today I did walked away from instagram.

there were a few factors which influenced my decision to do this. On the one hand, I feel somewhat of a moral obligation to denounce all products owned by Facebook. Having said that, I will probably have to live with using WhatsApp for now... 

primarily though, my decision to delete instagram has been for mental health reasons. I found the more active I became in posting, the more self conscious I became, and then my mental health would deteriorate as a result. As much as I like to tell myself I don't care what other people think, this is clearly not true as I found that the number of 'likes' that I received - not so much the number of likes, but likes from the people from who I wanted their approval, would ultimately affect my mood. I would rarely upload pictures of myself but when I did I felt as if I was posing (like above), or showing my life in a different light than it is in reality. I also felt that being an 'active' poster on instagram really prevents you from being present in the real world. Taking several pictures until you find one that is just right, then uploading it and then thinking about how well it's being received online; all the while you are missing what's right in front of your eyes. I prefer the idea of an analog film camera as invariably you do have to be in the moment to take the right shot but then once it's taken you can't do anything about it until you get the roll developed so you can get on with being present in your surroundings. 

I felt better posting pictures of drawings as it meant I didn't have to be posting from some 'cool' location, or show a picture of myself. Maybe I'll make an account just for that someday...