I love my phone. This is a statement that I say without shyness, and it also happens to be a statement the majority of teenagers can agree with. I got my first smartphone (an iPhone 5) at the beginning of freshman year. This being said, it is pretty safe to say I was somewhat late to the game in terms of social media and having an online presence. The day I got my phone I immediately downloaded instagram and started an account. For those who are not familiar with instagram, it is essentially a social media platform used mostly by teens and young adults. One can post pictures, make comments, follow people, and much more.

Fortunately, my very first instagram account has long been deleted, but I remember that that first day with my new phone I posted at least seven pictures over the span of a just a couple hours. I honestly think that this is where my obsession with social media and having an online presence started. In that first day of having a new instagram account, I gained and lost a handful of followers and was fully aware of it all.

As time went by, my interest in instagram likes, followers, and comments turned into an obsession. I would spend hours just scrolling through pictures and in the rare instance that I was not on instagram, I would worry that I was missing out on posts. Every time I was away from my phone for more than 30 minutes, I would get a sinking feeling and constantly consider whether it was worth it to check back up on instagram or if “just leaving it” was a smarter idea. I seemed to think that “just leaving” my instagram alone and not going on it would solve my strange obsession with needing to know what was happening at all times. I hated not having my phone because it meant that I had no way of knowing what was happening on instagram, and other social medias. As a result of this, I began to find activities that did not involve my phone extremely dull.

It was not until this past summer when I was away on a trip and did not have my phone for three weeks that I realized how trivial social media was in the long run. Yes I still love instagram, yes I still spend plenty of time on my phone, and yes I still use social media quite a lot, but I can now be perfectly content without my phone unlike before. Realizing that in ten or twenty years my old social medias will not be prevalent to my life, however, is what allowed me to relax, and not obsess with what was happening at all times online. I hope to look back at my current social medias in ten years and laugh, just like I do at my old instagram now.