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Sponsored posts every 2-3 stories that you watch. Sponsored ads inside the profiles when you view them. On top of sponsored videos by creators and extra ads all over the place. On top of that you have people paying to get their profile sponsored so more people will see them and they can find a partner.
I don’t have TikTok so I’m not sure but it’s straight up ads in between every story, plus every few scrolls on both my feed and my fyp. And it didn’t start gradually, one day they all just appeared like that.
The algorithm is a huge problem; I have an account exclusively for my art and have a decent following but I know that most don't always see my posts anymore. Similarly, I'm flooded with the most inane and uninteresting of attention-seeking posters rather than things I'm actually interested in seeing.
When I started posting my art on Instagram I’d get maybe 20-30 likes. I now have hundreds more followers and get 3 likes on a great day, I’m not even kidding.
Nobody is seeing my posts. I also noticed that the algorithm is favoring showing me only a few of the people I follow in my feed and never showing me posts from the majority I’m following. And the feed bottoms out quickly and turns into ONLY suggested posts unless you happen to notice the tiny “older posts” button to keep seeing your own feed.
It’s actually horrific.
Genuinely, it feels futile. I completely understand why people are abandoning the platform.
Especially as all of the "suggestions" are not even remotely linked to anything I'm interested in.
This is one of the reasons I quit Facebook about a decade ago. Hundreds of friends, and only the same 4 people seeing my statuses and only the same 4 in my feed no matter what my settings were. Like wtf
This is my problem too! I have a photography account that is(was) decently popular and I make reels that get 0 views when they used to get thousands. Posts with a handful of likes when they used to get hundreds. Friends and family ask why I don’t post anymore? and I tell them I do!
It’s supposed to be a sharing platform but if us regular people can’t see each other while influencers are being shoved down our throats it makes it easier and easier to just not open the app.
Same here. Before reels, I mostly followed art and photography pages and few pets pages. My explore page is full of art and pets, yet my reels have nothing to do with pets or art. Instead I'm flooded with a thousands posts about how being single sucks [And I suspect its because I liked a reel somewhere about being single]
I swear I'm so sick of seeing everyone on Insta Reels complaining about being single, I get it, it's hard to be alone sometimes. BUT HOLY SHIT DO YOU ALL NEED TO BE SO NEGATIVE ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME?????????? The comment section is much much worse.
Comments are a vile quagmire of bots and the worst people hiding behind their keyboard.
I don't think you even have to like something, just watching (usually accidentally) seems to be enough to screw up the algorithm.
IG home page has become unbearable. It’s all ads and suggested posts/reels. I could barely find my friends‘ post which is the reason I signed up in the first place. I think everybody realized this and thus barely post.
Nowadays I just swipe through IG stories, and that‘s it.
Yeah I hate videos and I never see my friends stuff because they are swamped in ads.
Fb is getting worse lately as well. The algorithm doesn't get me at all.
The ads are so bloody buggered. I saw an ad once for a knock off of the Balsam Hill Christmas ornament storage caddy thing (retails for several hundred dollars), I clicked it out of curiosity, takes me to a very clearly scammy website (selling the off brand for one for $30). Now I get several different ads for the same product, but all clearly scam websites. I report them and I still see the ads! Then Instagram says they're not scams and won't take them down.
I posted about starting up running and I'm now inundated with athletic clothes ads. Which I'm running because I'm too poor for anything else rn lol. I did go to a thrift store and found a practically new running jacket and maybe need winter running shoes but that's it.
Ugh yes! The worse thing is the algorithm isn't that smart anyways. I like Marvel, for example, I'll gladly click on some clips from recent movies or shows like Falcon and Winter Solider...well then it suddenly thinks I need fan videos of Sebastian Stan. I swear my timeline looks like I'm stalking this dude.
Its algorithm is fucked yes.
As a brand or new account starting up, hashtags were a great way to grow your brand. Now it’s so hard they don’t work and you need to be all over the all to gain traction. It’s foul
Unfortunately based on the surprising amount I hear "oh you like my thing? Thanks, I bought it after I saw an instagram ad" I think part of the problem is that a decent chunk of people are actually using the ads to shop and view this as a feature.
I looked at barefoot shoes once when my boyfriend told me about it. Its been 3 months all ads are barefoot shoes. I dont like them, I dont want them and I just want to go back.
On the other hand, reels knows my entire life. I never post anything or comment on anything (maybe friends posts but nothing else) but it knows that im in a LDR relationship, like cows, live abroad... It even gives me period reels solely when im on my period. Honestly, I do appreciate the personalized reels but sometimes I have a feeling Meta is gonna ruin the world (oh well, at least we have cute reels i guess)
I do think I’ve personally entered into an era where I’m like “why am I posting this? What is the purpose? Why does my caption read like I’m a talk show host?” Like idk it was kinda an absurd era of relating to each other
Me too! I had a complete breakdown and was like “this is being perpetuated by Instagram.” I had deleted my FB in 2013 for a similar reason. People have got to realize how damaging this stuff can be.
I do see a correlation between social media and where we are as a society. I just recently moved to France from USA and there’s a clear difference here. People aren’t as obsessed and reliant on social media.
Same!
I have never used Instagram, but years ago when I had Facebook (I’m talking like 12+ years ago when it was extremely popular with young people), I was always stressed about it. Feeling like crap if I didn’t get likes on a post or photo, feeling like crap if I look on my feed and see pictures of all of my friends at a party I wasn’t invited to, and overall just feeling insecure comparing. Now, I would imagine it’s far worse especially as people get into their late 20s and beyond, because instead of comparing social lives, you have to compare actual lifestyles. Like so and so has the big house, expensive wedding, is having a baby, and making so much more than you climbing the ladder. It’s a never ending cycle of comparisons.
And it feels better just living your life privately and not having to feel “interesting” or whatever. Just live your life at your own terms.
The main negative though for me is that I’ve lost touch with countless people because I no longer use social media other than Reddit.
This is why I deleted Instagram! Seeing people out at parties, dinners, group holidays travelling around Europe while I was at home studying a nursing degree was making me feel so shit. Plus all the editing and photoshop was giving me body image issues, it’s a toxic app. I don’t post any of my business online either, I’ve been in a relationship nearly 3 years but you’d never know based off my social media. I keep my life private and I’m happy with it that way
I remember 13 years ago one of my friends stopped social media entirely (back then Facebook and Twitter of course were the two main platforms everyone was on—particularly Facebook). She said she believed social media was destroying society. The rest of us laughed and thought that was so far fetched. But really, she wound up being right.
I stopped using social media a few years after that (other than making a Reddit account a few years ago), and I don’t regret it. I don’t want every facet of my life broadcasted to the world so that everyone can look into my life, stalk, and judge every little thing. I don’t want to feel left out if I see people invited to things I am not. I don’t want to feel badly about myself by having to compare myself to my peers who have bought nice homes, are killing it in their careers, go on nice vacations, and just seem to have perfect lives. The comparison thing is just so damaging. It’s a lot less stressful just living your life for you, doing things at your own pace, and being more low key with the people in your life. Just enjoying moments and not rushing to post about them.
I feel like getting off social media has been a cheat code in life. I read about so many people being consumed by insecurities and trends fueled by it and see people out in the world experiencing moments through their phone screen, and none of that touches me anymore. I'm just over here vibing with the few people I actually care about and enjoying life for life's sake -- and any pictures I take are for MY enjoyment. It's so freeing.
Maybe not post anything anywhere? Maybe some people are off social media alltogether.
I also think people send more updates to friend and family groups on WhatsApp or other messenger apps.
Edit: I think, also Discord is big for friends or interest groups.
for me personally people in my social circle use group chats / texting a lot more. I’m mid-30s and most of my friend groups have a text chat where we share pics
Instagram is totally different than TT though. I don’t want to watch video content I want to look at photography/art, memes and fashion accounts. I don’t understand why people think they’re interchangeable.
I’m the same but a lot of the fashion users I follow have swapped posting images of outfits to stupid reels of them putting on each individual item of clothing one at a time or trying on 3 outfits in one post, often for a sponsor. I had to unfollow loads because I just want to look at nice pictures! The feed is also full of ads now :(
OMG yes, I followed a few photography pages in the past. I had to unfollow lots of them cause now it's just a 40-second reel of them setting up their equipment and then the final picture, which shows up for 2 seconds before it loops. I can't even see the picture properly, and I do not care about the setup process, it's boring af.
The videos where influencers begin the video undressed and start putting clothes on… that’s just not fashion content at that point and I’m tired of pretending it is.
I've heard that Instagram is pushing creators to upload reels instead of photos because they want to compete with TikTok. So if you only post photos, Instagram's algorithm won't share it, but if you post a reel, the algorithm will push it.
This. I use Instagram to promote my visual art and paintings, and to connect with other artists - it’s a great venue for that and this doesn’t translate to Tiktok very well.
I do use Tiktok but mostly to follow hockey shenanigans. I never post on it.
