It’s the middle of the night. Just like many of the other nights of this seemingly endless summer, I can’t sleep. I’m too tired to read, so I probably end up on Instagram; but then I’m more awake than ever, scrolling through photos, worrying about how I look and what other people think about me. This only multiplies my insecurities, but nevertheless, I find myself in the same position again and again.

“I didn’t even feel any better or more fulfilled by the end of it”

During this summer just gone by, I fell into waves of listlessness. I’ve had and probably still have a turbulent “relationship” with social media. I go through phases of scrolling too much and then phases of not using social media at all. Neither of these make me particularly happy, as I always feel as though I’ve wasted time after being online for too long. Even though I knew (and know) that Instagram isn’t real life or even close to it, the seemingly perfect and definitely edited images left me feeling inadequate. As platforms like Instagram (ironically) know me so well, I didn’t even realise how long I’d spend online because the minutes would just blend into a fuzzy nothingness. I didn’t even feel any better or more fulfilled by the end of it – if anything, I felt more drained.

“I didn’t feel comfortable about giving others a very distorted reflection of my life”

I was also conscious that I was contributing to the problem. I presented a very glossy side to my life on Instagram which wasn’t exactly reflective of my day-to-day life. I posted photos of me smiling by the sea, or posing with friends in a picturesque setting, but if you look closely we probably aren’t smiling properly because we are worrying about how we look. Part of this is natural; I don’t particularly take photos when I am upset and I certainly don’t want to share those moments with others. But I didn’t feel comfortable about giving others a very distorted reflection of my life, especially the nine hundred or so “followers” (a strange term in itself) that I hardly knew. I’d anxiously wait for likes to come in and feel somehow validated when they did.

So I took the executive decision to delete my account altogether. I’d made attempts to quit Instagram before but only deleted the app, meaning I inevitably ended up redownloading it. I relied on Instagram in a way that made me uneasy, and so I thought the only way I could end that was by deleting the account itself. And it did work for a while, I think I felt marginally better. I didn’t have the sort of epiphany and sense of freedom that social-media quitters talk about, but I did feel I had done the right thing for myself. I spent more time reading and chatting and thinking about things. I also spent less time comparing myself to other people, but I still felt a strange sense of absence. There’s a part of me that enjoyed using Instagram to chat to friends and feeling immersed in something distinctly vibrant and alive. Though the app isn’t perfect, it’s not all bad.

“I don’t as such have a perfect “solution” to the ins and outs of Instagram”

After three months without Instagram, I redownloaded it and set up a new account. This time round I only accepted follow requests from people I know well so I wouldn’t feel so self-conscious about posting and reaching a certain ‘like’ level. I definitely feel better about it, but I still don’t feel confident enough to post whatever I like – maybe because a lot of our more melancholy moments are private anyway. I don’t as such have a perfect “solution” to the ins and outs of Instagram. I haven’t (as of yet) had a revelation about it which has made my life 100 times better. Instead, like most people it seems, I have an up and down relationship with it. I don’t like the way it consumes a lot of my attention when it probably shouldn’t, but I do like how friends use it not just to show off (though maybe a little bit) but also to keep you in the loop and show their support for whatever you’re up to.

I didn’t experience elation when I deleted Instagram, but I don’t feel particularly fantastic about using it either, so the dilemma, as ever, continues. At the moment I am making a particular effort to try to be as “me” as possible, which isn’t always easy. I’m happy that I spend a lot less time on the platform now though, as I don’t “need” it in the way that I used to. I’d love to have answers to how to best use social media but as it stands, I am somewhat clueless in this area. This makes me, I believe, part of the majority.