Tag: social media

How to Reduce Social Media Usage

We all know that social media causes a slew of mental health and societal issues:

But lucky for you, you are already an analogue shooter, or are about to be one, and we all know that shooting film means less time spent on line.

I’m going to give you 7 ways to lessen your exposure to social media.


Insta option to remind you to use it less

  1. Limit your time in app. Instagram has a way to set a reminder that you’re about to, or have exceeded your time. I choose to limit my Instagramming to 1 hour a day.
  2. Let your audience know your posting time and commit to it. I let my audience know in my bio that I’m posting every weekday at 11:30am.
  3. Limit your followings. Under 150 is ideal. Figure out who isn’t engaging with you, and cut that person out of your socials.
  4. Don’t use in app chat. Send them to Twitter or website with your email, or other chat app where you know you won’t get sucked in for too long. Discord are great options.
  5. If you feel like logging into the socials, go outside and shoot some film.
  6. IRL More, e.g. have more IRL conversation, use a landline or payphone (Yes, that old thing that takes coins), find a paper flyer to an event and go to it.
  7. The zine or the photo book should be the focus of your analogue, photographic efforts. All great work should culminate in a zine or photo book.


Put your posting schedule in your bio! This is true of all socials on where you post.

What did you think of this list? Am I leaving anything out for lowering your social media usage for better health and more happiness? Let me know in the comments below.

Why I torched my Instagram account

You might be asking what do I mean by torched? Here’s how I’m defining it.

  • I manually removed all my followers.
  • I manually removed all my followings.
  • I deleted or archived all my posts and highlights.

Once I committed this virtual seppuku of my account, I felt like a horrible burden had been lifted off me.

Why did I do this?

1. My account still looked and felt inauthentic.

I had removed about 10,000 ghost followers (manually) and got to about 1400 followers. At this point my engagement was 10% without even trying with hashtags or engaging with my audience which was pretty decent. I could get a 30% engagement if I posted a decent photo and engaged with my audience. What gnawed at me was different evaluations of my account comments being inauthentic. I used a calculator like this one. No matter what I did, folks from inauthentic DM groups would comment on my photos no matter what in the hopes that I would engage with them.

2. I was sick of the implied supposition that if someone commented and liked my photo, I owed them the same thing.

Seriously, is every photo awesome? I would look at photographs and see that they would get the same scores or hundreds of comments from the same people on the same kinds of photographs. I get that when you start out in photography you photograph the same thing lots in order to hone your craft, and because of the subtle differences in light, shadow and color. For influencers, photographers become a means to an end: a way to grow a following and a way to get engagement. This reduces the world to a mere photographic resource at the expense of story telling.

3. The interactions on Instagram are (on balance) not healthy, nor what I need.

I’m grateful for all the friends and positive interactions that I’ve had on Instagram. But if I weigh all the pros and cons, I’d have to say overall that my experience on Instagram has been a negative one. You run into so many people that are just using other people to get ahead – that’s simply not healthy.

As someone that is passionate about philosophy, I never found folks who combined philosophy with a love of taking honest photos.

4. There has to be a better way to build community.

Even in its early years, people like Lady Elizabeth Eastlake noted how photography created a motley republic of sorts that crossed barriers of class. There have existed “republics of photographers,” a sort of tribe, global in nature, bound by just the desire to chase light. I remember how in the 1990s travelers would make fast friends with just nothing more than a camera in common. Many think Instagram did this for the first time, but it did not. However, with early Instagram, it was very much possible to travel the whole length of the country and all you needed was an account to gain the hospitality of a stranger.

Now, moving into its 9th year and making Facebook billions last year, you have to wonder if you can even create community with an app so antithetical to it. Instagram has become an ad platform designed to turn your attention and by strip mining your life’s photos into profit. Whatever community is there flourishes despite this, but there really ought to be a better way.

How should photographic communities be really built in the 21st century?

Who To Follow on Instagram

Don’t follow anybody in the top 100 if you want a follow back. This elite group with at least 2.2 million followers only follows back an average of 222. That means your odds of getting a follow back are less than one-thousandth of a percent.

Also, don’t follow anybody who recently became a suggested user. In typical “nouveau riche” fashion, most start unfollowing people once they’ve reached this coveted status. On average, they follow less than 500 and unfollow 2/3rds of their followers before their suggested user status.

Honestly, just follow people whose photos you really like and who engage with you back. Yes, both. You can already “follow” people whose photos you like in galleries and in books without the engagement, but Instagram is all about engagement.

My pal, @combustionchamber, asked me who to follow on Instagram. Here are three folks that aren’t IRL friends but whom I’ve admired from afar that I’d like to suggest. Here are folks on Instagram whose art I like but also have a high degree engagement.

Larry Nienkark, landscape photographer: This guy even gives discounts to his superb prints in the comments.

Melody Riffs, singer: She is singing 1000 songs for 1000 strangers. One of them might be you.

Ac Colvin, night-time and fashion photography: Ac really reaches out and chats with his audience. I really like his night time shots around San Francisco, especially the long exposure ones.