Don't deny it, Instagram has a tendency to suck sometimes - and by suck I don't mean to call social media evil or that it's a terrible idea. I'm not here to tell you to delete your accounts, but I truly think Instagram sucks because it can honestly drain the life out of you if you're not careful.
I've never tallied up the amount of hours I've spent on Instagram but I know that whatever the number is, it's a high one. On average, each user spends about half an hour* every day perusing through posts and double tapping pictures. Just add a few more minutes to that mix and you're probably getting closer to my average.
However it's not so much the hours on Instagram that started to scare me but the time spent after I had mustered enough mental strength to put the phone away and actually decide to do something that didn't require my eyeballs being plastered to a tiny screen.
Because of this need to check it everyday more than once a day my life never felt "there" enough. I was never where I wanted to be in the way I dressed, my career, my home, my photography, love life, and regular relationships. To help console myself and compensate for that I found my way back on Instagram (and some times Pinterest) under the excuse of "trying to get inspiration", trying to "better" myself. I falsely believed that if I could see how others were living I could also apply their ways to my own life.
Maybe for some that method does work (ain't no shame in that game) but for me and maybe some of you that will never be the case. It all became less and less of a constructive critique and comparison of other people's lives to mine and more of a consuming need to see others doing what I wanted to be doing myself - to live through their photos while never having to really do anything myself.
Living through them made it so that I was never living for myself. Time would progress but no progress was actually being made.
However, even with all that said it's not from me that you'll ever hear that social media is the root of all evil. Although I will put it out there to simply be careful. Don't let Instagram, or any social media platform for that matter suck you dry of your precious time or invaluable ideas. Don't let what you see on the screen dull your mind or lead you to put your life into a box of how you think it ought to be because you believe it will make your grass look greener.
You can be inspired until the last of the sheep come home but ultimately only you have the power to do all that you want. No one else is gonna live your life for you and you cannot vicariously live through others.
*Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Younger-Users-Spend-More-Daily-Time-on-Social-Networks/1011592