Off The Grid: Leaving Social Media ❤️🩹 Fractured Attention & Financial Scarcity — Quitting Instagram with Jenni Gritters
Feb 27, 2026
Jenni Gritters, community facilitator, writer, and book club leader who recently closed her Instagram, leads a lively conversation about quitting social media. They explore algorithm goals and addiction as lenses, parallels between fractured attention and financial scarcity, and practical ways to protect well-being while using platforms intentionally.
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Amelia's Exit From Instagram And How The Book Began
- Amelia left Instagram in April 2021 after feeling emotionally drained and seeing her book underperform despite heavy investment in social media.
- She wrote the first draft of Your Attention Is Sacred in a hotel week later, leveraging three years of podcast conversations to crystallize her view.
Multiple Lenses Explain Why People Leave Platforms
- Addiction is one useful lens to understand social media, but it's not universal; other lenses like codependency or political values also motivate leaving.
- Amelia left after recognizing her Instagram rules mirrored boundary lists from a toxic relationship, making the attachment lens decisive for her.
Jenni's Relief After Closing A Longstanding Instagram
- Jenni closed her 14-year Instagram account with thousands of followers and felt immediate relief, not regret, after leaving.
- She noticed enmeshment with the platform and the sensation of being watched lifted once she quit.
