10 Good Reasons to Delete Instagram

Instagram is full of glamour. But just like similar social media platforms, you either like it or you despise it. Surely, the platform has helped many to connect, but it also comes with a load of issues.

Although Instagram originally got developed for sharing beautiful pictures on the Internet, the platform has slowly evolved into a major entertainment platform.

If you are feeling fed up with IG and wondering if you should just delete your account or app, then it pays to know that you are not alone. Many have turned their back on the platform and never looked back.

There are many reasons why it pays to leave Instagram. But we are listing the top 10 below, so you can check to see what resonates with your lifestyle.

10 Good Reasons to Quit Instagram

1. Your Mental Health

Instagram is not real. Most of those influencers do what they do for the money. From the dancing half-clad girls to memes, celebs, and the most interesting info pages. They are all doing it for the money and that makes their lives fake.

The major problem, however, is not the fakeness of these influencer’s personalities. Rather, it lies in most users being oblivious to this fact. And assuming, therefore, that they are all real.

If you don’t spend much time on the app, then this isn’t much of a problem. But if you do, then all those minutes and hours you spend scrolling, clicking, and liking posts, deviate you from reality.

You may start to see your physical surroundings and its people as inferior. As those make-believe posts increasingly dominate your perceptions. All those hotel pictures and vacation videos make your life look dull.

The imposing attitude of many influencers can also make you feel inferior. And this can lead to depression.

Here is a short rundown of all the negative mental health issues of heavy Instagram use.

• Depression because your life seems duller.
• Increased feelings of loneliness because you lack physical connections.
• Fear of missing out, if you are not logged in and scrolling. This leads to addiction and disregard of your personal life.
• Increased feelings of jealousy.
• It becomes an escape location from reality and social stress.
• Excessive sharing can make you a self-centered narcissist.
• It is a self-sustaining vicious cycle of vanity.

2. Regain Your Time

Most people don’t seem to get it – Time is the most valuable commodity you have. And you serve yourself best when you channel as much of it as possible into achieving your life’s goals.

So, if your life’s goal is spending hours on end browsing Instagram, then go ahead. Else, it should be time for yourself and your needs. Time for studying the world around you and working towards your goals.

Deleting your Instagram app or account will free up all the extra time you previously wasted in idolizing strangers and liking their narcissistic posts. It will also improve your life because what you focus on grows.

3. Increase Your Focus

The Instagram app continues to run in the background to deliver notifications, even after you have closed it. This notification feature is also available for web browsers, although you will first have to permit the website to send you notifications.

While these notifications are great and often entertaining or useful, they can be very distracting when you are trying to work. And if you are not careful while working, you might find that you have spent 30 minutes or an hour on the site, since you got that last notification.

Deleting Instagram will boost your focus on work and the other things that matter to you. And this improved focus will consequently improve your earnings and your life in general.

4. More Face-to-Face Socialization

Human beings are emotional animals. So, while Instagram can let you chat with someone on another continent, it can never provide that transfer of emotions that face-to-face conversations offer.

Animal magnetism is the reason behind emotional bonding and face-to-face meetings are necessary to make it happen. Instagram and other online interactions, including video calls, are devoid of this capacity. So, the person with pre-dominantly online acquaintances is doing himself or herself no good.

When you delete your Instagram account, you will be forced to engage in more physical contact with other human beings. And this, in turn, leads to deeper satisfaction and improved well-being.

5. Regain Your Privacy

If you are concerned about your online privacy at all, then simply delete Instagram. A 2021 report named the Facebook-owned company’s app the “most invasive” for sharing 79% of its user’s data to third parties.

Its parent company, Facebook, is unsurprisingly also accused of sharing 57% of its users’ data with third parties. This study was conducted by online privacy experts, pCloud.

Secondly, sharing private information online is also risky. Letting total strangers see where you live, the kind of car you drive, your personal space, income level, and so on, is just not smart.

Furthermore, if you have any issues with government spying, then uninstall the app.

6. Regain Your Self Esteem

Most of the influencers you see on Instagram are narcissists. They only care about themselves – how they look, how much they earn, how hot their spouses are, and so on.

Moreover, they only post the most presentable views of their lives – the beautiful moments, sweet beaches, perfect curves, shiny cars, luxurious hotel rooms, and so on.

All these issues weigh down on your psyche as you keep scrolling and seeing nothing but pure glamour. Their seeming perfection makes you feel imperfect, unworthy, and even cheap.

The only way to regain your self-esteem is to delete Instagram. Then, you will come back to your senses, knowing that life is never perfect. You will accept your imperfections and that of those around you, then move on with your life.

7. See Only What You Need

If you are a busy professional who still needs to keep up with events, then websites like TargetTrend, Mashable and AllTop can help you. They aggregate what is going on around you or your business landscape, without Instagram’s endless distractions.

8. Learn Useful Stuff

Browsing Instagram is entertaining, no doubt about that. But you should also consider the opportunity costs of browsing mindlessly on the platform for extended periods.

You could better spend that time reading something useful. Such as a book, a guide, a detailed tutorial, or an online course. You could even go into the real world and learn something new.

Spending an hour or two to learn a new skill every day, will improve your life in the long run. It will make you happier and more successful, boosting your overall well-being and life outlook.

Whatever you do with your newfound knowledge or skills will be infinitely more useful to you. Because you would have otherwise wasted that time just browsing Instagram.

9. Save Data Costs

Instagram now loves to force-feed you videos, as long as you are using the mobile app. Those videos will load and start playing automatically. There is no way to turn them off, except by using a web browser.

While such a setup means more user engagement, statistics, and higher ad revenue for the company, it means more costs for the average user. Because he or she has no control over how and when videos load on his or her phone.

So, if you are on a budget and have to often use Instagram through your mobile carrier, for lack of WiFi, then you are better off deleting the app.

10. Stop Working for No Pay

Finally, UGC or user-generated content is the new gold. So, all those likes, comments, accounts you are following, your messages, and other interactions on the site, are worth a lot of money to the company.

Most free web-service providers like Instagram, mine user data to create demographics and other metrics that can be used to make money. And of course, the most popular avenue is selling the data to advertisers.

In the end, Instagram makes billions in ad revenue, and you are left with only a sore thumb from all your browsing activity.

So, if you are not making a living from the platform. Then, do yourself a favor and stop working for no pay, by deleting your account.

Conclusion

Reaching the end of this post, you can see there are very good reasons and benefits to delete the Instagram app from your phone.

From better mental health to improved online privacy, productivity boosts and engaging in healthier face-to-face human interactions, there is no doubt your life will be better without the app.

So, except Instagram offers you any benefits that outweigh its many disadvantages, you should go ahead and delete it.