Breaking Up With The 'Gram - But Wanting To Keep Your Data

If you're like me and you thought that your instagram would be a great way to store your memories and something to look back on when you are 80 years old with a smile, then deleting this app is harder than you'd think.

I felt really torn about bettering my life and my mental health versus being addicted to my phone for the sake of storing my memories.

Fear not! There are a number of solution's to this problem!

Option 1. Reflect and Reassess

Have a genuine look at your content. Really evaluate what it is from your page you genuinely want to save.

Again if you're anything like me, you'll spend long enough really looking at your own posts, and you might think - you know what, all of this is sort of rubbish. The best moments in my life didn't happen on instagram nor were they adequately reflected here at any moment.

Making this problem moot. Just delete it and bask in that sweet freedom.

Option 2. Download your Data

If you really want to hold on to everything you can from this platform without actually using it like an addict anymore, you can always download your data. Then simply store it on a google drive if you want to look back on any of it in the future.

How to download your data:

1. Open the Instagram app on your phone

2. From the Home Screen click your profile icon in the bottom right corner - taking you to your page

3. Click the menu button at the top right hand corner (the three lines)

4. Hit "Settings" should be first on your list

5. Choose "Security"

6. Tap "Download data"

7. Enter the email address you would like to have the data sent to and wait

A message should come up saying they are preparing your data for you and you should get it in about 48 hours, mine only took about 3 hours before I got the email and I downloaded it on my computer form there.

You will have to wait 4 days before you can request to download it all over again.

What data do you get?

To be honest looking through these folders of information generated by instagram and seeing what they store about us, and how they store it, was really eye opening and super weird.

For some people this information will be awesome to keep and fun to stalk through when ever you like.

But for me I didn't quite understand the point of it all? As far as I could tell none of my posts actually got saved which was all I wanted. Instead I ended up with every conversation I've very had, everyone I've ever blocked, all the things I've liked, the algorithms the app uses to generate what I see... weird.

If that's the kind of info you are hoping for then download - and delete my friends!

Option 3. Click and Collect

I decided I wanted to keep my pictures and my captions but I wasn't sure how to go about it?

I pulled up the app on my computer and screen shotted my entire reel of 1002 pictures as seen per computer browser format and pasted it into a word document.

Sure, it was 83 screenshots - that I took while I was mindlessly watching season 7 of Gilmore Girls for the 3rd time - which seems like a lot of effort.

But now I have my entire feed in scrollable chronological order in a PDF should I ever want to look back through them all like a digital photo album when I am 80.

What about the captions though?

I decided I also wanted to keep some of these as well. Partly for when I am 80 to look back on and likely cringe at my past self. Partly to show my kids one day, to convey my experience on social media to help teach them about it and how to navigate the negative aspects that can come along with these apps.

This was a bit more effort. I decided to screen shot the posts I wanted to keep in a singular blown up frame and copy my captions all into another word document.

663 pages later and almost 6x the word limit for my Honours Thesis - I saved the last 5 years of my instagram life in scrollable chronological order for future me to see anytime the urge strikes.

I then saved all of these documents to a google drive so they not clogging up my computer and I don't have to worry about them getting lost or deleted.

Healthy To Let Go

If I am honest with myself, I am ashamed of how much time I have spent over the years scrolling back over my own instagram posts. I'm not sure if this is a common experience everybody has, but I found myself doing it way more often than I would like to admit.

Sometimes I would get a message or friend request from someone and then I would want to re-review my entire page from their perspective or point of view. I don't know why. I must have tried to look at my account through almost 5000 different lenses to see how they might see me.

Or I would go back over my page and think about all the bad things that were happening in my life at the time I made that post or took that photo. There is one picture of me studying for the GAMSAT, I would alway scroll past it and think "that's when I was a horrible girlfriend, ignoring him and mean to him because I was so anxious trying to get into medicine, I don't even know why my fiancé is still with me after that, I suck, why does anyone like me for that matter". I don't know why I formed this terrible habit of reliving past wounds that are absolutely irrelevant to that particular post or to life now, and revisiting a version of myself I outgrew a long time ago.

It was unfortunetly both a complete waste of time, and an utterly unhealthy behaviour I couldn't shake even after I had clued into what I was doing.

I think for me having all my pictures and captions saved still provides me with the sense that when I'm older I can still look back on it all, or have a laugh with my med friends over it in years to come. Without there being an urge for me to open up the google drive and wait for it all to load so I can mindlessly scroll through it all on the regular.

At first I was deeply saddened by the thought of losing my instagram.

But after a lot of reflection and processing I know this is going to be such a positive move for my mental health. I have been so guided consciously and subconsciously by what is happening on social media for most of my adult life and I'm ready to let it go. I am so excited to become who I am supposed to be, free.

Hope to see you there.

xo