a

few months ago, I had a nightmare where

I could only speak in Instagram captions.

Like if I saw someone spill coffee,

I screeched, “YOU HATE TO SEE IT!!!”

Had social media ruined me? I wondered.

Then a friend said the same thing hap-

pened to her. (Literally. Unbelievable but

true.) And she found a cure: She deleted

Instagram. It hadn’t been easy but she

was happier and her mind felt clearer.

I was jealous of her Kondo-esque ele-

vated state of being, so I decided to try

it too. First, parameters: I’d erase the app

from June 1 to August 1—yes, peak Hot

Girl Summer. I gave my password to a

friend and told her to change it. I also set

goals: purge my mind of meme-speak,

break my scroll habit, and actually think

about how I felt instead of posting about it

(deep, I know). So here’s how that went....

WEEK 1

What to do with all

these photos???

Two friends from

Texas came to visit on my

first ’gram-free day. They

are wonderful and photo-

genic, so when they did

things like sip wine on my

fire escape, I went into a

fugue state and came to

with approximately 75,000

new pictures in my camera

roll. Normally I would’ve

posted these with a cap-

tion about how “Wine and

sunsets are great, but good

friends are greater!!!” But I

had nothing to do with the

pics now. If an image sits on

your phone but never

makes it to Instagram, does

it even exist?

Instagram

to fix my idiot broken brain

Hello from the other siiiiide.

By HANNAH SMOTHERS

“Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,

as I am not currently on the app Instagram!!!!”

96 Cosmopolitan November 2019

life