I uninstalled Instagram from my phone this week. I haven’t yet deleted my account — I do think I get some small utility from local and wine-based accounts — but getting it off my phone solves the immediate problem, which is that the algorithm kept luring me in and fiddling with my brain. I’d been thinking about deleting it for weeks, but pulled the trigger when I was listening to a random episode of Q from last fall where Scarlett Johansson talked about never having been on social. That felt like the universe giving me a sign.

At this point I have no social media left on my phone, having deleted my Twitter account(s) last year, and deactivated my Facebook account about five years before that. I have, of course, never owned a TikTok account. I mean, maybe Reddit counts? But I spend very little time on there.

Early returns are promising. Within a day of deleting the app I’d read more of my current book than I’d read in the previous two weeks.