My Unhealthy Relationship with Social Media

At the ripe age of 13, social media taught me how to hate myself. The year was 2013, I had just received my first iPhone for Christmas and finally gotten my little baby hands on the app that all the girls in my small all-girls catholic school were talking about: Instagram. My username? Classy_Suspenders. It was perfect—a little bit of classy, a little bit of cool, just like me. Even at that young age I was creative, using fashion and photography to experiment with all the creative juice I had flowing through my head. Instagram was the platform that I needed. The stage that I so desperately wanted to perform on. Over the years, I eventually came to realize that that audience and that stage were just a little too uncomfortable for me. Too many lights, too many judging eyes, the simultaneous approval and judgement that made me lose sleep. I just another insecure girl that was caught up in the newly created social media schema. 

When the approval was good, and the audience was kind and gentle, I felt alive. “Finally,” I thought in my small pea-brained head. A space where I could communicate with people and share things that I thought were cool—things I enjoyed doing before I was even exposed to world of social media. But when the audience was bad, characterized as either disinterested or rude, I felt dead. “Oh no,” I thought. Had I done something wrong? 

I quickly learned what my beloved audience of followers liked and didn’t like. Granted, at the time, I maybe had 75 followers, but the number didn’t matter to me. I was sharing and communicating and learning about my peers in different ways thanks to this app. I thought it was marvelous. 

I began curating what I posted, what filter I used (back when filters were popular), the perfect captions. It was no longer about posting what I liked with my friends, now it was about getting approval from this people. Something I would have never considered had it not been for those likes. 

As I got older, the feelings of insecurity that come with puberty strengthened as much as my yearning for social media approval. At the age of 17, I finally gave up. I was tired of losing sleep over this imaginary idea of approval and validity marked by a simple double tap. At that point I had lost myself. So, consumed with the world of social media, and what everyone else was doing, that I began missing out on real life. I cared more about internet Zaria, than I did real life her. I ached for freedom from the app, and from this world that I felt I had outgrown. 

So, I discovered the “temporarily disable your account” function. I still think this is the most brilliant part of Instagram, even in the midst of a non-chronological timeline. Such a shame. 

Alas, freedom. I could already feel the grip of my racist and uninformed IG audience begin to release their hold of me. Freedom from their gaze, but also freedom from the internet world. I could breathe—real air. 

And at this point, I began my on-off relationship with Instagram. One day I’ll post a selfie or a link to my most recent article, the next I’ll disappear. Gone for two or three months until I decide I want to share my cuteness with the world again. 

I write this personal essay at a crucial time in my life. This upcoming year I’ll be turning 20 years old, and I’ve dedicated the year (but also the rest of my life) to choosing me. Choosing me over other people’s expectations. Choosing me over commitments that I really did not want to commit to in the first place. Choosing me over negative thoughts rooted in insecurity, poor relationships, bad food (I must stop eating cheese, my Lord), anything. I also choose me over the Internet. And that might just be the most important one of all.