| Delete Instagram and Facebook from your phone. I did and I recommend everyone do it. You can still access via browser, but obviously not as good UX (which may make you less addicted). I get how people can get addicted to social media apps (I got addicted to FB when I was in college 2005-2007 ish), and I am happy to see articles like this and other media outlets cover social media addiction and spread awareness, its a big problem. I would not blame the apps, though. I think the real problem is that social media turbo-charges the social dynamics of the real world: * attention seeking - "likes" are attention, and people love attention * social presentation - you can present the best picture of your fake life * envy and fantasy - men and women who think they live boring lives observing the curated, filtered lives of the people they want to be * social hierarchy - who follows who? Prettier people having more follower / friends * etc I fell into those traps, and fb/insta were there to indulge my insecurities - but, critically, it was insecurities that fed the into the addiction. I'm a different guy now - I spend more time on myself than observing others. I'm poorly articulating all this, but I think there is something to be analyzed there. |
Also, Instagram ads are actually blockable in-browser because they haven't bothered to update the site beyond the bare minimum of compatibility updates in years. So my iPhone on a VPN running a pihole made Instagram a little more bearable until I noticed that none of my friends ever posted anything any more.