The Broad Running Broad

It hasn’t quite been a month yet, but I want to talk about how the IG deletion/back-to-real-life recovery has gone so far.

The next morning I woke up with a renewed sense of focus – which lasted throughout the day. My workday thoughts that are usually prone to being jumbled remained focused instead. I commented to my mom that this had to be what it’s like taking Ritalin.

Every day for the past almost-month has been like this.

And I’m still wondering why it took me this long to get rid of Instagram in the first place.

I mentioned in my previous post about Instagram that I found the app to be simultaneously boring and a time drain. But after a month I didn’t realize how much social media generally has become so angry, and how in turn this was contributing to my own feelings of restless agitation.

If you think about it, infuriating stories, events and content creators get people talking and manage to live rent-free in the collective’s head. Social/political commentators who go for the most extreme views possible, or influencers who promote their schtick with the most patronizing delivery (I’m referring to the main players in the current battle of echo chamber gender wars – there’s so damn many of them now) are the bestsellers. There’s so much self-righteousness, rage-baiting and just straight up ugliness in the name of getting 15 minutes of internet fame.

Then you have influencer culture. Frankly, the relationships between influencers and their comments section baffles me. There are a few influencers in the running/fitness community I would check out from time to time, since they were local to me and generally harmless. At worst a bit thoughtless with what they were willing to share about their personal lives, and the cliche “I get haters” schtick from a few of them got old pretty quickly.

Couldn’t you just … ignore stupid comments? If you’re willing to put your entire life online and open yourself up to scrutiny, then you can’t be too surprised by an occasional jerk, can you?

But on the other hand, some of those commenters were out of line, reeking of sour grapes and generally being unhinged. If they weren’t bitter then they were definitely projecting entire worst case scenarios on to a straightforward picture or video.

No, the female runner who happens to be thin is not starving to death, Brenda.

A significant chunk of my time was spent scrolling through various comments sections to see the dumpster fires of stupid comments and sassy remarks. I’m not proud to admit this.

But over the past month of not having IG boredom scrolling in my life, I got my sense of calm back. And because my sense of calm is back, I’ve developed a new intolerance for useless noise and aggressive people on and offline.

The constant barrage of indignation, insults, contemptuous rhetoric and “clapping back” was starting to agitate me. It was as though unless I was stressed or irritated by something stupid I saw or read, I was lethargic and unable to awaken. I was dysregulated, and going cold turkey on IG was what brought me back to real life, of being able to focus on the here and now and be fully present.

Being present forced me to see that real life tends to have a lot of positives to outweigh the negatives. And that most people I know and interact with on a daily basis are super chill and far more pleasant to be around that anyone currently yelling on YouTube right now.

In other words, I’m regularly touching the grass again. It’s quite lush and green, in case you haven’t seen it lately.

And that newfound intolerance? Nothing is going to dysregulate and steal my calm again. I’ve got a new rule for life: don’t let angry people near my mind or body, unless I want them to zap my energy. Energy and peace are non-negotiable. No one is bringing their rage or chaos to my house, and definitely not to my phone.

It’s so nice feel normal again.

And with that being said, I thank you for stopping by my section of the Internet and spending your time with me. I hope you all have a wonderful day or evening.

Yours in writing and life,

Allison