Instagram’s negative affect on my blogging.

I love Instagram.  I love to check out the photos in my home feed.  I love to quickly post a photo and see who liked it, and engage in comments back and forth.  It’s fast and easy to pop up a fun photo and be done with it.  However, I have recently come to realize that use of my beloved Instagram is having a negative affect on my blog, specifically, on my writing.

As of late, Handsome Hubby has been frequently making comments like you don’t post anything funny anymore, or you aren’t writing enough about personal things.  Prior to Instagram, if something funny happened, I wrote about it.  It really got me thinking about how much more focus I have given to quick photo uploads and how Instagram’s negative affect has been that I really haven’t been writing at all.

For example, several years ago I wrote about how I dropped chopped chicken and cracker crumbs down the front of my dress 30 seconds prior to meeting actor David Arquette at a fundraising event.  It was a mortifying and hilarious experience, and I like to share my mortifying and hilarious experience with you, my dear readers.  If the same thing had happened today?  I would have snapped a photo of the crumb-filled scene of the crime, uploaded it to Instagram with a little quip about being able to “dress me up but you shouldn’t take me out” and called it a day.

Here’s an example where there’s more to the story, but I because I only shared it on Instagram, that story remains undeveloped.

Yes, we took Grant to see Shakespeare in the park.  Yes, he was enjoying it but we haaaaated it and basically lied to our own child, in order to leave at intermission, because we couldn’t take One. More. Minute.   This could have been a blog post on other ways we introduce a little culture into our kids’ lives, or a story on other family outings we had that were a big, fat, Fail.

So while I am still going to use Instgram every bit as often as I usually do (so you should totally follow me)  I am also going to be sure I don’t opt for the quick photo and neglect the whole story.   There will be more frequent stories to accompany Instagram photos.  Everyday life can be a story… a moment to uplift, or to have a laugh… a moment to rant and rave about crazy people on Craiglsist…

There are plenty of stories to be told and I promise to get back to telling them more frequently.