Current Thoughts on Social Media

It was the first Sunday morning in March. When I looked through the viewfinder, everything seemed to freeze for a moment. Sometimes for a surfer, sometimes for a dog running along the shore, and sometimes for an old man watching the ocean. Each time, I pressed the shutter.

It had been a long time since I’d taken a photo. That day, my husband and I were doing one of our usual weekend activities. After breakfast, we started walking toward Marine Street Beach. When I picked up the camera, I felt as though I’d reunited with that friend with whom time seemed to pass without notice. And I remembered just how much joy I took in sharing my photos.

That feeling was the reason I reactivated my Instagram account which I had deactivated about six months earlier.

Creating or Consuming?

When I returned to Instagram, my goal was to create without consuming. I wanted to share the moments I captured and tell the story behind the photo. I wanted to write about the things that led me to that moment, the context that made that shot possible.

On Instagram, your creativity is shaped by the platform’s structural and algorithmic constraints, producing exactly the kind of content I don’t want to consume. And producing the things that I don’t want to consume didn’t feel sincere. That made me feel like I am just adding to the noise and not really communicating. I asked myself “Would I scroll this if I saw it?” And more uncomfortable than that is even if I wouldn’t scroll it, would it actually matter? Would someone carry it with them, think about it later, connect it to something else they know? How can you make fifty unrelated videos you watch one after another meaningful when you can’t even remember a book you’ve read? How can you incorporate them into your own knowledge without thinking about them or jotting down a few lines? It made more sense to step back and ask what kind of thing is actually worth making.

I looked at the people that I had followed because I thought they were doing something more than just producing content. You can see similar patterns such as similar intonations, gestures and facial expressions, opening hooks, editing style or polished aesthetic. It’s like a game. If you want to win, you have to play by rules. Actually “playing the game” is not just about Instagram or social media generally but today’s topic is not about that so I am not gonna dive into that. (You can read this blog post: Escaping Flatland.)

I saw an Instagram story from a person that I follow, asking her audience whether they’d enjoy watching her try a different matcha recipe every week. I was following that person because I thought that she is sharing what she does but not the ones shaped by people’s demand. What I mean is that if she wants to try different matcha recipes then she should try and then if she wants to share it on Instagram then share it. I understand the anxiety around producing content that resonates with your followers, especially when, as she mentioned, generating an income from there. But when I see “content creators” running behind the trends or people’s demand, their genuineness disappears. Maybe I’m being unfair about this, though. Maybe the freedom does come eventually, once you’ve built something large enough that you can afford to take risks. However, this is not changing the things about playing the game before building something large enough.

What I’m saying might sound like I’m overanalyzing things. Of course, I don’t question things this deeply as I go through life. But when you stop and think about it, I want to see that the things I dedicate my time and energy to carry more meaning. For meaning I don’t mean saving the world, bringing peace on earth. I just want to be able to do what I want and act like who I am. That’s the meaning that is relevant to me. That was the same reason I wanted to leave my job. I evaluate social media through that same perspective because I wanted to create on that platform.

The Matter of the Bonds I’ve Formed With My Loved Ones

Another reason for my return to Instagram was to stay in touch with people. It’s been eight months since I moved abroad, and over time I’ve noticed that we’ve been sharing less frequently. Living with an eleven hour time difference isn’t exactly easy, of course. We still share important moments with each other, but you want to be included in ordinary things as well.

Instagram doesn’t actually solve this. Posting a photo to a feed isn’t the same as reaching out to someone. It’s just broadcasting. You put something into a feed and hope the right people notice. However, I was searching for connection. The moments that have made me feel genuinely close to people back home were the ones where someone sent me a voice message out of nowhere, texted me a photo of something random, called me out of the blue or shared something they loved recently. No context needed, no performance involved.

That’s what I actually want more of. Don’t hesitate to send messages to your loved ones about anything without any explanation or context.

My Own Space

After one month, I deleted the Instagram app and stopped checking my account. However, I still love creating and sharing. So how am I going to solve this?

I already had a website where I share my photos and I have my digital memory box. Looking back at it, I think it was always a better home for the kind of thing I actually want to make. Writing that takes up space, photos with the story behind them, things that ask a little more from the visitor.

That’s what I couldn’t offer on Instagram because the platform shapes what something can be before you’ve even made it. On my own website, I’m not working around an algorithm or trying to fit a format. I can let a photo breathe. I can write three paragraphs about a Sunday morning walk if that’s what it takes to say what I mean.

I’ve decided to use my website more actively but not to build an audience, not to optimize anything. Just for making things that feel worth making, and put them somewhere they can exist on their own terms.

That felt like enough of a reason.