What I get out of social media

And ways I might find these things elsewhere, off of Instagram

Last week I shared a carousel post about our past foster dogs. (Adorable puppy photos included!) While I did not expect it to break the internet, I also did not expect it to reach fewer than 50 people in nearly five hours. I’m under no illusions that my Instagram engagement has been stellar (especially following my three-month social media break last year) but this was the most extreme “flop” yet.

Surprisingly, my primary feeling was “I do not give a damn”.

For one thing, I’m frustrated with Meta from an ethical standpoint. (Have been for a while… but my distaste is magnified under current United States leadership.) For another, the biggest reason I’ve stuck around on social media—even after reading Digital Minimalism and Deep Work last winter, even after filling dozens of pages with ramblings about whether or not Instagram brings me true joy—is because posting on the platform was still doing something both for me and, I hope, for those of you who have followed along.

There were still inklings (sometimes floods!) of genuine connection. There were still new people I was able to touch for the first time! There was still an existing community I could throw my arms around—and who so often threw their arms around me!

I can’t stem the sense that all those real things are fading.

Sean used to ask me, years ago—when we lived in our Florida house, when I still worked a marketing agency 9-5—if I’d ever “be over” or “outgrow” the dog social media thing. He didn’t mean that in a negative way. He was just curious: Did I see myself becoming dissatisfied with a life on Dogstagram? Would I ever want to do not necessarily more but different? (His own attention span, I like to joke, is that of an extremely ambitious goldfish. Sean is always trying something new, always yearning.)

I wasn’t sure. Possibly, I said. Probably, even. But the day seemed so far away. Now it’s been six years since I started sharing life with Scout on social media—more than half a decade, more than the length of my abusive relationship before Sean (an experience that defined my coming-of-age for so long).

And maybe the day is here.

Maybe the day’s been here for a while but I’ve struggled to see it through my overthinking and grief. (Yes, grief. Thinking about bidding Instagram farewell—even about keeping the account up but taking a large step back—feels like loss.)

Is this it? Is it finally actually time to leave social media: the genesis of Paws and Reflect, the place it all started? My stomach hurts thinking about it. I can’t tell if that’s because I’m still dragging my feet (and maybe I have reason to?) or because I’m actually regretting some of the hours (and hours and hours) I've wasted on the platform thus far.

Here’s what I get (or at least, have gotten) out of social media—and some ideas about where I might find these things in a life on the other side of Instagram.

Connection with fellow nerds and creature lovers

This has always been the biggest draw. Instagram turned out to house an impressive community of people who shared my interests, professed my values, and inspired my ideas. (At 2.4 billion users, I guess that’s not a surprise.) At its best, social media is exactly that: media that enables social connection.

But it seems harder to find that connection these days. Instagram has changed over time—and so have my own account and goals. Most of my strongest relationships grew in my earliest time on the platform when I met fellow dog owners going through similar struggles. Those struggles—especially our deep, overwhelming emotions about them—bonded us. We used social media to stay up to date on each others’ lives, to share our own musings, to foster support.

Part of the change is Instagram’s fault and part of it is my own. Instagram: In the before time, we all saw more posts from people we followed and fewer from people we didn’t. The algorithm did not feel like some almighty nefarious force to constantly lament. My own: Life with Scout no longer feels balanced on the edge of a knife—as easily devastating as lovely—and in a weird way my current contentment has removed an opportunity for “in the thick of it” connection. A combination: As my nominal follower count has grown, it’s become harder to parse genuine attempts at conversation from people trying to argue or shower me with unsolicited advice or solicit a shoutout. That’s made me circle in. I’ve been treated like—I have acted like—an “influencer” more than a person on occasion. (I much prefer being a flesh-and-blood creature.)

The good news is there are plenty of other ways to connect with people. (Substack is one of them; I still feel good about the decision to move our WordPress blog over here last fall.) The bad news is I’m still floundering thinking about what exactly that might look like for me. Part of the reason it felt so easy, at least at first, to reach people on Instagram is because so many people are on Instagram. I spent years sharing almost daily to build the modest following Scout and I did. How do I translate that elsewhere? How do I do it all over again?

External validation

I would have liked to leave this one off my list, but that would be dishonest. And while I am not above a tumultuous-youngish-person yearning to feel special and seen, I do at least try to be above dishonesty.

Instagram—and my account small enough to shield me from most blatant online hate but large enough to almost always provide instant feedback—has been an excellent source of external validation. When I took the app off my phone for a few months at the start of 2024, I noticed I was more likely to reach out to friends individually, sending them a photo or specific thought, when I didn’t have the option of simply posting it to my story. When I do have that option? It can be intoxicating. Even though I turned notifications off for everything except regular calls and texts years ago, it is still exhilarating to open the app and see a bunch of red bubbles telling me “people see you! people want to hear from you!”

Of course, the obvious solution here is to continue working on my ability to thrive without external validation. Or at least, with only the external validation from people truly in my circle. This process—synonymous, to me, with growing up—seems forever ongoing.

Clout for professional pursuits

I’m embarrassed to admit that one of my greatest motivations to stay on Instagram in the last year is that I really want to publish a book. Traditional publishing is an overwhelming, competitive, seemingly impossible space… and having an existing community you can show publishers—a platform you can say “hey! I’ll use this to market my book! it’s not actually so very risky to take a chance on me!”—can sometimes help.

And I feel like I need all the help I can get. Despite knowing statistics here (a very small percentage of debut authors get published this way) I keep holding out hope I will be one of the lucky ones. In fact, two people I know already have been: They didn’t even have to query literary agents because the agents found them through their social media platforms.

But also, wow, what a shitty thing to use the community I actually care about for. It’s a disservice to everyone to stick around just in slim hopes that Instagram will help me secure a book deal. If I’m sticking around for more than that? Then yes, that could possibly be a pleasant bonus. But it feels gross to have that as my primary goal.

And if I want to publish my “real book” as much as I think I do (something else I’ve been overthinking for the better part of a year) then there are far more productive steps to take than continuing to invest my creative energy (which is, sadly, not limitless) on Instagram. I’ve already done some of them—draft an initial book proposal, allocate time to continue revising my manuscript—and need to buckle up and do more.

This isn’t a formal farewell to Instagram. But I think it’s a step in that direction.