"Hey let's get a picture for Insta"
"What filter should I use?"
"Does this picture even look like we're having fun?"

I have heard all of the above quotes and several other similar and mildly superficial ones come out of either my own or my friends' mouths several times and had never thought of such words as any sort of issue. That is, until about a month ago. One night, I was "creeping" on myself and then I realized that almost every single picture on my Instagram (I had about 140 at the time) had me in it. I honestly got tired of seeing my own smile. I like to look at things from an outsider's perspective and decided that my Instagram was that of a college girl who has a lot of fun but is a little too into her own life. But the thing is, that's not who I am. While I enjoy my life, because that is healthy and all, I'm not by any means obsessed with myself or my friends or having all the "fun" that it looked like I was having. Of course, being in college is a grand old time. As a college student, I see tons of crazy pictures or parties or at bars and of girls dressed up and having fun. However, it occurred to me that most of the photos that I had posted were from a group of multiple pictures on my Camera Roll of me and my friends posing to look like we were having the time of our lives. From that group of pictures, I would choose one of them and edit it with one of my many apps so that the brightness and contrast and whatever other settings were just right. After that, I would upload the photo to an app where the entire picture would fit, leaving those white borders that everyone loves to have on their faux-artsy Instagram. Finally, I would decide the perfect time to post the picture based on when I thought that most people would be checking their app.

Making an Instagram post was more than just uploading a photo to a social media platform, it was a process. This process was supposed to ensure that my picture was aesthetically pleasing and worthy of hundreds of likes. There was a point where I would delete the picture I had posted if it had not received over 200 likes. Isn't that pathetic? That was a few months ago, before realized that I had some sort of mystical Instagram addiction.

There were times when I was at an event and was so preoccupied with getting a good picture to put on Instagram that I wasn't even paying attention to what was actually going on around me. People used to come up to me and comment on how "strong" my "Insta game" was and while that made me feel kind of good considering how much time I put into it, I also started to question if that was even a compliment to begin with.

Finally, after one and a half semesters of avid picture posting and sharing way too much of my life with the rest of my followers, I came to my senses. We are here and we are present and we are lucky enough to have a lot of the opportunities that we do, but not all of those things have to be shared with the world. Sometimes, an event or an object or a scene is better cherished when the moment is just shared between you and whoever else is there at the time. Honestly, the chances are that no one even cares that much about your life. No one will notice that you chose Lo-Fi instead of Mayfair or care that it took you the entire morning to think of the witty caption/location combo.

I've always enjoyed mysteries and leaving things to the imagination, which is why I was surprised with myself when I fell into my minor Instagram problem. Tonight, I deleted almost every picture on my profile, leaving a few that I recently took of scenery. I no longer desire for people to see my life all the time; I want to be more private with my social media and less allowing of others to judge me by my Instagram profile. I no longer care who or how many people like my pictures, I don't want to think of captions and funny locations, I don't care if I only got 95 likes. I love Instagram, don't get me wrong, I think it is a great app for photo sharing and a great way to see what others are doing and how they choose to portray it. By all means, if you're at the Eiffel Tower and you get a dope picture, slap a cool filter on that and post it. However, I do think that those who are "Insta wh*res" (or whatever its called when you literally have an addiction to excessive photo sharing/caring too much about Instagram) should step back and realize that some things should not be posted. Don't try too hard to be "artsy" or "hipster" or whatever you're doing to make yourself into something you're not.

To all of my fellow peers and social media fiends, I hope that this will influence you to take a look at your social media habits and realize that there is a bigger picture than the one that you are posting.