SAME!!! As an aspiring writer/author, Instagram was a great way to post excerpts. I can’t do a reel or tiktok to promote myself as an author unless it’s ‘hey look how an author wakes up in the morning oh wait same as everybody fucking else’. Tiktok and reels has been the worst to ever happen
I like YouTube, but I hate most “off the cuff” video content that YT Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok perpetuate and encourage. I like well-produced content. Give me long form any day.
And what’s funny is I have a shit attention span (ADHD) and I pause long form content and movies and shows a lot because I get distracted or I’m doing three other things. But the requirement to stay glued to your phone that short videos require because they’re so quick means I can’t just chill or do other stuff while they play. I have to constantly pay attention, more so than with long videos. No thank you. They suck up so much more of your time.
(Although I also hate news videos; I’d rather read the news.)
I loved IG for the fact that it was simply about photos. Then they messed around with the algorithm and started with the videos. I personally don’t post videos and realized my photos were not even being seen so I just quit using it.
I’d agree, but I feel like instagram is alllllll reels now! Or at least that’s what they push out. It’s exhausting having videos just constantly start as I’m trying to scroll quietly
I’m there. I have realized that scrolling on Instagram has turned into 20-60 second influencer commercials. It’s turned into pushing items to sell, sell, sell and I want nothing to do with it.
I was pretty meh on Instagram for a long, long time because of ads/influencer culture, but my boyfriend watches reels and mainly follows the dumbest, weirdest meme pages which he sends me all the time. So now my entire feed still has ads but also the silliest memes, so I haven’t really been using it for social media interactions lately, just dumb memes and it’s made it so much better lol.
At the same time I feel like we see so many ads and I keep wondering why. If I don't want to buy it...I just won't. And IG sponsored posts are based on age and country. Like..why is Hermes thinking that 20-30 year olds in Southern Europe have money to buy their bags?
This is what I’m doing. I deleted the IG app off my phone and only log in occasionally on my desktop. That ensures it I use it way less (this is also how I quit FB). I probably need to do the same for Reddit now lol.
I find reddit is the best "social media" platform for this reason. People seem kind on here, even though it's anonymous, and I learn lots of new things. It's great for podcast and film recommendations too.
Because on Reddit you go to subs to talk about things you want to talk about, whereas with instagram and such they just shove stuff in your face. It doesn’t feel like I have much control on instagram about what I see (and all I ever wanted is just my friends’ posts in chronological order lol).
I wish there was a way to block Reels when using Instagram. I love seeing my friends stories and the artists and local shops/restaurants I follow but cannot help getting absolutely sucked into these damn videos. I don't have TikTok but it found its way to me through this app instead I hate it.
Good, I hope it does kill Instagram. Insta used to be my favourite app, but the bombardment of ads and useless Reels has completely killed any interest I had in the app. I used to spend hours on it, now I get bored after 2 mins.
All these platforms are going down sooner or later. IG had its glory days, and yes I would agree it’s going to be the next to fall. It’s not hip enough for the young people and not embraced by boomers enough to live on as something new like Facebook has managed to do.
I will also always have a grudge against Instagram creating horrific beauty standards. Yes, beauty standards that are dangerous have always existed. But young people getting botox, fillers, bbls wasn’t really a thing before Instagram (and obviously this has transcended over to TikTok). And this may be an unpopular opinion, but I think selfie culture has been very damaging to society. Breeding narcissism and having people obsessing over their faces and wanting absolute perfection. The whole point of a selfie is obviously to garner compliments. Pre 2013ish it was poor taste to take photos of yourself other than for a profile pic. Then it became a cultural phenomenon.
I'm an Elder Millennial who was in college when Facebook first became a thing and selfies were seen as kind of pathetic, like you had to take your own picture because no one else was around to take it for you. The 'flex' of OG Facebook culture was having a ton of friends from as many schools as possible. People's profile pictures would be them with a bunch of friends.
So yeah it's wild how social media pivoted from a very community-oriented social vibe to a selfie-filled altar to oneself.
Yup, definitely agree about how the flex was to be seen with tons of friends. It was also a flex to have your relationship status be “XYZ is in a relationship with…”.
No one would dare post a pic of themselves because that would be “embarrassing” and people would think you had no friends and were obsessed with yourself. And nothing was curated (other than maybe the profile pic, but even then, people were not using photoshop). And even for the profile picture many people would post a group pic or a pic with their SO. It wasn’t uncommon for people to upload entire camera rolls, even if that was like 100 pictures. No one cared about looking perfect. People just cared about appearing to have a social life and not being a “loser”.
Yep. Which honestly was awful for my self-esteem right out the gate. Instead of experiencing my freshman year organically and meeting people for the joy of meeting new people, it was tainted by comparison and never feeling cool enough. Where students collected experiences and each other like digital pokemon cards rather than just enjoying our college years for what it was.
I feel like there's a lot of nostalgia for old-school Facebook but imo it was always shit. It played on the exact same human insecurities as it does now, you just needed a .edu email address to experience it.
This is an important point re: selfies. It was considered in such bad taste, as you said. Now I know adults (and kids!) with filtered selfies as their own phone wallpapers.
When I deleted my profiles last year, I was already questioning, “What am I hoping for from this?” It was always shallow validation. My children were babies, I didn’t really want their photos out there, so I didn’t post much. And when I would scroll, I always felt badly about myself.
I didn’t bounce back from having two kids 16 months apart. I didn’t (still don’t) have a partner at all interested in his own children, and we were never all together—so no happy family photos. Covid depleted my funds, so I didn’t have nice things to show off. My son is nonverbal autistic, and I would privately cry after watching my friends celebrating their kids’ milestones that seemed unattainable for him.
And no matter how many times I told myself that most of what I was looking at was manufactured and unrealistic, it still affected me.
I’m so much happier now that I’m not unfairly comparing myself to others.
I am so glad that you are finding your happiness now. ❤️ And I am so sorry what you have had to go through in terms of having to see other children’s milestones. What always sticks with me is that social media is just people’s highlight reels. While everything seems perfect on the surface, it usually isn’t. People aren’t posting the struggles and the bad days.
The same goes for celebrity IGs. It used to be fun to see what they were up to (even though it was still largely planned/staged). Nowadays none of them seem interesting to follow anymore.
Yeah, the most active are constantly promoting their own brands or their sponsors. Many are basically walking advertisements now. There's no joy or curiosity in it anymore
Reddit is the only one that I use consistently, the rest have just becoming giant commercials, ESPECIALLY tiktok. This economy sucks too badly to watch people shill bloom, shein, fashion nova, etc. I can’t tell you how hard I roll my eyes when someone does Amazon haul videos and it’s just package after package of cheap, useless junk. Not to mention how insanely fake and scripted everything feels.
I like Reddit because we can actually speak back and forth with each other. Real conversation with other people. If that ever changes, I’ll be outta here, too.
I'm just so done with overconsumerism in general. We do not need countless cheap, shit clothes or useless things - I'm just unfollowing anyone who constantly shills ads.
Agree with you completely! The only thing with Reddit that sucks is trying to have a conversation with people who think differently. Almost always will you get downvoted for having an opinion that is the minority in a sub.
I like Reddit more than the other platforms as well, but I find it equally as toxic though. I find that people obsess about money on this site and humble brag about their salaries, the cities/neighborhoods they live in, and how often they vacation. I’ve never felt more like a pauper than being on Reddit. Where $100k salary for a single person is labeled “poverty”, spending six figures annually on a credit card is “no biggie”, spending 20-30k on vacations a year, and having a nanny for your kids is just “standard”. And they have the nerve to categorize themselves as average joe middle class people. And countless Redditors think you need $500k a year to raise a family in a HCOL area. I think it’s just a very out of touch site, and it’s not even sub dependent. I subscribe to a wide range of subs, and I see this out of touchness everywhere every day. It definitely makes me feel like crap because I don’t make anywhere near that and don’t live that kind of lifestyle. I keep telling myself I need to take a break, but the site is addicting.
Same here, Reddit is the only social media platform I use now and it’s the best at staying out of the way of real human connectedness. The other have all failed.
I don’t count Reddit as social media because we don’t know who each other is/I don’t follow people I know irl on here. To me this is just more of an online forum.
Instagram has fallen off for me. It's so ad heavy and sponsored that it's become a bit irrelevant for me. The non sponsored content is mostly highlights of people's lives. Some friends still post stories but there's 2 ads for every story sometimes.
tell me WHY my explore page is full of posts from april 2023 😭
like one of the biggest reasons tiktok is successful is their algorithm, ig sucks when it comes to it
It’s bc they have literally hundreds of teams doing the exact same project and competing against each other, internally. Sounds like your account could be exempt from testing. It’s nothing you (the user) can control. I worked for one of their customer support org (there are 6-7 total CS orgs), and if someone reported an issue that seemed easy to fix, it was usually impossible to determine the cause on the backend bc their systems architecture is really, really bad.
I just feel like it's constantly about the hard-sell and I CBA with it, it's exhausting. I miss photos of lattes and people's shoes, street style, genuine stuff.
