I deleted Instagram

[Lyubov]

15 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

https://metasinternalresearch.org/

Curated repository and analysis of Meta's leaked/disclosed internal research, not itself the primary research. But if anyone is interested. 

@Lyubov I am keen to hear back after sometime of having no access to Instagram. I found that, despite me thinking I was relaxing or unwinding, I was left feeling slightly empty, numb and seeking further stimulation. It really disrupted my wind down routines.

Yeah, it is really like smoking, it's maybe not the best comparison but it is similar. Constant timeouts for some bit of a high. It doesn't relax me at all yet it's the first thing I reach for after work. I work a lot and am under a lot of stress right now, I have to be careful with both food (sweets) and my phone for managing my energies. I am constantly seeing something disturbing on there or that is repulsive, something lustful like half naked women, no one talks to me in real life like they do on social media, and if they did they would end up best case ignored, worst case in a fist fight. Almost nothing on it is real. It's impossible to even clean it up and set it up so it's healthy, it's designed to always lead you back to scrolling and wound up because it's been engineered to constantly push people's buttons. it feeds comparisons and judgements. 

I have a theory that social media will largely become something a digital underclass is more engaged with while people who are financially successful and prioritizing their health and wellbeing no longer scroll or use the app much. Think about how health and wellness products became something associated with wealth, living in nature by the beach, not having to drive. Owning a car was once seen as a luxury, now no one wants to be in traffic breathing exhaust. I think the next stage in the social media evolution is a lot of the people at the top with resources just quietly shutting the app off, still posting on it some, maybe checking messages, but no longer a consumer on it, relying largely on their established network of friends and groups they joined, using AI agents and bots to automate a lot of the process of using it. People whose livelihood that is really entangled with it will have a harder time reaching this stage but those who set something up that is more passive in nature (passive income being the gold standard of success in the USA) you will see this crowd essentially say they no longer watch anything on it and just pay someone to upload their content with trending audio for them. 

Edited 13 hours ago by Lyubov

[PsychedelicEagle]

7 hours ago, enchanted said:

Cal Newport talks a lot about this too on his YouTube channel. Reading is a good antidote and is even more important, radical, and therapeutic because of this.

Cal's content (and books) are great.

[PsychedelicEagle]

2 hours ago, LordFall said:

Instagram is basically a digital mall or shopping district.

It's much more than that. Instagram has mechanisms to keep you hooked that leverage ancient neurological pathways such as fear, social comparison, habit formation. If you want to activate your reptilian brain one of the best ways is to use instagram more often.

[BlessedLion]

16 hours ago, LifeEnjoyer said:

Yeah I just post my material then delete it instantly after.

Same i use it to post but absolutely hate the app, it's full of garbage and has been detrimental to my efforts to quit porn. It's basically a soft porn junk machine.

 

At the same time, it's a powerful tool to share ideas and I get a lot of satisfaction from sharing my work (Lions Heart YouTube) there

[Lyubov]

1 hour ago, BlessedLion said:

Same i use it to post but absolutely hate the app, it's full of garbage and has been detrimental to my efforts to quit porn. It's basically a soft porn junk machine.

 

At the same time, it's a powerful tool to share ideas and I get a lot of satisfaction from sharing my work (Lions Heart YouTube) there

Yeah it absolutely pushes naked women, I’ve gotten ads with AI porn and naked women. The app funnels young men, many underage, onto porn pages of onlyfans whores. It’s just annoying. The app is rapey, it doesn’t even ask you if you want this or give you any sort of choice or control just “LOOK NAKED LOOK SEX LOOK GET ANGRY.” It would be one thing if the app was engineered differently where you could choose this and close it off when you’ve had enough but it’s entire design down to the foundation isn’t this.  

Edited 9 hours ago by Lyubov

[Jirh]

The wicked algorithms are no joke. I didn't have IG until last year, and I used it mainly for porn since I only follow models lol. Everything was under control. I'd get on the app for like 15 minutes max, do my thing and get back to life. Then today I realized my feed is rarely porn anymore, and I'm spending almost an hour each session on that son of a bitch. It got to me against my will and my consciousness, slowly over time. The algorithms won.

[Basman]

Social media used to be an escape from life. Now reality is an escape from social media.

[PsychedelicEagle]

1 hour ago, Jirh said:

The wicked algorithms are no joke. I didn't have IG until last year, and I used it mainly for porn since I only follow models lol. Everything was under control. I'd get on the app for like 15 minutes max, do my thing and get back to life. Then today I realized my feed is rarely porn anymore, and I'm spending almost an hour each session on that son of a bitch. It got to me against my will and my consciousness, slowly over time. The algorithms won.

The good thing about porn is when you cum you can easily close all browser tabs or apps in ~30ms. It's a great example of recontextualization happens btw.

