Instagram Archives - Julianne Harvey

I did something this month that I once thought I’d never be able to do: I deleted my Facebook account. I tried to delete it earlier this fall, then caved and reinstated it. Not because I missed it, but because I worried about not notifying the two-hundred-plus people who had liked my writing page and been with me since the beginning of my return to writing in 2010.

Worrying about telling people on Facebook was silly, but I still panicked about the length of time it took to build up those readers and cheerleaders, only to hit the delete button fifteen years later and walk away. Facebook used to be a fun and fast way to stay in touch with people. Real, human people. Remember at the beginning, when there were no ads or sponsored content and the only thing you saw in your feed were posts from actual friends and family members?

Somewhere along the line, Zuckerberg and others monetised the whole place. They offered it to us for free, which seemed like a bargain, until we eventually realised that if there’s no fee, we ourselves are the product. I got tired of being sold to, day in and day out, and consuming posts I had no interest in seeing. I became weary of volunteering to be a product for a bored and immoral billionaire. So I pulled the plug.

My privacy is valuable. So is yours. For so long, I fell into the trap Zuckerberg et al had set for me: that I would be missing out if I wasn’t on their social media platforms. Long after it ceased to do what it initially promised (connect me to my loved ones near and far), I continued to log on, worried about being left out or left behind.

But now, a few weeks after I actually deleted my account, I feel so much freedom. And joy. It felt so damn great that I deleted LinkedIn. Now I’m left with my two websites, this one and Ruby Finch Books, plus Bluesky and Substack where I host my monthly newsletter and podcast. That’s it. I deleted Instagram earlier this year, and now I’m reading more, writing more, staring out the window more.

I reached out to a few friends to be sure they had my cell number before I pulled the plug on all social media other than Bluesky and Substack, and I’ve been setting up some actual phone calls with friends to catch up like it’s 1992 again. Much more real than hitting “like” on an infrequent status update. Easing back into a mostly analog world feels like such a good idea to me in 2025.

It’s an act of resistance, against the billionaires who mistakenly believe that human beings long for AI trash to replace human creativity. These morally bankrupt guys offered us shitty less-than versions of everything: connection, relationships, shopping, entertainment, a cure for loneliness. It took me fifteen years, but better late than never to recognise that I’d been conned.

The real world offers me so much more. It’s rich with texture. Nature is where we find true inspiration and beauty. Sunsets and ocean waves and birds calling to each other in the trees. Recapturing time offline feels like coming back to myself. Unlike the internet and AI, the physical experience is housed in a body, not free-floating somewhere unattached to anyone or anything. One is real. Embodied. The other is simply an idea, one ripe for exploitation and designed as a rip-off of the real, human entity it’s based on.

I know I’m not the first person to have these thoughts about privacy, recapturing our time, and deleting social media which has become corrupted and destroyed by billionaire oligarchs. This is a big cultural theme at the moment. But I know for sure that privacy has value. So does our human experience, as messy and unpredictable as it’s always been. Right now, I’m loving the choice to live more wholeheartedly in the analog world, instead of the digital one that looks shiny and inviting but has instead proved itself to be hollow and unsatisfying.

Being in a long-term committed marriage is hard. If you are both open to change and growth (which is a prerequisite if you want to have a healthy, mutually-satisfying relationship), you will have periods of calm interspersed with turbulent weeks and months of upheaval and uncertainty.

Jason and I are in one of those uneasy stretches of our path right now and we have been for a couple of months now. Over the course of our almost 18 years of marriage, we’ve made our way through many of these rocky patches so I know if we persevere, we are likely to make it through to a place of strength and encouragement. That helps in a vague, otherworldly sense, but day to day it’s not much damn good.

I really hate the rawness of these relationship struggles. Where my brokenness meets his brokenness, it all feels broken. And yet day to day we make it through. We laugh over silly little things, we cook meals, we make plans, we parent as a team.

Trying to be real with each other has its rewards when the sky is blue and the sun is shining. When the storm clouds roll in, that same level of honesty and authenticity can be terrifying. It leaves you feeling alone, naked, vulnerable and small. It’s agonizing, but this is always where the growing happens. I want the growth. I just don’t like the pain that precedes it.

I’m glad we fell in love and chose each other all those years ago. Thank God the tough times are mixed in with the happy ones or no marriage would succeed. I think it’s important to get honest about the real struggles and hardships that every couple goes through, especially now when we live in such a shiny Instagram world. The pretty pictures don’t tell the whole story. There is more going on than we can see in photos and glib status updates on social media.

The point of commitment it to be committed. To walk as partners through the darkest sections of your lives. To confront the fear head-on, with as much bravery as you can muster. To own your own words and actions and allow your partner to own theirs. To do your best to collaborate with kindness, riding out the scariest times and trying to remember why you love each other and decided to hitch your wagons together all those years ago.

The easy days don’t teach us much. They are there to enjoy as memories to keep us warm and safe, but hardship is where the greatest lessons reside. One day we’ll look back on this season and it will make more sense to us. For now, we will keep moving forward, together as a team, doing our very best to ask for what we need and learn what we can when the dice doesn’t roll our way.

As a favourite pastor told us many years ago when we were newlyweds, “The first 20 years of marriage are the hardest.” Now that we are close to that milestone, I think I finally know what he meant. But the only way out is always through – so we continue to walk together, whistling in the dark to bolster our courage, reaching out for the other person’s hand in the blackest sections to remind yourself that you are not alone.

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The First 20 Years are the Hardest