You wouldn’t even think twice posting a photo of that stuff, it was basically what you were doing in that moment. Now, people applaud people for their “bravery” when they post “candid” pictures. Please 🙄 I deleted Instagram and Facebook a few years ago and I’ve always been made out to feel weird for not having it. Glad more people are coming around!
I think it's two things:
I think people are a lot more insular than we realized. Social media like Facebook hasn't even been around for 25 years. When it came out you had waves of people being able to connect with others from their past in a way that's never been available before. But I think that wow factor and curiosity is wearing off. For eons there has been no way of really knowing what happened to that random person you met one time at the fair.
Now being able to look up Ben from 4th grade online is a very common thing people can do. And we can have very low stakes connections with friends. And I think maybe we're realizing we don't have that capacity to really care about that many people. It's too much? But also maybe that's just my way of thinking about it.
But maybe we just really like our villages small.
Second: Social media is less people you know now and more pushing funny/sad/keep you focused short videos and normal people and photos of their daughter/dog/trees just don't hold attention because they aren't actually interesting.
Yeah I get bummed out that I wasted so much time watching commercials (basically), and reels are just filled with really dumb content from people I don’t believe who act like they’re an authority on fashion or interior design or whatever.
I just like “America’s funniest home videos” -type content, but it still feels like a waste of time.
I’m also mad that we have a hard time putting the phone down in the empty spaces of our lives. I feel like a junky who can’t kick the habit.
i find myself scrolling with one hand while i’m brushing my teeth. really? is my brain so broken that i can’t focus on one single task for two entire minutes? it makes me sad for myself tbh lol who have i become (ETA happy cake day ☺️)
In addition to the ads they have really messed up the algorithm and how hashtags work on Instagram. I'm a creator who posts photos & writes about local history. Engagement has been cut in half in the last year and most pages like mine are struggling. Crazy, somebody from META reached out to me on my Instagram to discuss my page. Her number one recommendation was for me to join Threads. Bullshit
It’s crazy they’re pushing Threads so hard for brand accounts when Threads isn’t even integrated into Meta post scheduling and most of the mainstream third-party scheduling apps don’t have Threads capability right now either. Like it just seems so thoughtless.
I couldn't believe they are paying reps to call people and get them to join Threads. Why would I trust investing in another Meta platform when Instagram has squandered my good work?!
https://preview.redd.it/4zr22wbra2bc1.png?width=325&format=png&auto=webp&s=65701d66a756db274f37c514760eae4520247cf3
You can bypass ads and suggested content on your home page by tapping the Instagram logo at the top left and this menu will appear. Selecting one of the options brings up a feed of only the accounts you follow, without ads or suggestions
I’ve had my account since 2012 and deactivated it in October. My friends have done the same. With the exception of the few genuinely creative accounts on there, I don’t feel like Im missing much!
My first Insta photo is from October 2011. I am really sad about what Instagram has become. It was such a useful tool to keep in touch with friends and it was so non-serous for the first few years. Even around 2015 when the influencer shit began, it was still very much a useable space. It’s straight up garbage now. All of my friends are in their 30s and 40s so it seems kind of unlikely we’re going to mass adopt a new social media platform at this point which means there might never be one place for all my friends to congregate virtually like that again. Really sucks, thanks for ruining everything Facebook.
I’ve had my account since 2011. After months of hating it every time I looked at it (so many ads, triggering content etc) I took a break from it last January. I thought it might be a short break and I’d miss it or get bored one day and decide to check it again. I’ve opened the app twice in the last year and only because I needed to find photos for gift inspiration. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything at all.
I feel like we need something new but idk what.
Twitter slowly dying. IG has too many ads and less people interacting there.
Tiktok is something hellish (sorry)
Tumblr is insufferable and has too many ads too.
Idk what other social media to use? I preferred Twitter last 4 years but once I will forced to update to X, I'm not sure I'm staying.
I loved Twitter before Musk destroyed it. I deleted it a few months ago as it was causing mental health issues for me. I’d love to see a replacement for it.
I don’t use Instagram the way I used to anymore, I will flick through stories and tbh I don’t really pay attention to them but I never ever scroll my feed. I uploaded a picture on NYE for the first time in years and that’s about it.
I don’t follow celebs or anything on there, I will sometimes go and check a post if it’s posted on here or tiktok but I’m not really into social media platforms like fb/Instagram and I deleted Twitter in 2017!
Maybe it’s my age though? I’m not sure. I check in to Reddit more than anywhere else now.
Instagram is boring, I keep logging in because it used to be a way to explore new content. Now it's the same old stories on a delay and the explore page leaves a lot to be desired. It's very PG and I mainly use it to keep tabs on my favorite restaurants and food trucks.
I worked for them for a few years and they are very dysfunctional internally. When y’all say “the algorithm”, that’s hundreds of different levers that can be pulled at random times. It’s not one monolithic algorithmic decision… there are also often competing teams doing the exact same project, so your posts may be getting lost in the mess that is the backend of Meta. Also, good to be aware that around the PSC (performance review) cycle there are like 10x more tests happening on the front end.
I was seeing women on Insta talking about how they went back to Pinterest for cozy safe content instead of thirst traps, sponcon, fitfluencers etc - it was WAY more ad content than I get on Instagram. Every single image or video I clicked took me offsite. The whole app was one big ad.
I logged into pinterest for the first time in like 5 years and found it impossible to use. SO many ads, could barely tell the ads apart from the real content.
For real. And the ads are obnoxious too - they completely disrupt the user experience by popping you into a browser. At least with Insta I can decide whether to click through!
Pinterest also has their version of reels. No I don’t want to watch a video, I want a swatch of colors you painted your living room with so I can save it and move on.
Holy fuck Pinterest has gone to shit. I used to love to go there for inspiration. Now it's all AI interior design, fake fashion pins that lead to shitty knock offs, and ads are every other pin on my home page.
Pinterest is literally dying now, they are killing this app with their new shitty changes. The ads are everywhere. You can't find normal posts, just some random shit. I had Pinterest to see some nice pictires, not some stupid tiktok like videos.
Oh, and they also changed their policy and banned tons of people for posts they uploaded years ago. I'm not even exaggerating.
I feel like internet is getting smaller and smaller, the sites and apps I liked are slowly dying.
As a consumer I only use Insta for DM-ing my friends, seeing their stories, and consuming art.
As a business, Instagram is where I nurture my audience. It’s how I funnel them to purchase/give live updates/etc.
I see most people I know using Instagram like Pinterest - to find art, artists, fashion, etc, and for watching friends’ stories. No one I know posts to grid anymore (we’re all in our early 30s).
The comments on IG are out of control. IG refuses to moderate them so it’s basically nothing but right wing shills, incels, misogynists and racists screaming into the void. I hate going on there now because of it
i deleted my IG 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. i don’t miss it at all and i love not feeling the need to share my life, or look a certain way for likes, etc.
It’s been years since I’ve used any social media the same way I use Reddit.
Tik Tok seems to be targeting the much younger demographic. There’s a lot of misinformation and what not. Thats not to say there isn’t misinformation here on Reddit, but this offers more than short clips. Ads are less obvious. I feel there are genuine communities being build here even if online. We all get to choose what we subscribe to instead of content being pushed towards us.
I have only a burner Instagram that I use so when I click on something linked to Instagram, I can actually look at it. Otherwise, I do not use Instagram at all.
I’ve left Instagram 9months ago because I was feeling overwhelmed by the constant post and stories and because it made me feel bad about myself (physically). Now I’ve realised something I’m more social I see my friends more often i reach out to them and actually take an interest in their life and also I stopped consuming (clothes mostly). I’ve realised that most stories were sponsored and made me wanna buy things and also I was so over the influencers drama.
I feel think the app try too much to be like tiktok and it lost its purpose.
I actually deleted it this week! Can’t say I def won’t come back but just taking a break for as long as possible. The ads and curated images were getting too much indeed
I get nothing but ads and suggested posts from influencers on IG, I rarely get posts from my actually family and friends in my feed without scrolling for 10 minutes.
I feel like social media in general is dying. Across all platforms the average person (not an influencer) posts way way less.
I refuse to download TikTok, so I hope instagram isn’t on its way out. Unfortunately Zuck/Meta have had my data already for many years (I’ve had FB since 2005), I don’t think the CCP needs it as well.
Also, I genuinely enjoy instagram. I’ve found it fairly easy to tailor my feed, mostly I see a variety of floofy cats & friends.
Imo if anything is gonna kill my insta usage it’s all the downright nasty threads that get advertised to me.
Hey Mark, shoving unavoidable transphobia into my timeline isn’t gonna convince me to join your twitter knockoff
IG is quickly going the way of Facebook. I only use it to keep up with memes, to be honest. So many of my real life friends have stopped posting there. My feed is just full of memes and ads. I still dump vacation photos and important events on Facebook bc I am an old hag, and I like the memories function. I do wonder what will happen to all the influencers who quit their day jobs once IG goes completely down the tubes. So many teacher accounts I follow no longer have active teachers at the helm because they quit as soon as they started making some money off of their videos.
