Cactus Bright

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• 12 Dec, 2025 *

I stopped posting to Instagram in 2019 and deleted the app from my phone. Sometimes, I still download it to do specific things, then delete it right after.

Over time, I realized it was changing how I saw myself and other people.

It made me:

• Craved validation.
• Worried more about what people thought.
• Lost a space where I could operate freely and without judgment.
• Started viewing myself through other people’s eyes.
• Compared my relationship to others and felt bad about it.
• Compared how I looked to others and felt bad about that too.
• Tied my identity to a narrow version of myself.
• Knew way too much about the lives of people and celebrities I’d never meet. Knowing all that didn’t add anything helpful to my life.

Looking back, Instagram was shaping me subconsciously. It was influencing the person I was becoming. I didn’t want to become someone who did things for social media, like buying a drink just to take a photo of it. I didn’t want to buy things on impulse because an influencer shared them. And I didn’t want to keep feeling worse about myself.

So I stepped back. I stopped posting. I deleted the app from my phone. I needed to protect my sense of self, and doing that has been one of the healthiest choices I’ve made.

I sometimes miss it and think about getting back on. There were good things. I met one of my closest friends on Instagram. But I resist, because I remember everything bad it made me feel. Without it, I don’t feel boxed into an identity or like I have something to prove. And it feels good to be free of the constant urge to share.

(This could be applied to other social medias. Instagram was just the main one I used.)

I wrote more about Instagram here: (Reality - Context) + Assumptions = Instagram

#life