\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/ceaa99b015890b7a619a0a8076ba9b1b00872b42\/0_519_1200_960\/master\/1200.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=a16b6a4736bad55f44a93c915d4c98dd\" "\\"The")
I\u2019d become obsessed with appealing to my invisible audience. But since I ditched the app a year ago, my quieter moments have taken on brilliant new meaning\nI first downloaded Instagram when I was 17 and became hooked on it the way most people fall in love: slowly, and then all at once. For a long time, I never considered myself a social media addict. I self-righteously refused to download TikTok, declared Snapchat to be for \u201cchildren\u201d, and posted less regularly on Instagram than half of the people I followed.
\nAs I went through my university years, however, certain changes crept up on me. I began to swap reading \u2013 or essay-writing \u2013 for hours spent curating new posts. On my way home from lectures (or later, from my work as a journalist), I would spend ages trying to take the artsiest, most perfect picture of that evening\u2019s sunset for my story \u2013 as if the people who followed me were eagerly awaiting yet another photo of one of the Earth\u2019s rotations. What usually followed was a night of reloading my feed to see how many people had reacted to my post \u2013 or worse, hadn\u2019t reacted at all. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019d become obsessed with appealing to my invisible audience. But since I ditched the app a year ago, my quieter moments have taken on brilliant new meaning I first downloaded Instagram when I was 17 and became hooked on it the way most people fall in love: slowly, and then all at once. For a …<\/p>\n