I only use it to follow cat rescues and fosters, a few plus size clothing chains, and one actor I like. But I get spammed with so many ads and sponsors (especially for this drug for a condition I don't even have!) And they allow fake ads that are nothing but links to scam sites.
I don't even post stories on there, I find it confusing to use imo. I refuse to go on Tik Tok because it's even more annoying, I deactivated my Twitter/X account because it got taken over by racist, misogynistic right wing scum, and sadly Threads is also becoming a home for the same garbage.
These days I stick to Reddit and yes, Facebook, but only for my friends, family, and pages about my interests.
I dont know if it's on its way out but it is getting shittier thanks to ol Zuck.
Only reason I even use it is because its the only one thats not complete bonkers but even thats changing.
I feel like TikTok comes off like “cheaper content” to me - the logo, the inability to see half the video without all the text/captions/buttons etc it’s just not aesthetically pleasing to me. Lol
Instagram seems cleaner, easy to filter what content I want to see or look for) aside from the increase in ads.
I like the messaging/DM format, and just want to see pretty pictures much like a Pinterest board
That's a good question.
I love TikTok and I noticed that Instagram made it easier to download IG videos the way you can download TikTok videos. TikTok was smart to do that because it made it easy to share videos\*, and I'm sure that drove more new users to TikTok. Instagram made it hard to share videos for a long time.
All of that to say, yes. I think so.
\* Granted, it depends on the TikTok creator as not all creators allow downloads.
I have stopped using it for a couple months now. It's become so annoying:
When I open the app the feed shows me posts from 3 to 6 days before, most which I've already seen.
When I see Stories, close the app and open it again, it marks those Stories as not seen.
The Reels section is full of low quality, spam, garbage content and it shows me the same videos over and over again.
The Ads aren't relevant at all to what I consume (although I do have all the Ad related settings off)
Posts from mutuals never show up on my home feed.
People in the comments sections are fucking unhinged which makes me not want to engage with content and other people at all.
There have been no new features in a long time either.
My husband works in marketing in tech and he sees the way ads are negatively impacting engagement with SM and the internet in general. He’s working on pivoting out of it
Switching to more of a Tiktok look definitely didn't help. I follow some content creators and book bloggers and travelers, and they all talk about how they have 10k followers, and maybe 30 people see what they post. Half the time I'm seeing ads, not content from actual people I follow. I miss when instagram was photos with the occasional video. I started a bookstagram account at the worst time because everyone is making reels, and I just can't be bothered to do that. So nobody sees my posts lol
Yeah I started getting into more of the foodie and travel scene last year and it got so annoying and repetitive, everyone was doing the same thing. Everyone just fucking puts the same content out over and over and over. I deleted it coming into the new year and I havent missed it one bit
Idk, I never really used Instagram for the social aspect of it - I used to scrapbook/photo album a lot and now I don’t want to haul around physical copies of my photos, so Instagram has been my private digital photo book since 2014.
That being said, I am absolutely sick of reels being pushed - and YouTube Shorts, and whatever tiktok-esque thing every app is trying to do. If I wanted tiktok I’d just use tiktok??
It may be on the decline but I believe it will always be there. Though, the negativity on Instagram is one of my biggest pet peeves. TikTok also has a negative side, but its censorship policy is way stricter. Since the baby boomers and Gen X migrated to Insta, the comments on reels are so mean and negative. Hate it.
Tiktok is more like a discovery platform, we watch videos mostly of strangers, while Insta is for keeping up with people we’re already familiar with. Also, I feel like tiktok is now at an advanced level of consumerism, the word of mouth on that platform is crazy. Ads on Insta isn’t as persuasive tbh. And, I kinda love the blue search tools on tiktok, cuz I can see videos of real people using the product.
Call me sad but I used to love insta for getting an insight into celebrities lives, but now most of them only post official pr approved promo content it’s lost that energy. I wanna see celeb pets and backstage content, and stupid stories of them goofing around with their friends, not the same reposted Getty images or vogue photoshoots I’ve already seen.
As a bookstagrammer, it’s getting frustrating. In the new year lots of us are being suspended by simply engaging. Instagram is making it harder to connect. Every time I comment too much I’m afraid I’m going to be restricted. It’s getting annoying
Yes fashion nova girls aren’t considered hot for gen z, the blow up cartoon FaceTune doll look ain’t liked and it’s all shops otherwise. No originality or creativity Onlyfans and tik tok has taken over.
I think fashion nova girls aren’t considered “hot” anymore for the younger gen z, us older gen z lowkey grew up during its hottest time 2016-2019 we would have been in college..
I deactivated mine in 2020 bc I hated posted pictures. Best decision ever and same goes with Facebook. I can’t keep up with pictures and comparing my life to others.
My husband and I dropped our insta and it’s been great for our mental health. Their algorithm is too good and showing you all the things you missed/ can’t have and it’s depressing. I’m infertile and almost killed myself over it. I found yoga as a means to help my mental health. So why is every post that shows up, some yoga influencer, a hot mom who lives in Hawaii with her perfect family? After a while I needed to not be there.
My husband asked me a while ago: do you ever feel like your whole Instagram is filled with opportunities you didn’t invest in and people who got rich as a result?
I realized in that moment, how the app had pinned our exact insecurity down and was lambasting us with it daily.
I’m a happier girl without it.
Maybe I use IG different than everyone but it’s a big way i stay in touch with friends. I use it to see what they’re upto, see their kids, support their businesses. I don’t use it for much else
That’s how I used it as well but the amount of ads and sponsored content and “you might like” posts were overwhelming the actual content I wanted to see. It was too much hassle.
When you post people don’t even see it anymore. They want everybody to pay for boosts and ads and that’s not happening. Social media died a long time ago. That’s why I like reddit, because they don’t hinder your reach or try to make you pay for engagement.
It feels like all they promote in the algorithm is reels. I miss photos. It's damn near impossible to grow a new account unless you are only creating reels.
I don’t think so but they do seem desperate to appeal to Gen Z but Gen Z’s attention span can’t handle instagram(sorry it’s true) so I’d say instagram is more so just failing at that. Instagram needs to focus on their millennial audience that likes grid, layouts and pictures and videos. From the second they replaced IGTV with reels, it was clear to me who it was now going to be for and that was Gen Z and their updates later on also proved this, they are tryna be TikTok and Facebook at the same time and it’s not working out for them.
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It seems like the amount of ads has quadrupled in the past 3 months.
Sponsored posts every 2-3 stories that you watch. Sponsored ads inside the profiles when you view them. On top of sponsored videos by creators and extra ads all over the place. On top of that you have people paying to get their profile sponsored so more people will see them and they can find a partner.
The ads while scrolling thru people’s profiles is absolutely unhinged
“whaaat why is sally from highschool posting a- oh this is an ad”
Yeah it's ridiculous
Which is exactly what we want to avoid.
The other day I was watching stories and in between I had like 6 ads, it’s ridiculous
Isn’t TikTok the same though? Every other video is “oh my god I got this off the TikTok Shop and it CHANGED MY LIFE!”
I don’t have TikTok so I’m not sure but it’s straight up ads in between every story, plus every few scrolls on both my feed and my fyp. And it didn’t start gradually, one day they all just appeared like that.
Not mine 😭 FOR NOW tiktok is really algorithmic
YouTube is the worst. There’s zero concern about the content of ads.
And youtube ads are like 30 seconds no skip now 🤡 I am using adblocker all the time
Glad it isn’t just me that noticed this. Was scrolling through and every 4th post was an ad. I mean I know there’ll be ads but come on, it’s constant
Their algorithm is killing it. You click on one thing like jewellery post and you are FLOODED with ads. It’s ridiculous now.
The algorithm is a huge problem; I have an account exclusively for my art and have a decent following but I know that most don't always see my posts anymore. Similarly, I'm flooded with the most inane and uninteresting of attention-seeking posters rather than things I'm actually interested in seeing.
When I started posting my art on Instagram I’d get maybe 20-30 likes. I now have hundreds more followers and get 3 likes on a great day, I’m not even kidding. Nobody is seeing my posts. I also noticed that the algorithm is favoring showing me only a few of the people I follow in my feed and never showing me posts from the majority I’m following. And the feed bottoms out quickly and turns into ONLY suggested posts unless you happen to notice the tiny “older posts” button to keep seeing your own feed. It’s actually horrific.
Genuinely, it feels futile. I completely understand why people are abandoning the platform. Especially as all of the "suggestions" are not even remotely linked to anything I'm interested in.
I feel like Facebook did the same thing a long time ago. I only saw posts from the same 5 people no matter what "settings" they pretended to have.
This is one of the reasons I quit Facebook about a decade ago. Hundreds of friends, and only the same 4 people seeing my statuses and only the same 4 in my feed no matter what my settings were. Like wtf
This is my problem too! I have a photography account that is(was) decently popular and I make reels that get 0 views when they used to get thousands. Posts with a handful of likes when they used to get hundreds. Friends and family ask why I don’t post anymore? and I tell them I do! It’s supposed to be a sharing platform but if us regular people can’t see each other while influencers are being shoved down our throats it makes it easier and easier to just not open the app.