With social media there's never really an orgasm so you keep using it like a zombie. 🤣

Pull the plug @Jirh, delete the app! You can do it.

Edited 6 hours ago by PsychedelicEagle

[LordFall]

6 hours ago, PsychedelicEagle said:

It's much more than that. Instagram has mechanisms to keep you hooked that leverage ancient neurological pathways such as fear, social comparison, habit formation. If you want to activate your reptilian brain one of the best ways is to use instagram more often.

Fear and social comparison can be useful tools to drive us towards reaching our full potential. I've met plenty of people that lived in their own bubble and thought they were on top of their shit until they encounter the greater market that encompasses our species as a whole. Fooling yourself to think you're the big dawg because you're a big fish in a small pond type of thing.

Happens all the time with the discussions I have on this forum. Which is why I encourage people to build a brand on Instagram and get into business so that the market starts working in their favor as opposed to being a force that inevitably will crush them. 

Being fundamentally anti social media is adopting the survival mechanism of the ostrich as one of yours. I wouldn't personally recommend it.

@Lyubov I agree with your point that it should be regulated and just like it's not the manifestation of hell on earth, it's also not heaven. I disagree that alcohol is a good comparison. I would compare it more to a car. There are plenty of car accidents daily but it's still a great mode of transportation. Some people full on think cars and technology are evil and live without it like the amish. I don't aspire to be amish but I think a lot of them live great lives through their philosophy. It's up to you and what you want.

Electric cars are the answer to solve the pollution effect of cars and self-driving will hopefully reduce the car accidents to pretty much 0. Similar guard rails should be built into social media. 

I do like your idea of posting on it but not consuming, that shows a pragmatic strategy around it. I could for sure use being less dopamine addicted so I'm not saying my strategy around it is necessarily peak. If I look at my ROI for it though it swings massively towards the positive axis. I do meditate everyday though so my relationship to presence and my ability to avoid distractions are probably stronger than the average person. 

Edited 5 hours ago by LordFall

[PsychedelicEagle]

1 hour ago, LordFall said:

Fear and social comparison can be useful tools to drive us towards reaching our full potential.

Good luck trying to reach your full potential with a slot machine in your pocket.

@LordFall The point is that Instagram itself is overall a net negative for most people's psyche.

You only mention the positive aspects without acknowledging the negative ones.

Social media like YouTube is much better.

Edited 4 hours ago by PsychedelicEagle

[Lyubov]

I don’t believe fear and social comparison should be used to shape your life and they definitely can never ever get you to reach your full potential as I understand full potential. Truth is what gets you to your full potential. Full potential is living authentically, in flow, freedom, oneness balanced with your responsibilities as a human being. I do not believe comparisons and fear (self punishment) will get you here. They may materially get you far but I do not consider that full potential.

[Jirh]

1 hour ago, PsychedelicEagle said:

The good thing about porn is when you cum you can easily close all browser tabs or apps in ~30ms. It's a great example of recontextualization happens btw.

With social media there's never really an orgasm so you keep using it like a zombie. 🤣

Pull the plug @Jirh, delete the app! You can do it.

No way I'm deleting it anytime soon. There's new porn everyday. I just need to fight the algorithms with more porn 🤣

Seriously, I prefer almost naked girls than fully naked. And I don't like watching the act of sex itself as much as the bodies of the girls, so for me IG is more useful than real porn and less addictive. It's all junk food for my imagination, but it does the job better than porn.

Edited 4 hours ago by Jirh

[LordFall]

1 hour ago, PsychedelicEagle said:

Good luck trying to reach your full potential with a slot machine in your pocket.

@LordFall The point is that Instagram itself is overall a net negative for most people's psyche.

You only mention the positive aspects without acknowledging the negative ones.

Social media like YouTube is much better.

Well yes because most people have a victim mindset and don't produce much in life so seeing people produce stuff and going on adventures is gonna sting. I don't experience that effect myself because I've worked on my psychology to see myself as a continuously improving being and not as a static victim of my circumstances. It gives me ideas for events I can host, trips I can take, and the types of videos I can make.

If you have a victim mindset any type of success is gonna hurt to see. You're gonna hate hearing about celebrities, dislike anything related to business and definitely influencers are gonna be the worst because they are much closer to you and me than film actors that seem more out of reach.

54 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

I don’t believe fear and social comparison should be used to shape your life and they definitely can never ever get you to reach your full potential as I understand full potential. Truth is what gets you to your full potential. Full potential is living authentically, in flow, freedom, oneness balanced with your responsibilities as a human being. I do not believe comparisons and fear (self punishment) will get you here. They may materially get you far but I do not consider that full potential.

I agree. The truth is that the planet has 8 billion people on it and you can interact with all of them if you build a successful brand. The less of those people you are able to reach with your message or through your business endeavours the more irrelevant and unimpactful of a human being you are. 

