RIP to Instagram’s Following Tab, the Feature That Stole—And Returned—My Sanity

For someone who craves validation and consumes online content like candy, I was an extremely late Instagram adopter. For years I was content with Twitter, watching with a faint air of Luddite superiority as my friends knelt on chairs to capture the tableaux of our meals for the gram before we dug in. Then, about five months ago, something changed. Suddenly I too wanted to show the world my perfectly composed panzanellas, my totally-not-sad solo-vacation shots, and cute-dog photos.

I downloaded the Instagram app with the best of intentions, promising myself I would use it only to capture particularly good home-cooking efforts and maybe the odd ’fit pic or two. What I had yet to realize, though, was that Instagram isn’t really about what you post; it’s about what other people post and how much time you spend engaging with it.

What came next can only be compared to Adam and Eve’s time in the Garden of Eden, before the fall. I hearted with abandon! I watched exes’ stories repeatedly, not realizing they could see me! And I followed; oh, boy, did I follow. Every time I came across a middle school enemy or a friend of a friend with crush potential, I smashed the Follow button with glee, not quite comprehending that each person whose updates I chose to receive would, in turn, be able to see that I had chosen to do so.

Then, one dark day, a friend introduced me to the bane of my existence: the Following tab. Many have noted how creepy the feature could be, allowing you to see exactly what people are liking and who they’re following. On a less nefarious level, it caused a huge shift in my relationship with the platform: Suddenly I could see what my followers were spending their Instagram time on, and—it hit me—they could see me. Like a seven-month-old baby, I had achieved object permanence, and I hated it. I stopped watching my exes’ stories and stopped following anyone with a pulse. In other words I cleaned up my act, albeit resentfully.

When news broke on Monday that Instagram would discontinue its Following tab, I cheered: Long live my haphazard approach to social media! No longer would I have to fret that people would analyze and judge my Instagram activity.

Then I took a step back and thought about what my knowledge of the Following tab had given me. Since I’d found out about its existence, I’d spent way less time deep-diving on crushes with a level of scrutiny that could rival the CIA for information collection. I’d reinvested in what I actually posted on my grid, spending evenings tackling ambitious recipes in hopes that an expertly lit seafood-risotto shot would garner me infinite little red hearts (not entirely healthy as a motivation, necessarily, but at least I was well-fed). But now followers will no longer be able to access a whole page of my Instagram activity, and returning to what Socrates called the “unexamined life” threatens to engulf me back in my previous online chaos.

The loss of the Following tab is, as BuzzFeed noted, a boon for the flourishing thirsty community, permitting us to follow and like with unsurveilled impunity, but whither progress? At the end of the day, couldn’t we all benefit from injecting a little more propriety into our online goings-on?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m certainly among the average Instagram users who spend nearly an hour a day on the app; I need some form of inhibition, and I’m not ashamed to say it. With the demise of the Following tab, I suppose I’ll just have to learn how to exercise a little self-control.

Originally Appeared on Vogue