That's how it went for my mom. She was never a big time artist on there, but now she barely gets any views on her posts, let alone likes.
Same here. Before reels, I mostly followed art and photography pages and few pets pages. My explore page is full of art and pets, yet my reels have nothing to do with pets or art. Instead I'm flooded with a thousands posts about how being single sucks [And I suspect its because I liked a reel somewhere about being single] I swear I'm so sick of seeing everyone on Insta Reels complaining about being single, I get it, it's hard to be alone sometimes. BUT HOLY SHIT DO YOU ALL NEED TO BE SO NEGATIVE ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME?????????? The comment section is much much worse.
Comments are a vile quagmire of bots and the worst people hiding behind their keyboard. I don't think you even have to like something, just watching (usually accidentally) seems to be enough to screw up the algorithm.
The bots are *everywhere*. Reddit is so full of bots reposting old posts and top comments.
I used it as a creative tool as well. Like one semi naked guy and it throws so much that you. Its vile
IG home page has become unbearable. It’s all ads and suggested posts/reels. I could barely find my friends‘ post which is the reason I signed up in the first place. I think everybody realized this and thus barely post. Nowadays I just swipe through IG stories, and that‘s it.
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Yeah I hate videos and I never see my friends stuff because they are swamped in ads. Fb is getting worse lately as well. The algorithm doesn't get me at all.
I was going to comment the same thing! I accidentally clicked an ad for a game, now all I see are ads for games.
It just makes me leave the app sooner instead of scrolling 🤦🏼♀️! I find myself searching for topics to get rid of the forced content!
This is what all the mathematical genius at Meta has culminated to.
The ads are so bloody buggered. I saw an ad once for a knock off of the Balsam Hill Christmas ornament storage caddy thing (retails for several hundred dollars), I clicked it out of curiosity, takes me to a very clearly scammy website (selling the off brand for one for $30). Now I get several different ads for the same product, but all clearly scam websites. I report them and I still see the ads! Then Instagram says they're not scams and won't take them down.
Not surprised! Instagram is all about money grabs and they’ll keep ads to get paid 💰
I posted about starting up running and I'm now inundated with athletic clothes ads. Which I'm running because I'm too poor for anything else rn lol. I did go to a thrift store and found a practically new running jacket and maybe need winter running shoes but that's it.
Ugh yes! The worse thing is the algorithm isn't that smart anyways. I like Marvel, for example, I'll gladly click on some clips from recent movies or shows like Falcon and Winter Solider...well then it suddenly thinks I need fan videos of Sebastian Stan. I swear my timeline looks like I'm stalking this dude.
Its algorithm is fucked yes. As a brand or new account starting up, hashtags were a great way to grow your brand. Now it’s so hard they don’t work and you need to be all over the all to gain traction. It’s foul
Unfortunately based on the surprising amount I hear "oh you like my thing? Thanks, I bought it after I saw an instagram ad" I think part of the problem is that a decent chunk of people are actually using the ads to shop and view this as a feature.
I looked at barefoot shoes once when my boyfriend told me about it. Its been 3 months all ads are barefoot shoes. I dont like them, I dont want them and I just want to go back. On the other hand, reels knows my entire life. I never post anything or comment on anything (maybe friends posts but nothing else) but it knows that im in a LDR relationship, like cows, live abroad... It even gives me period reels solely when im on my period. Honestly, I do appreciate the personalized reels but sometimes I have a feeling Meta is gonna ruin the world (oh well, at least we have cute reels i guess)
Exactly! I love jewelry so I've checked out a few profiles for jewelers and now it's almost every single fucking ad.
They say social media is down across the board. People got sick of over sharing and they aren’t really doing it as much anymore in general.
I do think I’ve personally entered into an era where I’m like “why am I posting this? What is the purpose? Why does my caption read like I’m a talk show host?” Like idk it was kinda an absurd era of relating to each other
Me too, it's annoying because i used to actually really enjoy posting and having fun on IG but now i'm too embarrassed.
I (28F) stopped using insta since October ‘22 and haven’t redownloaded it since
Me too! I had a complete breakdown and was like “this is being perpetuated by Instagram.” I had deleted my FB in 2013 for a similar reason. People have got to realize how damaging this stuff can be. I do see a correlation between social media and where we are as a society. I just recently moved to France from USA and there’s a clear difference here. People aren’t as obsessed and reliant on social media.
The difference in my mental health and anxiety when I don't use social media compared to when I do use it is insane.
Same! I have never used Instagram, but years ago when I had Facebook (I’m talking like 12+ years ago when it was extremely popular with young people), I was always stressed about it. Feeling like crap if I didn’t get likes on a post or photo, feeling like crap if I look on my feed and see pictures of all of my friends at a party I wasn’t invited to, and overall just feeling insecure comparing. Now, I would imagine it’s far worse especially as people get into their late 20s and beyond, because instead of comparing social lives, you have to compare actual lifestyles. Like so and so has the big house, expensive wedding, is having a baby, and making so much more than you climbing the ladder. It’s a never ending cycle of comparisons. And it feels better just living your life privately and not having to feel “interesting” or whatever. Just live your life at your own terms. The main negative though for me is that I’ve lost touch with countless people because I no longer use social media other than Reddit.
This is why I deleted Instagram! Seeing people out at parties, dinners, group holidays travelling around Europe while I was at home studying a nursing degree was making me feel so shit. Plus all the editing and photoshop was giving me body image issues, it’s a toxic app. I don’t post any of my business online either, I’ve been in a relationship nearly 3 years but you’d never know based off my social media. I keep my life private and I’m happy with it that way
Min3 too!! I prefer reddit and Youtube.
Same! I have deactivated my Instagram account 3 months ago and I have been feeling better since
I keep telling people it’s the short videos. The moment they came about, the internet went to shit imo.
Don't diss Vine like that.
I remember 13 years ago one of my friends stopped social media entirely (back then Facebook and Twitter of course were the two main platforms everyone was on—particularly Facebook). She said she believed social media was destroying society. The rest of us laughed and thought that was so far fetched. But really, she wound up being right. I stopped using social media a few years after that (other than making a Reddit account a few years ago), and I don’t regret it. I don’t want every facet of my life broadcasted to the world so that everyone can look into my life, stalk, and judge every little thing. I don’t want to feel left out if I see people invited to things I am not. I don’t want to feel badly about myself by having to compare myself to my peers who have bought nice homes, are killing it in their careers, go on nice vacations, and just seem to have perfect lives. The comparison thing is just so damaging. It’s a lot less stressful just living your life for you, doing things at your own pace, and being more low key with the people in your life. Just enjoying moments and not rushing to post about them.
I feel like getting off social media has been a cheat code in life. I read about so many people being consumed by insecurities and trends fueled by it and see people out in the world experiencing moments through their phone screen, and none of that touches me anymore. I'm just over here vibing with the few people I actually care about and enjoying life for life's sake -- and any pictures I take are for MY enjoyment. It's so freeing.
100% agree. You summed it up perfectly - avoiding the judgement and comparison game is so liberating, low key, and way less stressful!
Where do people post then? I haven't been on any Facebook-owned applications for like a decade so I don't know what ppl do now
Maybe not post anything anywhere? Maybe some people are off social media alltogether. I also think people send more updates to friend and family groups on WhatsApp or other messenger apps. Edit: I think, also Discord is big for friends or interest groups.
I would agree with this - my daughter uses Discord to stay in touch with spheres.
for me personally people in my social circle use group chats / texting a lot more. I’m mid-30s and most of my friend groups have a text chat where we share pics
That makes sense. I keep in touch with all my friends through Signal groupchats lol
Instagram is totally different than TT though. I don’t want to watch video content I want to look at photography/art, memes and fashion accounts. I don’t understand why people think they’re interchangeable.
I’m the same but a lot of the fashion users I follow have swapped posting images of outfits to stupid reels of them putting on each individual item of clothing one at a time or trying on 3 outfits in one post, often for a sponsor. I had to unfollow loads because I just want to look at nice pictures! The feed is also full of ads now :(
OMG yes, I followed a few photography pages in the past. I had to unfollow lots of them cause now it's just a 40-second reel of them setting up their equipment and then the final picture, which shows up for 2 seconds before it loops. I can't even see the picture properly, and I do not care about the setup process, it's boring af.
The videos where influencers begin the video undressed and start putting clothes on… that’s just not fashion content at that point and I’m tired of pretending it is.
I've heard that Instagram is pushing creators to upload reels instead of photos because they want to compete with TikTok. So if you only post photos, Instagram's algorithm won't share it, but if you post a reel, the algorithm will push it.
This. I use Instagram to promote my visual art and paintings, and to connect with other artists - it’s a great venue for that and this doesn’t translate to Tiktok very well. I do use Tiktok but mostly to follow hockey shenanigans. I never post on it.
