Pintrest
If you need a more direct Instagram replacement to keep doing the pictures in squares thing in a public space you can curate, pintrest is an option. It's still social media but I feel like it's less soul suckig. More for the vibes. (from Jai's post about making a personal pintrest)
Send more photos in the groupchat or to your friends
If it's really just the sharing photos with those you love thing. Share them with the specific people you want to see them! Be shameless, maybe you'll start a thing! Maybe you'll all share photos in the groupchat, a great way to stay in touch.
Digital albums and physical scrapbook
This has been my favorite but the most removed way of replacing Instagram. I like digital albums because I can add in my one photo a day or have my favorite photos of myself and be vain and have it be just for me to look through. And I like scrapbook because they help me flip through the past vibes of the time. Which are usually the two things I want from insta. And scrapbooks have the bonus of letting me include other little memerobilia, drawings, notes.
In no way is this a comprehensive list, but you just got to find very specifically what aspect you are itching to keep and find the best way to actually be doing that. But the pull of Instagram attention is definitely there. As someone who used to post regularly I get it. But once you bite the bullet, you don't actually miss it as much as you think you will.
Mar 3, 2025
Related Recs
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I need a place to archive my thoughts in a dated manner, but also not on instagram. I used to post things pretty frequently on my stories and then have a 'highlights' of the year that I could go back to look at, but now, I am not so comfortable sharing on such a commercial soul sucking platform that is data mining and surveilling and selling. I also feel like I am not, in my core, a good person. There are very few people who, when I see their success and happiness, spark genuine joy for me. For the most, I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that their life does not affect mine and that I should not let the display of their wealth of happiness, opportunity and beauty spoil the pursuit of my own. Some days, I feel so engrossed in knowing and wanting to know the updates of all the people around me. Now, I just want to shrink and disappear, I do not want people to know what I am up to and I do not want to peripherally watch others either. I want to focus on myself. I feel like I need to cut the plug on instagram with a hard delete. Maybe I will just buy myself a photo printer and print out the 'instagram' shots with their memories and make my own photobook instead. But I need to find a new way to document and archive my life.
Feb 8, 2025
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Lately I have been daydreaming about deleting Instagram, but everytime I get close to doing it, the same thing always pull me back.
I emigrated to London from Spain for university in 2017 and I haven't moved back since. The feeling of missing out on the goings on back home... It hasn't gone away.
Instagram has become my link to faraway friends. It's how I know when they change their hair, or get a new boyfriend, or get a dog, or break their ankle. Of course I talk to my closest friends now and then but converstaions can loose their informality when you don't see each other often.
The truth is that I don't want to have a deep conversation everytime I talk to friends from back home. The obligatory "How's work? How's your partner? When are you coming back? How's your mother?". It makes me feel that everytime I reach out to one of them they feel obligated to rattle through all these questions. I want to talk about stupid stuff, stuff that doesn't matter, what your Dad said, the fight you had with your sister, that weird thing you saw the other day.
On Instagram I can be a fly on the wall watching all that stupid shit they put on their story and feel like I'm still a part of their life and their a part of mine. But at the same time I know that these snippets I grab now and then are not connections of quality.
Does anyone else who moved away have the same feelings about social media?
Feb 14, 2025
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once i got realistic about what type of content i consumed on ig and twitter, i realized so quickly it was not expanding the way i think and in fact was keeping me stuck in the same (oftentimes negative/harmful) thought loopholes. social media is addictive in part because it algorithmically reproduces the way we already think. it keeps us comfortable.
start questioning: what can help expand your life? what other creative and consumptive outlets do you find fulfilling? is there a book you want to read? something you want to draw or write about? or, in general, consider how your older self would have wanted your time to be spent. you are so right that social media makes us feel Bad-- but we don't have to! it is an act of self-care and deep love to work on stepping away from things that hurt!
as far as practical tips, the best things that helped me were:
a) like some others mentioned, deleting ALL social media apps from my phone so i can only access them on my computer. this helps because the online interfaces are a lot clunkier so it reduces some of the quick gratification that keeps you addicted. also you have to be literally sitting at a desk to use it, so the portability aspect/mindless scrolling is largely removed.
b) keeping a journal because it's a much safer space to dump thoughts than a private story
c) prioritizing in-person connection rather than mediating relationships through tech-- meet a friend for coffee! cultivate intimacy rather than superficiality, and notice how irl vs. online connection feels different
d) nervous system regulation and grounding practices to counteract how scrolling can make you anxious/stressed/disembodied!
finally i did struggle a lot with fomo and being behind on trends at first but then i realized it doesn't really matter. trends are fleeting. even without chronic online-ness i am still funny and relatable and i find it much more interesting to hear about people's lives when i haven't been informed about them in an endless information stream online!!
Oct 31, 2024
Top Recs from @moonbeams
There's nothing like seeing the city from a plane windows. Sparkling like stars down there. The little people in their little cars and twinkling homes. Feels so bittersweet and human somehow.
Feb 22, 2025
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like damn who curated this, these songs are so good, I really know my tastes well
Feb 28, 2025
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More specifically, watching your favorite rom com and then your crush's favorite rom com (is there an adult word for crush), back to back at the same time as they are watching them. But instead of the social exhaustion of video calling you just text while you watch them. Even better you guys like each other mutually, so it should be exhilerating, but they cannot and will not be with you so instead it's just a lesson in your terrible self restraint. Exhilerating anyway. Good movies, good conversation. Unbeatable.
Mar 2, 2025