When I think about the benefits of social media, most specifically Instagram, I think about how it allows for me to connect with a community of sewists from around the world. It’s crazy to me that people in Australia and Italy have purchased and sewn up my patterns. It’s also inspiring because you see so many awesome people and the creations they make. But as much as I love it and as much as it inspires me, it is overwhelming. I think I have developed a complex. lol.
It’s terrible because we become addicted and you always have to post the latest and greatest. There is always something more that you could be doing. It’s a total time suck. Saturday mornings are my favorite time. I wake up, get some snuggles in with husband and dogs and its low stress. Often times, I will just lay in bed and browse the interwebs, but before I realize it, I’ve been laying in bed, when I should have been being more productive. Social media also brings out the worst in people. All the political talk and negativity just had become too much, so I tend to gravitate toward my pattern page, but now when I look at that, I get another type of negativity. I compare myself to all the other sewists, and I create long lists of stuff I want to sew or design. All these lists have created the same feeling as the negative political stuff, because I just feel like I don’t add up. I just want to make all the things, then I get overwhelmed by not being able to do the stuff. I am proud of where I am in my life, but I constantly want to do more. I have realized that being an adult is about finding that balance and knowing when you need a break. There are so many studies on screen time and the effects it has on our brain, its good to take a break sometimes.
This past week I was forced to take a break, and that’s why I felt the need to write this post. I ,somehow, am still unsure how I got logged out of my seen and sewn account. It was connected to my personal page so I was sure I could just get back in pretty easily. Especially since the 2 accounts are connected. Not the case at all. I tried the reset password and it would only send it to my phone. Every time I logged in with the link it kept logging me back into my personal page. It was sooooo frustrating and sometimes I am not very patient. Since the sew-a-long was starting in a few days I was stressed because I couldn’t engage and promote the way I wanted. Not the end of the world, but in my head it was. I tried it on my laptop multiple times and still nothing. I deleted Instagram from my phone and re-installed it, still nothing. When I would type in the user name it would say it didn’t exist and the same with the email. It’s like geez- I know its my account why does it say it’s not there. So after 2 days of trying to figure it out, I submitted a support ticket through Instagram. I included all the information and told them it would send a reset email, they responded back asking some questions, but when I replied back it said I had asked for help from another account and since they couldn’t verify my identify they could not help. It was total bs. I tried doing it from the business email and I got the exact same AUTOMATIC generated response. After the 3rd attempt I realized it didn’t matter what I typed or what email I used I was gonna get the same response. Oh and guess what else, they don’t have phone support. How can a billion dollar company that provides services to so many people not have valid technical support? It’s not cool and makes me not want to use social media at all, but then I loose the connections I have with so many people. So, yesterday I had decided, as much as I didn’t want to, I was gonna start all over and create a new account. Before I did that though, I wanted to try one more time… and I GOT IN!! I’m actually still shocked that what I did worked.
Here’s what I did:
I uninstalled Instagram and reinstalled it on my phone! I did not log in.
I typed in the username and clicked forgot password, and it sent me the link in a text message. Instead of clicking the link, I copied and pasted the message in an email and sent it to myself.
I opened it on my laptop and it sent me to reset my password!!! It is important to know that when using the computer to do try and reset, it just did exactly the same thing as the phone reset did, I think sending the link to my phone and then transferring to the computer was key here!
Here’s my suggestions for you if you have 2 Instagram accounts. Make sure both accounts have different email addresses, and you save them along with the passwords in a safe location so you don’t run into the same problem as myself.
Alright… now get off your computer or phone and go do something fun!!
Arielle