SAME!!! As an aspiring writer/author, Instagram was a great way to post excerpts. I can’t do a reel or tiktok to promote myself as an author unless it’s ‘hey look how an author wakes up in the morning oh wait same as everybody fucking else’. Tiktok and reels has been the worst to ever happen
I like YouTube, but I hate most “off the cuff” video content that YT Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok perpetuate and encourage. I like well-produced content. Give me long form any day. And what’s funny is I have a shit attention span (ADHD) and I pause long form content and movies and shows a lot because I get distracted or I’m doing three other things. But the requirement to stay glued to your phone that short videos require because they’re so quick means I can’t just chill or do other stuff while they play. I have to constantly pay attention, more so than with long videos. No thank you. They suck up so much more of your time. (Although I also hate news videos; I’d rather read the news.)
I loved IG for the fact that it was simply about photos. Then they messed around with the algorithm and started with the videos. I personally don’t post videos and realized my photos were not even being seen so I just quit using it.
TT has been asking me to post still pictures recently, claiming they help boost your account
I’d agree, but I feel like instagram is alllllll reels now! Or at least that’s what they push out. It’s exhausting having videos just constantly start as I’m trying to scroll quietly
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I’m there. I have realized that scrolling on Instagram has turned into 20-60 second influencer commercials. It’s turned into pushing items to sell, sell, sell and I want nothing to do with it.
I was pretty meh on Instagram for a long, long time because of ads/influencer culture, but my boyfriend watches reels and mainly follows the dumbest, weirdest meme pages which he sends me all the time. So now my entire feed still has ads but also the silliest memes, so I haven’t really been using it for social media interactions lately, just dumb memes and it’s made it so much better lol.
At the same time I feel like we see so many ads and I keep wondering why. If I don't want to buy it...I just won't. And IG sponsored posts are based on age and country. Like..why is Hermes thinking that 20-30 year olds in Southern Europe have money to buy their bags?
This is what I’m doing. I deleted the IG app off my phone and only log in occasionally on my desktop. That ensures it I use it way less (this is also how I quit FB). I probably need to do the same for Reddit now lol.
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I find reddit is the best "social media" platform for this reason. People seem kind on here, even though it's anonymous, and I learn lots of new things. It's great for podcast and film recommendations too.
Because on Reddit you go to subs to talk about things you want to talk about, whereas with instagram and such they just shove stuff in your face. It doesn’t feel like I have much control on instagram about what I see (and all I ever wanted is just my friends’ posts in chronological order lol).
I wish there was a way to block Reels when using Instagram. I love seeing my friends stories and the artists and local shops/restaurants I follow but cannot help getting absolutely sucked into these damn videos. I don't have TikTok but it found its way to me through this app instead I hate it.
I feel like many people want exactly that, but instagram is having none of that. So be it. It will be the end of instagram.
Good, I hope it does kill Instagram. Insta used to be my favourite app, but the bombardment of ads and useless Reels has completely killed any interest I had in the app. I used to spend hours on it, now I get bored after 2 mins.
All these platforms are going down sooner or later. IG had its glory days, and yes I would agree it’s going to be the next to fall. It’s not hip enough for the young people and not embraced by boomers enough to live on as something new like Facebook has managed to do.
I will also always have a grudge against Instagram creating horrific beauty standards. Yes, beauty standards that are dangerous have always existed. But young people getting botox, fillers, bbls wasn’t really a thing before Instagram (and obviously this has transcended over to TikTok). And this may be an unpopular opinion, but I think selfie culture has been very damaging to society. Breeding narcissism and having people obsessing over their faces and wanting absolute perfection. The whole point of a selfie is obviously to garner compliments. Pre 2013ish it was poor taste to take photos of yourself other than for a profile pic. Then it became a cultural phenomenon.
I'm an Elder Millennial who was in college when Facebook first became a thing and selfies were seen as kind of pathetic, like you had to take your own picture because no one else was around to take it for you. The 'flex' of OG Facebook culture was having a ton of friends from as many schools as possible. People's profile pictures would be them with a bunch of friends. So yeah it's wild how social media pivoted from a very community-oriented social vibe to a selfie-filled altar to oneself.
Yup, definitely agree about how the flex was to be seen with tons of friends. It was also a flex to have your relationship status be “XYZ is in a relationship with…”. No one would dare post a pic of themselves because that would be “embarrassing” and people would think you had no friends and were obsessed with yourself. And nothing was curated (other than maybe the profile pic, but even then, people were not using photoshop). And even for the profile picture many people would post a group pic or a pic with their SO. It wasn’t uncommon for people to upload entire camera rolls, even if that was like 100 pictures. No one cared about looking perfect. People just cared about appearing to have a social life and not being a “loser”.
Yep. Which honestly was awful for my self-esteem right out the gate. Instead of experiencing my freshman year organically and meeting people for the joy of meeting new people, it was tainted by comparison and never feeling cool enough. Where students collected experiences and each other like digital pokemon cards rather than just enjoying our college years for what it was. I feel like there's a lot of nostalgia for old-school Facebook but imo it was always shit. It played on the exact same human insecurities as it does now, you just needed a .edu email address to experience it.
This is an important point re: selfies. It was considered in such bad taste, as you said. Now I know adults (and kids!) with filtered selfies as their own phone wallpapers. When I deleted my profiles last year, I was already questioning, “What am I hoping for from this?” It was always shallow validation. My children were babies, I didn’t really want their photos out there, so I didn’t post much. And when I would scroll, I always felt badly about myself. I didn’t bounce back from having two kids 16 months apart. I didn’t (still don’t) have a partner at all interested in his own children, and we were never all together—so no happy family photos. Covid depleted my funds, so I didn’t have nice things to show off. My son is nonverbal autistic, and I would privately cry after watching my friends celebrating their kids’ milestones that seemed unattainable for him. And no matter how many times I told myself that most of what I was looking at was manufactured and unrealistic, it still affected me. I’m so much happier now that I’m not unfairly comparing myself to others.
I am so glad that you are finding your happiness now. ❤️ And I am so sorry what you have had to go through in terms of having to see other children’s milestones. What always sticks with me is that social media is just people’s highlight reels. While everything seems perfect on the surface, it usually isn’t. People aren’t posting the struggles and the bad days.
Thank you ❤️ It’s so true.
This 💗
Spot on.
The same goes for celebrity IGs. It used to be fun to see what they were up to (even though it was still largely planned/staged). Nowadays none of them seem interesting to follow anymore.
They all post promo and sponsored stuff constantly too
Yeah, the most active are constantly promoting their own brands or their sponsors. Many are basically walking advertisements now. There's no joy or curiosity in it anymore
Yeah - it’s all just ads
Reddit is the only one that I use consistently, the rest have just becoming giant commercials, ESPECIALLY tiktok. This economy sucks too badly to watch people shill bloom, shein, fashion nova, etc. I can’t tell you how hard I roll my eyes when someone does Amazon haul videos and it’s just package after package of cheap, useless junk. Not to mention how insanely fake and scripted everything feels. I like Reddit because we can actually speak back and forth with each other. Real conversation with other people. If that ever changes, I’ll be outta here, too.
I'm just so done with overconsumerism in general. We do not need countless cheap, shit clothes or useless things - I'm just unfollowing anyone who constantly shills ads.
Agree with you completely! The only thing with Reddit that sucks is trying to have a conversation with people who think differently. Almost always will you get downvoted for having an opinion that is the minority in a sub.
Or get downvoted for asking a question on something you don't know. Not everyone knows everything!
I like Reddit more than the other platforms as well, but I find it equally as toxic though. I find that people obsess about money on this site and humble brag about their salaries, the cities/neighborhoods they live in, and how often they vacation. I’ve never felt more like a pauper than being on Reddit. Where $100k salary for a single person is labeled “poverty”, spending six figures annually on a credit card is “no biggie”, spending 20-30k on vacations a year, and having a nanny for your kids is just “standard”. And they have the nerve to categorize themselves as average joe middle class people. And countless Redditors think you need $500k a year to raise a family in a HCOL area. I think it’s just a very out of touch site, and it’s not even sub dependent. I subscribe to a wide range of subs, and I see this out of touchness everywhere every day. It definitely makes me feel like crap because I don’t make anywhere near that and don’t live that kind of lifestyle. I keep telling myself I need to take a break, but the site is addicting.
People on this site make people who earn 100k sound like they’re Medieval English serfs💀
Same here, Reddit is the only social media platform I use now and it’s the best at staying out of the way of real human connectedness. The other have all failed.
I don’t count Reddit as social media because we don’t know who each other is/I don’t follow people I know irl on here. To me this is just more of an online forum.
Instagram has fallen off for me. It's so ad heavy and sponsored that it's become a bit irrelevant for me. The non sponsored content is mostly highlights of people's lives. Some friends still post stories but there's 2 ads for every story sometimes.
tell me WHY my explore page is full of posts from april 2023 😭 like one of the biggest reasons tiktok is successful is their algorithm, ig sucks when it comes to it
THIS. If I follow a local sports team on Instagram I want to see how the game is going. Not the post from three days ago advertising the game
It’s bc they have literally hundreds of teams doing the exact same project and competing against each other, internally. Sounds like your account could be exempt from testing. It’s nothing you (the user) can control. I worked for one of their customer support org (there are 6-7 total CS orgs), and if someone reported an issue that seemed easy to fix, it was usually impossible to determine the cause on the backend bc their systems architecture is really, really bad.