Social media allows you to scale the impact you have. Some teachers produce great effects on the students they have in school. Their impact is limited to maybe a couple of hundred people per year max. If you think you have value to share with the world why not try to win market share with the 3 billion daily active users across Meta platforms? You could perhaps go as far as to say if you think what other creators are sharing is nonsense and you have higher quality stuff to share then it's your moral responsibility to do so. 

Why watch history happen when you can be a part of it? That's my view on it at least. I've had many people thank me for the impact I've had on their lives and my main platform for reaching them and setting up events for us to meet in person was Instagram. 

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall

[PsychedelicEagle]

@LordFall It's not only about victim mindset.

[PsychedelicEagle]

48 minutes ago, Jirh said:

No way I'm deleting it anytime soon. There's new porn everyday. I just need to fight the algorithms with more porn 🤣

Seriously, I prefer almost naked girls than fully naked. And I don't like watching the act of sex itself as much as the bodies of the girls, so for me IG is more useful than real porn and less addictive. It's all junk food for my imagination, but it does the job better than porn.

Haha fair. But you can still delete the app and use it on the computer.

[Yimpa]

16 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I removed the apps from my phone - I occasionally browse on a terminal.

Apps? Do you mean you also deleted other Meta apps like Facebook? And what is a terminal? Tanks for clarifying! 

 

[LordFall]

6 minutes ago, PsychedelicEagle said:

@LordFall It's not only about victim mindset.

I've already addressed the negative aspects having some validity. The fact that you emphasize the victim-mindset part to me sounds like that hit the right target in terms of your personal dislike of it.

If you'd like we can deconstruct it further. What did you dislike about the app when you were on it? Do you feel like you're able to reach your goals in life effectively? Do you ever feel resentment and bitterness towards people with more success than you in the areas of life that matter to you? 

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall

[Lyubov]

29 minutes ago, LordFall said:

 

I agree. The truth is that the planet has 8 billion people on it and you can interact with all of them if you build a successful brand. The less of those people you are able to reach with your message or through your business endeavours the more irrelevant and unimpactful of a human being you are. 

Social media allows you to scale the impact you have. Some teachers produce great effects on the students they have in school. Their impact is limited to maybe a couple of hundred people per year max. If you think you have value to share with the world why not try to win market share with the 3 billion daily active users across Meta platforms? You could perhaps go as far as to say if you think what other creators are sharing is nonsense and you have higher quality stuff to share then it's your moral responsibility to do so. 

Why watch history happen when you can be a part of it? That's my view on it at least. I've had many people thank me for the impact I've had on their lives and my main platform for reaching them and setting up events for us to meet in person was Instagram. 

We are going slightly off on a tangent here but I would say that your point assumes that endless reach automatically means better. I would say this is actually not always true, or at least not for what I am creating. Probably some of the best teachers I've met knew a certain level of growth was actually bad for them. Some of the best I know work with only a few, and knew that growth in this domain would actually hurt their message. The top bar of the hexagram in the I Ching, extreme outer boundary, The dragon flies so high into the heavens it gets lost. One loses touch with the ground. I do not want 3 billion people watching my videos. A video made for 3 billion people would lose the very spirit of the video I set out to make in the first place. I would be careful with this notion. It's in part what has made social media grow so much, it equally is what I believe waters the very root of my thread about why Instagram has become such a poisonous and disgusting place. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Lyubov

[LordFall]

5 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

We are going slightly off on a tangent here but I would say that your point assumes that endless reach automatically means better. I would say this is actually not always true, or at least not for what I am creating. Probably some of the best teachers I've met knew a certain level of growth was actually bad for them. Some of the best worked with only a few, and knew that growth would actually hurt their message. The top bar of the hexagram in the I Ching, extreme outer boundary, The dragon flies so high into the heavens it gets lost. One loses touch with the ground. I do not want 3 billion people watching my videos. I would even be careful with this notion. It's in part what has made social media grow so much, it equally is what I believe waters the very root of my thread about why Instagram has become such a poisonous and disgusting place. 

I think that's a limiting belief my man. The obvious common argument is that short form content dilutes the message and to reach 3 billion people you have to pander to the masses.

Sure, on a surface level. That's why funnels are a thing. You start out wide and you convert people to a different platform where you can engage with them deeper to convey the more substantial aspects of your message. This is marketing 101. I do it in a way that I have city-specific pages so I can reach people in different locales and target my content to them. There are many different ways to do it but it works quite well. 

If you have true value to give to others why not give it to as many people as you can? I think that's an indisputable notion. 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall

[PsychedelicEagle]

@LordFall Instagram is a time drain. Consumers pay an enourmous amount of time and energy for shallow content.