

I know people who consume a lot of content, post way less or none, and it’s mostly just scrolled for a long time for entertainment or while away. Nothing against that; it is just, at times, mildly concerning, and I just hope you are aware of it and have chosen to do that. I am probably overly conservative when it comes to my own consumption. Even with this, I can see noticeable difference in my ability to focus which becomes quite evident during mediation. I’ll continue to monitor this, and may as well quit if I don’t find a good solution soon. Still, my main goal with it right now is to see what people are doing and if I can pick something new from them.

As a creator (/poster?)

• I mostly post stories and not as many posts. Honestly, I can’t decide what should go where and stories are just easy. I mainly do it, so people know what I’m up to (so we can skip the boring “What’s up?” questions) and interact with it. I also get a chance to catch up, and lastly, I can preserve them in highlights so I can go back to look at them.
• IG has definitely had a non-zero but little impact on encouraging me to go out and explore new frontiers because it triggers interesting conversations which expose more of what I didn’t know before, which in turn helps me with the further explorations; and I love this part!
• Most posts I see are of people doing exciting activities (and/or) at beautiful places (and/or) with amazing people. Depending on the day and state of mind, I slightly love and slightly hate this part of just posting all the goodies.
• Most negative experiences and problems are too personal or involve multiple people’s personal space. Hence, those are not some things people would like to post or view. This is why I guess I see most of the posts mentioned above.
• However, I think I’d like to see more of the boring parts of people’s lives, which I also expect to be the majority of our lives in the long term; hence, the related posts should be more ubiquitous.
  • I am more influenced by people I’ve ever interacted with IRL than the so-called “influencers” (Tbh, they do nothing for me, and I cannot relate to them whatsoever, and likely that’s the case with most of us?). I think it’d be interesting to know what people are usually up to, and just glimpses of their everyday lives and lifestyle.
  • Also, posting day-to-day stuff with some creativity can be relatable and amusing. At the same time, it also pushes you to make your daily lives less mundane. Most days in my life are pretty standard, and I’d say Mon-Fri is mostly just the same template: work, gym, cook, hobby stuff, and sleep, which is why you might not see me online much. But if I stay here longer and manage to make time for this, I’ll be sure to post more of this. I can see some people not being a fan of it, but numbers don’t really matter to me, and I care far too little about what people think at this point.

That’s all I had for this short one. I’ll keep calibrating for the upcoming months. Very much excited to see what y’all are up to and continue to share my experiences! Find me @saumyashah97 if you haven’t already. Peace!