The Social Media Lottery

In preparation for a recent family trip, I deleted Instagram from my phone so I wouldn't be tempted to randomly open it up and scroll for no reason. 

When I returned home, I struggled to find a compelling justification for re-downloading the app. Despite considering myself to be disciplined, I find myself mindlessly scrolling (“relaxing”) or sharing mindless memes (“connecting”) far more than I feel comfortable with. 

I definitely see the case for businesses or a tight-knit family or social circle. The waters become murkier when we’re lost in the middle-ground: would-be influencers trading a significant amount of time and mental bandwidth in hopes that they’ll be the next one in a million. It’s not that different than spending all your money on lottery tickets. Sure, someone’s going to win, but it’s probably not going to be you. 

I keep coming back to this question: Is the small amount of attention we’re getting worth the astronomical amount of time we’re spending on these platforms? I’m pretty sure most of us aren’t going to look back in 10, 20, or 30 years and say “I wish I would’ve spent more time on TikTok.” 

Despite all that I re-downloaded the app and posted a few stories of my car today. How’s that for self-control?