It’s time to force myself into deprivation once again.

For the past decade or so, I spent every other year ridding myself of something important to me for an entire 365 days. One year I got rid of meat and became a vegetarian for a year. Another year I gave up alcohol. The last year-long fast came in 2016, when I didn’t have bread.

For 2018, with the world becoming a cloud of screaming kept alive by the dome of technology hovering over us all, I decided to slice off one of the warts of social media.

Instagram.

I don’t use Snapchat and while Twitter is known as a cesspool of trolls and an echo chamber of overly dramatic or overly idiotic people “talking” just to have their voices heard, I use it more as a way of getting news from relatively neutral parties, Associated Press and NPR, oddball one-liners from comedians, and updates from the sports world.

However, according to a study done by a British organization, of the five social media outlets – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube ­– it’s was found that Instagram was the worst for a user’s mental health.

Granted, the survey is far from perfect or applicable. It asked less than 1,500 people and it was geared more toward a younger, teenage populous. I enjoy the artistic part of posting to Instagram, using the filters, lighting and coloring – Katie will attest that I am a sucker for black and white photos – to make myself feel like the second coming of Ansel Adams. The survey even states that the social media platform is good for self-expression and self-identity.

However, it also had high levels of anxiety, depression, and the fear of missing out.

Over the past month, I had thought about what I wanted to rid myself of in 2018 and when I thought about social media, I considered how each of them make me feel.

Getting rid of Facebook would almost be too easy because I don’t use it nearly as much as I used to. It has become a dumpster full of reposted material, reminders of what people did seven years ago, and despicable click bait. It is no longer a place for original thought or a site with actual human connection.

Like many people, Instagram has become a place that has an almost drug-like consistency for just checking in. Stopped at a traffic light? Let’s take a look. Waiting for a doctor? I wonder what everybody else is up to.

It’s that thought – I wonder what everybody else is up to – that is the heart of my personal problem with Instagram. I see pictures of the results of other people working out and I feel like a sack of shit for not working out as hard as I should. I see pictures of people out having fun and wish I could do the same instead of just doing it.

Whenever I post, I think subconsciously I do so in a Keeping Up With the Joneses type of way. Look how happy I am! Aren’t I funny? Isn’t this a cool photo? You should like it!

After I post something, it becomes an obsessive and toxic desire to keep refreshing until I see that little pink notification that said somebody appreciated it. Instead of enjoying a memory for memory’s sake, which is one of the most wholesome and freeing ways of living life, I look at it as a way to post and force my own memory onto others.

Like Facebook, Instagram has slowly devolved into just caring about a select few profiles – Katie’s wonderful pictures of her travels (follow her at katieandacamera), pictures and videos of the adorable Dean the Basset, and every so often a cool retro pic from Rare Sports.

The positives are now dwarfed by the negatives.

When I’m getting into bed, I’ll check really quick – the bright phone screen blaring nonsense like the neon lights of a bar. Even though I know that checking Instagram before bed is bad for me, I do it anyway. That sounds like the definition of an addiction.

I’m sure there will be plenty of photos that you post I miss that I would have otherwise enjoyed, but I hope that a year without Instagram will help unshackled the chains that keep the thought of the fear of missing out or the creeping doubt that I am not living my life to its fullest potential from stunting memories that I would have otherwise made.

I understand the appeal for Instagram. I really do. This isn’t to shame anybody who uses it or me standing on a mountain and looking down on others with a feeling of being holier than thou.

Instead, I just want to live life in 2018.