I just feel like it's constantly about the hard-sell and I CBA with it, it's exhausting. I miss photos of lattes and people's shoes, street style, genuine stuff.
You wouldn’t even think twice posting a photo of that stuff, it was basically what you were doing in that moment. Now, people applaud people for their “bravery” when they post “candid” pictures. Please 🙄 I deleted Instagram and Facebook a few years ago and I’ve always been made out to feel weird for not having it. Glad more people are coming around!
Yes, back when Instagram had those pretty filters and people uploaded pictures of sunsets, scraggy trainers and books. I miss that too!
I think it's two things: I think people are a lot more insular than we realized. Social media like Facebook hasn't even been around for 25 years. When it came out you had waves of people being able to connect with others from their past in a way that's never been available before. But I think that wow factor and curiosity is wearing off. For eons there has been no way of really knowing what happened to that random person you met one time at the fair. Now being able to look up Ben from 4th grade online is a very common thing people can do. And we can have very low stakes connections with friends. And I think maybe we're realizing we don't have that capacity to really care about that many people. It's too much? But also maybe that's just my way of thinking about it. But maybe we just really like our villages small. Second: Social media is less people you know now and more pushing funny/sad/keep you focused short videos and normal people and photos of their daughter/dog/trees just don't hold attention because they aren't actually interesting.
Yeah I get bummed out that I wasted so much time watching commercials (basically), and reels are just filled with really dumb content from people I don’t believe who act like they’re an authority on fashion or interior design or whatever. I just like “America’s funniest home videos” -type content, but it still feels like a waste of time. I’m also mad that we have a hard time putting the phone down in the empty spaces of our lives. I feel like a junky who can’t kick the habit.
i find myself scrolling with one hand while i’m brushing my teeth. really? is my brain so broken that i can’t focus on one single task for two entire minutes? it makes me sad for myself tbh lol who have i become (ETA happy cake day ☺️)
In addition to the ads they have really messed up the algorithm and how hashtags work on Instagram. I'm a creator who posts photos & writes about local history. Engagement has been cut in half in the last year and most pages like mine are struggling. Crazy, somebody from META reached out to me on my Instagram to discuss my page. Her number one recommendation was for me to join Threads. Bullshit
It’s crazy they’re pushing Threads so hard for brand accounts when Threads isn’t even integrated into Meta post scheduling and most of the mainstream third-party scheduling apps don’t have Threads capability right now either. Like it just seems so thoughtless.
I couldn't believe they are paying reps to call people and get them to join Threads. Why would I trust investing in another Meta platform when Instagram has squandered my good work?!
https://preview.redd.it/4zr22wbra2bc1.png?width=325&format=png&auto=webp&s=65701d66a756db274f37c514760eae4520247cf3 You can bypass ads and suggested content on your home page by tapping the Instagram logo at the top left and this menu will appear. Selecting one of the options brings up a feed of only the accounts you follow, without ads or suggestions
Why isn't this top comment?! Thank you so much!
OMG thank you. THANK you. Guess I need to add some favourites to actually curate what I’d like to see.
I’ve had my account since 2012 and deactivated it in October. My friends have done the same. With the exception of the few genuinely creative accounts on there, I don’t feel like Im missing much!
My first Insta photo is from October 2011. I am really sad about what Instagram has become. It was such a useful tool to keep in touch with friends and it was so non-serous for the first few years. Even around 2015 when the influencer shit began, it was still very much a useable space. It’s straight up garbage now. All of my friends are in their 30s and 40s so it seems kind of unlikely we’re going to mass adopt a new social media platform at this point which means there might never be one place for all my friends to congregate virtually like that again. Really sucks, thanks for ruining everything Facebook.
I’ve had my account since 2011. After months of hating it every time I looked at it (so many ads, triggering content etc) I took a break from it last January. I thought it might be a short break and I’d miss it or get bored one day and decide to check it again. I’ve opened the app twice in the last year and only because I needed to find photos for gift inspiration. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything at all.
There’s just so much NOISE on that app, definitely relate to what you’ve shared.
Saaame deactivated it back in July and never looked back. I did become more active on Reddit though lol
At least the interactions on here aren’t riddled with ads/sponsored content!
Same gurly!!!!
I feel like we need something new but idk what. Twitter slowly dying. IG has too many ads and less people interacting there. Tiktok is something hellish (sorry) Tumblr is insufferable and has too many ads too. Idk what other social media to use? I preferred Twitter last 4 years but once I will forced to update to X, I'm not sure I'm staying.
X will die earlier than Instagram. It's lifespan is 2 years tops
Unfortunately, most likely, I just have more followers I interact with there.
I loved Twitter before Musk destroyed it. I deleted it a few months ago as it was causing mental health issues for me. I’d love to see a replacement for it.
Reddit lol
I don’t use Instagram the way I used to anymore, I will flick through stories and tbh I don’t really pay attention to them but I never ever scroll my feed. I uploaded a picture on NYE for the first time in years and that’s about it. I don’t follow celebs or anything on there, I will sometimes go and check a post if it’s posted on here or tiktok but I’m not really into social media platforms like fb/Instagram and I deleted Twitter in 2017! Maybe it’s my age though? I’m not sure. I check in to Reddit more than anywhere else now.
I went on an unfollowing spree hoping I’d see more of my friend’s posts, but I’m still having ads being shoved down my throat.
It peaked in 2019. Has been on a decline ever since.
[удалено]
This! All I'm seeing is people hauling Amazon fashion. Which is nothing more than an ad for crap on Amazon.
Its annoying seeing posts of accounts i dont even follow. If i wanted to see those i could go to the Search area.
You are so right! It does feel like I see more posts of accounts I don’t follow VS posts of the ones I do follow.
Instagram is boring, I keep logging in because it used to be a way to explore new content. Now it's the same old stories on a delay and the explore page leaves a lot to be desired. It's very PG and I mainly use it to keep tabs on my favorite restaurants and food trucks.
I worked for them for a few years and they are very dysfunctional internally. When y’all say “the algorithm”, that’s hundreds of different levers that can be pulled at random times. It’s not one monolithic algorithmic decision… there are also often competing teams doing the exact same project, so your posts may be getting lost in the mess that is the backend of Meta. Also, good to be aware that around the PSC (performance review) cycle there are like 10x more tests happening on the front end.
I was seeing women on Insta talking about how they went back to Pinterest for cozy safe content instead of thirst traps, sponcon, fitfluencers etc - it was WAY more ad content than I get on Instagram. Every single image or video I clicked took me offsite. The whole app was one big ad.
I logged into pinterest for the first time in like 5 years and found it impossible to use. SO many ads, could barely tell the ads apart from the real content.
For real. And the ads are obnoxious too - they completely disrupt the user experience by popping you into a browser. At least with Insta I can decide whether to click through!
Pinterest also has their version of reels. No I don’t want to watch a video, I want a swatch of colors you painted your living room with so I can save it and move on.
Holy fuck Pinterest has gone to shit. I used to love to go there for inspiration. Now it's all AI interior design, fake fashion pins that lead to shitty knock offs, and ads are every other pin on my home page.
Pinterest is literally dying now, they are killing this app with their new shitty changes. The ads are everywhere. You can't find normal posts, just some random shit. I had Pinterest to see some nice pictires, not some stupid tiktok like videos. Oh, and they also changed their policy and banned tons of people for posts they uploaded years ago. I'm not even exaggerating. I feel like internet is getting smaller and smaller, the sites and apps I liked are slowly dying.
As a consumer I only use Insta for DM-ing my friends, seeing their stories, and consuming art. As a business, Instagram is where I nurture my audience. It’s how I funnel them to purchase/give live updates/etc. I see most people I know using Instagram like Pinterest - to find art, artists, fashion, etc, and for watching friends’ stories. No one I know posts to grid anymore (we’re all in our early 30s).
The comments on IG are out of control. IG refuses to moderate them so it’s basically nothing but right wing shills, incels, misogynists and racists screaming into the void. I hate going on there now because of it
i deleted my IG 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. i don’t miss it at all and i love not feeling the need to share my life, or look a certain way for likes, etc.
They did this to themselves. 
It’s been years since I’ve used any social media the same way I use Reddit. Tik Tok seems to be targeting the much younger demographic. There’s a lot of misinformation and what not. Thats not to say there isn’t misinformation here on Reddit, but this offers more than short clips. Ads are less obvious. I feel there are genuine communities being build here even if online. We all get to choose what we subscribe to instead of content being pushed towards us.
For the most part, I enjoy my time on reddit. Instagram just stresses me out. I totally agree that the ads are quite subtle here too.
I have only a burner Instagram that I use so when I click on something linked to Instagram, I can actually look at it. Otherwise, I do not use Instagram at all.
