Header Mental Health Hacks for your IG Habit.png

I was a beta user on Instagram, and for ten years, I’ve used the app like a journal--documenting travel and memorable moments, as well as small observations. When I lived in Saudi Arabia, in a landscape that is largely monochromatic, with construction to match, I took a lot of photos of the neighborhood cats. Now, it’s mostly photos of my kid.

So imagine my surprise, upon opening the app one morning, to find that the <3 button had been repositioned and replaced by...a shopping bag.

Of course. Instagram, too, just wants us to buy things.

I recognize that everyone uses the app differently. Your teenager, if they use the app at all, definitely has a parent-friendly, public-facing Instagram (with like...six pictures on it? Why do they delete everything??), and a second “finsta” (fake Insta) account where they’re posting “real” content for their friends.

But Instagram isn’t just for creation. The experience is also about consumption.

Everyone’s got their Instagram-obsession of choice. Early in the pandemic, I got really into self-soothing by watching cake decoration accounts. I have, at other points, followed large percentages of the cast of The Bachelor, until I couldn’t take the ads for flat-belly tea and hair gummies anymore.

I still remember reading this article about “cheerlebrities” in 2013 and being totally shocked at the hundreds of thousands of people who follow these (often very young) cheerleaders...who later got so famous Netflix made the 2020 docu-series Cheer about several of them. (Which I watched. And liked.)

And Alexandra Tanner’s piece “My Mommies and Me” about QAnon mom influencers in the early pandemic is, frankly, a must-read.

“I feel like I’m really learning something about America,” Tanner tells her boyfriend as she scrolls through gender reveals and vacuum ads and stories about how Oreo cookies are Satanic.

“Are you?”he says.

Because here’s the thing. Even those of us who follow weird swaths of Instagram “for anthropological reasons” aren’t above being influenced.

Nine months pregnant with my daughter, I found myself crying on the couch.

Why? Hormones. But also because I was about to bring a baby home, and her nursery wasn’t pretty enough. We were living in a furnished high-rise apartment in Qatar, assigned there for my husband’s job, and none of the furniture looked right for a baby’s room. A TV stand served as a changing table. There was no closet space. Everything had sharp corners and glass tops. And there was no point in buying anything new, because we were moving back to the States soon, and would be without our stuff for months in transit.

My baby had a crib. A rocking chair. A little plastic bathtub. Why was I crying?

Because the moms on Instagram had created dreamy nurseries with whimsical wallpaper, wooden toys (NO PLASTIC, NO BATTERIES), and soft, fluffy rugs. Because some part of me had been over-exposed to “aesthetic,” which I mistook for real life.

It was time to unfollow some moms.

You know who gets in your head, who isn’t good for your mental health. Maybe it’s the fitness influencer with the perfect body that’s completely unattainable for your genetics. Maybe it’s the mom posting cute baby photos when you’re struggling with infertility. Or the friend from college who is somehow always on vacation. Maybe it’s any account that makes you add-to-cart more than you should.

During the election, and then again at the New Year, I heard about people taking a social media break, or maybe even deleting Instagram and Facebook forever.

“It’s so good for my mental health,” they’d say. “I just needed to unplug.”

But I like Instagram. I like photography. I like the inspiration. I like the friends I have on there. I like that it’s a little micro-break I can take while I’m heating up lunch or while the baby is independently playing with her (PLASTIC) blocks.

I just needed to treat Instagram like a closet clean-out. What doesn’t fit anymore and makes me feel bad about myself? What is nice, but doesn’t suit my current life? What do I actually want to see when I open the door?

Here’s my simple formula:

Unfollow big brands.
Unfollow 90% of influencers.
Identify your struggles, and follow accounts that help.
Follow more artists.

UNFOLLOW BIG BRANDS

If you like a brand’s stuff and you’re worried you’ll forget where to find those cute baby shoes when your kid actually needs new ones, unfollow anyway and save one post. (You can even make a folder for “shops to visit” in your saved items.) You’re going to see ads in your Instagram feed anyway. Don’t sign up for extra advertising.

Depending on your relationship with shopping, you might choose to follow small, local businesses so that their goods are what you see more often. Here in Old Town Alexandria, I love following local businesses Red Barn Mercantile (@redbarnmerc), Threadleaf (@threadleaf), and Old Town Books (@oldtownbooks). It makes me feel more connected to my community, and I always know when they’re having a new virtual event or sale.

UNFOLLOW 90% OF INFLUENCERS

Get rid of every influencer you “hate-follow.” Again, I promise, you can find them again if you really want to. But you don’t need to see that every day.

Whose posts actually add value? You like their writing, you think they’re an interesting person, or they give you good ideas for cooking/crafting/styling stuff you already own--they can stay.

A good standard for me, speaking of aesthetics, is that I will continue to follow an influencer if I like their style and I can tell it’s their post without looking at the account name. Their photos feel individual and personal. Not just another white-walled-neutrals-only nursery with the same Montessori toys all the other momfluencers are shilling.

IDENTIFY YOUR STRUGGLES, AND FOLLOW ACCOUNTS THAT HELP

We all have our stuff. Body image struggles. Fertility struggles. Substance abuse struggles. Depression and anxiety struggles. Fighting-for-racial-justice struggles. Money, relationship, religion, family, health struggles. Whatever hard thing you are working through in your life, there are Instagram accounts that are going to make that worse, and there are communities that are going to make that better.

For example, I’ve found a real benefit in following other women who are mid-sized or plus-sized, closer to the body type that I have. What you look at, repeatedly, becomes normal. I spent my whole life consuming television, movies, magazines, and even art photography that only depicted thin, white women. Now I can use Instagram to re-program my brain a little.

A brief disclaimer: there are a lot of “therapy Instagrams” out there that aren’t run by legitimate therapy practices or licensed therapists. Instagram is a good place to go for mental health reminders (shameless self-promotion: check out our feed for self care tips and...blogs like this!), but an Instagram account should never take the place of the individualized advice that comes from your therapist.

FOLLOW MORE ARTISTS

Now for the fun part.

Turn your Instagram feed into an art gallery. Follow your favorite artists. See who your favorite artists are following, and follow them too. I know the robot overlords control our lives, but you can train them to show you beauty when you open up the app. (Tip: saving, sharing, and commenting on an artist’s post, not just liking it, will teach the algorithm to show you that account more often.)

The pandemic feels endless, and many museums are closed. If you’re gonna scroll anyway, put some art in front of your eyeballs.

I’ll close this tome (who knew I had so much to say about Instagram?) with a few suggestions of artists I enjoy following. I hope some of these accounts can brighten your feed and turn passive scrolling into active art-appreciation.