Don't delete instagram. Do this instead

I've been deleting and redownloading Instagram for like five years I just redownloaded insta again after a month or so without any social media insta is like a toxic X it just keeps coming back but I think there's a better way let me explain my name is Tristan and here are some of the tips I found that help me have a better relationship with social media the goal isn't to completely quit Instagram it's more to use Instagram like a grandparent and less like an iPad kid essentially you don't want to be that person who habitually opens

Instagram every time there's a lull in a conversation this is to help curtail that hopefully you'll also develop a better relationship with it along the way tip number one don't follow people you don't know including celebrities Brands magazines athletes weird friends who are trying to become influencers like literally only follow your friends if you don't have their phone number like what's the point of following them do you really need to know what's going on in their life all of these people serve to remind you that your life is just kind of boring and that's not

exactly what you want on social media I pick up Instagram when I'm bored and it doesn't feel great to see a bunch of cool attractive and rich people doing fun things that I can't afford that just serves to make me feel even worse cutting out celebrities and brands from your social media makes it feel a lot more authentic which was the point of social media to begin with tip number two mute people people this is a slept on feature of Instagram you can essentially remove people's posts and stories from your feed without letting them know

it's actually amazing there's a lot of people you have to follow when you're on social media your mom your friend's slightly sexist boyfriend your mom's travel account with 58 Instagram followers that friend who is somehow now closer to your ex even though you were the one who introduced them while you were dating what the it doesn't matter mute them it's great you'll never see what they're up to who they're hanging out with anything like that and they don't need to know muting is genuinely such an underrated feature it's the best thing Instagram stolen since stories

try it out tip number three use time controls I've tried everything to keep myself off of that stupid app deleting the app deactivating my account only using Instagram on Safari the best tool I found for this so far is this app called screens and it's completely free and they're not sponsoring me to say this obviously they're not sponsoring me to say this I have like eight subscribers I found that any other time control I would just promptly ignore but this one lets you set a specific number of opens per day and a specific amount of

time you can spend on each open I found that 10 opens per day at 2 minutes each works great for me because it gives me enough time to see what my friends are up to but without letting me just sit down and doom scroll for like 45 minutes before I realize that any time has passed at all you can also add a delay for both opening the app and giving yourself a general unlock I have to sit and stare at my phone for two whole minutes contemplating what I'm doing with my life just to get

Instagram for a little bit more time it's enough to push me to find literally anything else to do you can also hard block yourself from opening Instagram or whatever app you want more than your allocated number of times per day which is great because it forces me to moderate the amount of times I use Instagram throughout the day so that I still have like a few checks in the evening okay tip number four don't use Instagram for more than a few minutes at a time this really helps me prevent Doom scrolling where I just sit

on my phone and burn two three 5 seven days in a row where I do like absolutely nothing other than scr the internet for Niche memes that most of my friends won't even watch it's genuinely so pointless and I would be better off doing anything else like literally anything else I don't even know how I lose track of time like that it's kind of sad the general idea is to use Instagram like a grandparent like I see what my close friends are up to and that's effectively it I don't need to know what some micro

celebrity is doing on the internet other than myself tip number five try making your phone grayscale it's much easier to ignore your friends hot summers if everything they're doing is in black and white Studies have even shown that grayscale makes your phone less addictive probably I don't really read studies so I can't tell you for sure but it sounds like something they definitely would have found I've personally found that having my phone in Gra scale makes it feel a lot more like a tool so like something I pick up to listen to music when I'm

working out and less something I pick up when I'm just bored and want to pass the time generally that's good because I'm trying to be more utilitarian about my use of Instagram one last tip if all of those things aren't really working for you like you've tried some random combination of them and it's still not making you feel better about Instagram just deactivate it for a few weeks because you can only deactivate your account once a week I feel a little bit of pressure to not reactivate it instantly after deactivating it and after a few

weeks off of Instagram I generally feel a little bit cleaner which goes away as soon as I redownload it anyways but if you follow some of the other tips maybe that won't be the case for you and finally if you still really hate it just delete it it doesn't matter it's social media literally nobody cares about what you're doing online if I thought people cared about what you did online I wouldn't be doing this online anyways those are some of the tips I've learned from being on and off Instagram for a while if you're still

watching this you should follow my Instagram because you're either family or one of my close friends obviously who else would have watched this um but seriously thanks for watching and I appreciate your support