My addiction to Instagram has reached epic proportions of late.

I'm casting about for ways to deal with it.

I suppose one could apply the strategies of physical addictions and either taper off or go cold turkey. I'm hoping there is a third option, as yet to reveal itself.

But as is my wont, I have decided to analyze it to death before taking any rash actions. Though in my defense, I want to understand the problem so that when I encounter resistance, I'll have a few ready responses to my tantrumy toddler who is sure to protest vociferously.

This morning, I was thinking about the whole problem of on-line 'life'. For we surely have one don't we? I mean, here we are on this platform, spilling our guts in one way or another, with full understanding that someone will be reading it. Or we HOPE will be reading it.

WHY do we hope?

In the past, it seems that if someone had something to say, they became a writer. Publishing was a very difficult and expensive proposition, so you better have something important to say. Though there is a long tradition of what we call pulp fiction, but back in the day it was called the 'Penny Dreadful'. In any case, we wanted to tell a story or get some intellectual point across.

I was thinking about the society that was called 'The Inklings' that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were part of. I found out they met for almost 20 years, getting together and sharing and critiquing each other's work. They did so before, during and after a world war. That's how dedicated they were. And a lot of fabulous writing came from that association. But how many among us could say that we have had any sort of connection to an intimate group of thoughtful people for 20 years?

Our society is so much more mobile and fragmented now, it's hard to imagine.

Enter the internet.

This sped things up incrementally since the first dial up connections, to the place where it is now where I mostly watch between sixty seconds to three minutes of somebody doing something, and then move on to the next thing.

The rapid-fire delivery is incredibly disorienting and mesmerizing at the same time. I want to look away, but the scroll never ends. A ticker tape of content, a conveyor belt of distraction, a cornucopia of mental hypnosis.

And here's the kicker. Some of it is great. Funny, thought provoking, beautiful, poignant, and informative. But it's all jumbled up, side by each with utter nonsense and outright deception, with the added layer recently of AI Slop.

I have been trying to understand why I can't just pull away and ..... I don't know, find something else to do with my time. But you know what? It's like trying to live a quiet life when you live next door to an amusement park. The noise spills over into your back yard all day and night. All the shiny flashing lights, the smells of fried food and cinnamon rolls wafting through the air. The sound of screaming... is that terror, or is it euphoria?

WHAT AM I MISSING OUT ON? Runs through your mind all the time.

Ugh.

And now I come to the most troubling part of this problem. I think we have set up a situation where we feel like if we don't jump into the digital stream of the internet, it will be as if we don't really exist. It reminds me of what I have observed with kittens and puppies. They make noise all the time when they are awake and I think it's to make sure that the mother knows they are still alive and viable and in need of attention.

In a way, under these conditions we live in now, 'social media', (oh how I despise that name!) is our link to other people sometimes way more than in our analog life. This situation was thrust upon us during the plandemic and we are paying the price for it now. Or at least I am. Maybe you have more self-control. I hope for your sake that you do.

Anyway. Here I am, thinking out loud, and contemplating some kind of strategy for lowering my exposure to Instagram specifically. It's the worst offender. Or I am letting it be the worst offender. I must own this truth.

What should it be? Time limits? Cold turkey? Tapering off? I don't know right now. But I DO know I must change things to preserve what is left of my neurons. I'm rather fond of them.

I wonder if THEY have 'fear of missing out'?

There's a question for me.