My mobile day in the life of an Instagram addict in Denial

As a book nerd, routine fanatic, and alternatively as described by my boyfriend “an Instagram addict in denial,” having to dive deep into my mobile habits and share the scary truths of my movements was an uncomfortable idea. This was mainly because as it turns out, he was right, and as is expected, I as a strong-willed woman hate being wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, my mobile phone isn’t the first thing I pick up in the morning or the last thing I look at before I go to bed, but all the time in-between, my mobile and Instagram the content fly trap app, is King, followed by the next top contenders: WhatsApp, Lightroom, Spotify and Safari.

?6:45am and my I-want-to-snooze moment

The start of my morning relationship with my mobile is pleasant and brief because mornings are for me; to switch off my alarm as quickly as possible, drink my glass of water and plan out my day.

?7:00am and my I-want-to-get-rid-of-my-notification-icons moment

Pinterest | Twitter | LinkedIn | Gmail | Facebook

I don’t consider myself OCD, but if there’s one thing that drives me crazy, it’s the notification icons on my screen burning into my soul when I pick up my phone. Everything that needs my attention stays, anything that is nothing more than a bright red icon on my app screen gets the boot.

Emails are the first to go; majority of which are survey’s, notifications from LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest or useless updates from the Hilton Honours and the Cruise Liner I went on when I was sixteen (note to self, unsubscribe for crying out loud.)

Next on the purge list is Facebook, and LinkedIn – which is basically just deja-vu of what I just went through in my emails, this is a serious pain point in my morning and if Mark or Bill are magically reading this, I beg you do not send me emails about what I’m just going to see when I open your app.

?7:05am and my I-want-to-connect moments have their time

WhatsApp | Instagram (the content fly trap)

Although during the day, my WhatsApp groups for work, classes, and team projects blow up, in the mornings it is the equivalent to a warm hug because it helps me to connect with those that I love back home that have already been awake for six hours.

Once I’ve replied to messages and sent some love around, I have my first moment of denial and I open Instagram “to read my messages.” Before I know it, I have watched stories, drooled over some Instagram baby and am knee deep in another reel by @theinspiredunemployed. Only 5 minutes have passed but I suddenly snap back to reality and move on before I end up in a black hole of candle making and how to do heatless curls.

7:15am and I-want-to-be-inspired by Julie Merica as I “Make My Damn Bed”

Call me crazy but ‘some corporal somewhere’ said that “making your bed is the most important part of your day,” so why not amp it up, throw in a little do-good-attitude from Julie on Spotify and leave the room feeling far more Zen than 3 minutes ago.

?7:30am and Spotify still rules when I-want-to-be-active

To me, the people that run to the “magical sounds of their surroundings” are delusional. Running sucks, and if I don’t have Dua Lipa telling me to “get physical” then it’s not going to happen. Luckily Spotify fills the shoes of another I-want-to moment and pushes me to get active.

8:30am; I’m back from my run, ready for my day and my notification triggered OCD is back, coupled with I-want-to-engage, share and be entertained moments

Instagram | Lightroom | Twitter | Spotify (again)

?I love photography, creating content and sharing my life, so it’s no surprise that I’ve taken some snaps while I was out and now I want to share them with the world.

This is where my favourite app comes in; Lightroom. Anything I share I want to reflect who I am inside; light, bright and colourful, dark, and moody has no place in my life or on my social profiles. So, on an overcast day like today, Lightroom makes magic happen.

The time comes to share my images on Instagram Stories and Twitter because content is queen and I am at her beck and call and while I’m at it, I innocently think that a re-peak at my feed won’t hurt…

Making breakfast means it’s time for this creature of habit to check in with Sarah and Kurt from the Health Code Daily, and once again Spotify has my attention, but not before putting me through unnecessary ads just because I don’t want to get Spotify premium. A self-inflicted pain point but a pain point no less.

8:45am-12:00pm, its crunch time and I-want-to-be-productive

But that means Instagram | Lightroom | Hootsuite

First to get ticked off my list of things-to-do (other than my run) is the important emails and LinkedIn messages that weren’t purged earlier in the day. Once I’ve completed my task it’s 9:00am and time for work. Still in denial and blaming my addiction to the content fly trap on both my part time jobs as a social media assistant and director, I eventually give myself up to her calls and the editing, content creation, posting and engaging starts all over again.

?12:00pm – 6:00pm, fuelled mostly by I-want-to-know and I-want-to-learn moments with Safari

WhatsApp | Instagram weasel their way in

The day carries on, I read articles, attend lectures, complete assignments, catch up with marketing week, create more content (luckily this time on Canva as my mobile is hidden away safely where I cannot see the notification icons pop up every few minutes) and I am the epitome of productive with a lot of help from Safari.

Instagram may be King, but the Queen of all apps is safari, she sees all and knows all, and throughout my day; during my I-want-to-create, learn, be entertained, and engage moments, there is always something I-want-to-know. Whether it’s the order of the novel series I’m reading, the location of Vaccine clinics in Toronto, research for projects, or what a potato is in Portuguese; Safari is my saviour.

7:30pm-9:00pm, I’m making dinner, getting ready for bed or Learning Portuguese and in-between and I give in to one last scroll through good old social

Pinterest | Twitter | LinkedIn | Gmail | Facebook | Lightroom | WhatsApp

It’s the end of the day and before I set my alarm and call it a night, I’m either having one last look through LinkedIn, adding my favourite images of my life to my Saffa in Toronto board on Pinterest, tweeting something that happened to me that day, editing images in Lightroom or connecting with friends on WhatsApp.

Takeaways from this:

Users may not even go onto an app because they want-to-do anything, rather, they want to do nothing!

• We are so connected to our phones that we don’t even realise how co-dependable we are, and as an extension of who we are, we are opening apps and mindlessly scrolling through our mobile apps like Instagram with no intention in mind at all.
• As this is such a big part of our lives today it presents a huge opportunity for brands with awareness objectives to show up not only in I-want-to moments but the I-want-to-do-nothing moments too, to make a mark when the user doesn’t even know it.

Users want to be given valuable content and information

• All interactions with the user must be valuable to the user and make their life more awesome, content for the sake of content is going to do more harm than good.
• Apps like LinkedIn and Facebook need to ensure that when a user subscribes to receive emails that those emails are not auto-generated copies of the notifications that the user is going to receive when they open the app due to a notification prompt.
• This is a waste of the user’s time, does not provide any real value to the user or make the user feel valued by the brand and is a real lesson for brands not to roll out content for the sake of rolling out content. If it doesn’t make the users life more awesome, it’s got to go.

?Like myself - users are online pretty much all day, every day

• This means that users are susceptible to influence at any moment.
• In turn this means that there are hundreds are moments to make your mark as a brand and to do that it is essential to assess the user’s journey, identify their I-want-to-moments, pain points and answers they may be looking for at each stage and give them what they want.
• Not having the answers to these questions makes users feel like they have wasted their time and it can quickly lead to a negative thought that will be connected to the brand in future and result in loosing that user and even worse, loosing potential customers because of negative word of mouth.

Thanks for joining me for a day in the life of an Instagram addict in denial.?Now it’s your turn:

What is your most used app? Are you embarrassed of your screen time? Do you use your mobile for work? What are your biggest mobile pain points?

?I would love to know!