I’m one of a small group of teenagers these days who have never had an Instagram account. While all of my friends spend hours taking, editing, and obsessing over their Insta-worthy pictures and scrolling through their feeds filled with picturesque, jealousy-inducing idealities, I have no interest in any of it.

All of it has just always seemed superficial and stupid to me. Never mind the fact that it’s incredibly toxic when people, especially girls, start comparing the littlest details of their lives to others and pointing out their miniscule flaws that nobody else even notices.

And who cares about what Becky did with her friends today or the hundred fake comments telling her she’s pretty? Why do I need to see Kylie Jenner’s latest selfie? How does any of this benefit me? It doesn’t.

Maybe I’m being too hard on people. I know a lot of people don’t post that much and really just have it to look at memes, but I’m not really talking about those people. Either way, if I’ve survived this long without it, then everyone else can too.

I guess I just never understood the appeal of sifting through your camera roll full of pretty much identical copies of the same picture, looking for the perfect one to slap a filter on, add a basic caption, and upload to an app where the amount of likes and comments you receive determines your self worth. People go as far as posting ‘lmr’ or ‘like my recent’ on their Snapchat stories just to beg for likes and comments . It really seems like, to those people, these numbers are all that matters.

I’m not trying to dictate what people can and can’t do, but I just think that if random people commenting on your selfies is your only source of self validation, then that’s sad, and you should find a better, healthier way than Instagram to be confident and happy with yourself.