Over the weekend, I wanted to track my Instagram usage, as I wanted to decrease the amount of time I spent doom scrolling. Previously, I would delete the app for the times I wanted to focus (i.e. finals), but would have to redownload it because it is my main point of contact for friends who don’t use iMessage. I wanted to log when I opened and closed Instagram. To do so, I used Shortcuts on my phone to text my friend whenever I opened/closed the app.
I found that I frequently doomscrolled on Instagram in bed, right after I woke up and before I went to sleep. On Saturday, I scrolled for what I thought was a short ten minutes, but looking at the receipts I scrolled for roughly 45 minutes (8:46-9:27). I also found myself using Instagram when I was trying to have a productive study block, like how I opened the app four times during my two hour block after lunch Sunday.
Over the past two days, I found that my habit was very location and activity based. I made a connection circle and flow chart based on the locations I checked notifications, and then opened Instagram. My phone’s screen time data aligns with these, as my most first used app after pickup is Messages coming at 150+, with Instagram at 80+. I found that there were often times where I didn’t even have notification or need to respond to messages, I would habitually open Instagram just by having my phone visibly during my study sessions. This is evident by the six times from 5:11 to 5:34 that I opened Instagram for less than a minute Saturday evening. My daily average on Instagram was roughly 45 minutes last week, which I say is an improvement from the disastrous four hours I had over winter break.
I believe that this study did not align with my usage of the app before. I was conscious of the fact that my friend would get notified of the texts. The additional friction made me aware of my usage of the app, so I would close it right away after responding to messages. Surprisingly, the friction of exposing my Instagram usage to my friend was enough to start reducing my app usage.