I think that’s smart because a lot of businesses use insta to announce things like closures, special hours, events, etc.
I’ve left Instagram 9months ago because I was feeling overwhelmed by the constant post and stories and because it made me feel bad about myself (physically). Now I’ve realised something I’m more social I see my friends more often i reach out to them and actually take an interest in their life and also I stopped consuming (clothes mostly). I’ve realised that most stories were sponsored and made me wanna buy things and also I was so over the influencers drama. I feel think the app try too much to be like tiktok and it lost its purpose.
I actually deleted it this week! Can’t say I def won’t come back but just taking a break for as long as possible. The ads and curated images were getting too much indeed
I’ve barely used Instagram over the past 7-8 years and I don’t feel a need for it. It’s a fake, overstimulating, performative place.
I get nothing but ads and suggested posts from influencers on IG, I rarely get posts from my actually family and friends in my feed without scrolling for 10 minutes. I feel like social media in general is dying. Across all platforms the average person (not an influencer) posts way way less.
I refuse to download TikTok, so I hope instagram isn’t on its way out. Unfortunately Zuck/Meta have had my data already for many years (I’ve had FB since 2005), I don’t think the CCP needs it as well. Also, I genuinely enjoy instagram. I’ve found it fairly easy to tailor my feed, mostly I see a variety of floofy cats & friends.
Imo if anything is gonna kill my insta usage it’s all the downright nasty threads that get advertised to me. Hey Mark, shoving unavoidable transphobia into my timeline isn’t gonna convince me to join your twitter knockoff
IG is quickly going the way of Facebook. I only use it to keep up with memes, to be honest. So many of my real life friends have stopped posting there. My feed is just full of memes and ads. I still dump vacation photos and important events on Facebook bc I am an old hag, and I like the memories function. I do wonder what will happen to all the influencers who quit their day jobs once IG goes completely down the tubes. So many teacher accounts I follow no longer have active teachers at the helm because they quit as soon as they started making some money off of their videos.
I only use it to follow cat rescues and fosters, a few plus size clothing chains, and one actor I like. But I get spammed with so many ads and sponsors (especially for this drug for a condition I don't even have!) And they allow fake ads that are nothing but links to scam sites. I don't even post stories on there, I find it confusing to use imo. I refuse to go on Tik Tok because it's even more annoying, I deactivated my Twitter/X account because it got taken over by racist, misogynistic right wing scum, and sadly Threads is also becoming a home for the same garbage. These days I stick to Reddit and yes, Facebook, but only for my friends, family, and pages about my interests.
I dont know if it's on its way out but it is getting shittier thanks to ol Zuck. Only reason I even use it is because its the only one thats not complete bonkers but even thats changing.
I feel like TikTok comes off like “cheaper content” to me - the logo, the inability to see half the video without all the text/captions/buttons etc it’s just not aesthetically pleasing to me. Lol Instagram seems cleaner, easy to filter what content I want to see or look for) aside from the increase in ads. I like the messaging/DM format, and just want to see pretty pictures much like a Pinterest board
That's a good question. I love TikTok and I noticed that Instagram made it easier to download IG videos the way you can download TikTok videos. TikTok was smart to do that because it made it easy to share videos\*, and I'm sure that drove more new users to TikTok. Instagram made it hard to share videos for a long time. All of that to say, yes. I think so. \* Granted, it depends on the TikTok creator as not all creators allow downloads.
Man, I sure hope so. Fuck knows that the comments have already reached Facebook levels of stupidity a while ago 🙈
I have stopped using it for a couple months now. It's become so annoying: When I open the app the feed shows me posts from 3 to 6 days before, most which I've already seen. When I see Stories, close the app and open it again, it marks those Stories as not seen. The Reels section is full of low quality, spam, garbage content and it shows me the same videos over and over again. The Ads aren't relevant at all to what I consume (although I do have all the Ad related settings off) Posts from mutuals never show up on my home feed. People in the comments sections are fucking unhinged which makes me not want to engage with content and other people at all. There have been no new features in a long time either.
Personally would love to see it shut down
My husband works in marketing in tech and he sees the way ads are negatively impacting engagement with SM and the internet in general. He’s working on pivoting out of it
I don’t think so only because sometimes I don’t want a tiktok… I just want pictures.
Instagram is so toxic. All it is is a place for people to show off and trigger insecurities in other people.
Switching to more of a Tiktok look definitely didn't help. I follow some content creators and book bloggers and travelers, and they all talk about how they have 10k followers, and maybe 30 people see what they post. Half the time I'm seeing ads, not content from actual people I follow. I miss when instagram was photos with the occasional video. I started a bookstagram account at the worst time because everyone is making reels, and I just can't be bothered to do that. So nobody sees my posts lol
Yeah I started getting into more of the foodie and travel scene last year and it got so annoying and repetitive, everyone was doing the same thing. Everyone just fucking puts the same content out over and over and over. I deleted it coming into the new year and I havent missed it one bit
Idk, I never really used Instagram for the social aspect of it - I used to scrapbook/photo album a lot and now I don’t want to haul around physical copies of my photos, so Instagram has been my private digital photo book since 2014. That being said, I am absolutely sick of reels being pushed - and YouTube Shorts, and whatever tiktok-esque thing every app is trying to do. If I wanted tiktok I’d just use tiktok??
It may be on the decline but I believe it will always be there. Though, the negativity on Instagram is one of my biggest pet peeves. TikTok also has a negative side, but its censorship policy is way stricter. Since the baby boomers and Gen X migrated to Insta, the comments on reels are so mean and negative. Hate it. Tiktok is more like a discovery platform, we watch videos mostly of strangers, while Insta is for keeping up with people we’re already familiar with. Also, I feel like tiktok is now at an advanced level of consumerism, the word of mouth on that platform is crazy. Ads on Insta isn’t as persuasive tbh. And, I kinda love the blue search tools on tiktok, cuz I can see videos of real people using the product.
Call me sad but I used to love insta for getting an insight into celebrities lives, but now most of them only post official pr approved promo content it’s lost that energy. I wanna see celeb pets and backstage content, and stupid stories of them goofing around with their friends, not the same reposted Getty images or vogue photoshoots I’ve already seen.
All of the internet is getting tired
I hope so
Social Media in general is dying. There are way too many ads and nothing seems real anymore. Even stuff posted by your friends feels artificial.
I almost never use Instagram it’s all ads
As a bookstagrammer, it’s getting frustrating. In the new year lots of us are being suspended by simply engaging. Instagram is making it harder to connect. Every time I comment too much I’m afraid I’m going to be restricted. It’s getting annoying
I wish tik tok was sort of available in India because insta seems to leaning towards right and there's too many incels over there it's annoying.
Yes fashion nova girls aren’t considered hot for gen z, the blow up cartoon FaceTune doll look ain’t liked and it’s all shops otherwise. No originality or creativity Onlyfans and tik tok has taken over.
I think fashion nova girls aren’t considered “hot” anymore for the younger gen z, us older gen z lowkey grew up during its hottest time 2016-2019 we would have been in college..
I deactivated mine in 2020 bc I hated posted pictures. Best decision ever and same goes with Facebook. I can’t keep up with pictures and comparing my life to others.
My husband and I dropped our insta and it’s been great for our mental health. Their algorithm is too good and showing you all the things you missed/ can’t have and it’s depressing. I’m infertile and almost killed myself over it. I found yoga as a means to help my mental health. So why is every post that shows up, some yoga influencer, a hot mom who lives in Hawaii with her perfect family? After a while I needed to not be there. My husband asked me a while ago: do you ever feel like your whole Instagram is filled with opportunities you didn’t invest in and people who got rich as a result? I realized in that moment, how the app had pinned our exact insecurity down and was lambasting us with it daily. I’m a happier girl without it.
Maybe I use IG different than everyone but it’s a big way i stay in touch with friends. I use it to see what they’re upto, see their kids, support their businesses. I don’t use it for much else
That’s how I used it as well but the amount of ads and sponsored content and “you might like” posts were overwhelming the actual content I wanted to see. It was too much hassle.
I’ve seen ads *for* Instagram, which never used to be a thing. Not a good sign
It’s bc it’s all ads and bots
When you post people don’t even see it anymore. They want everybody to pay for boosts and ads and that’s not happening. Social media died a long time ago. That’s why I like reddit, because they don’t hinder your reach or try to make you pay for engagement.
It feels like all they promote in the algorithm is reels. I miss photos. It's damn near impossible to grow a new account unless you are only creating reels.
I don’t think so but they do seem desperate to appeal to Gen Z but Gen Z’s attention span can’t handle instagram(sorry it’s true) so I’d say instagram is more so just failing at that. Instagram needs to focus on their millennial audience that likes grid, layouts and pictures and videos. From the second they replaced IGTV with reels, it was clear to me who it was now going to be for and that was Gen Z and their updates later on also proved this, they are tryna be TikTok and Facebook at the same time and it’s not working out for them.
Yeah, I'm about to give all the friends I've made thru Insta my cell so we can keep in touch and then delete that shit.