Logging On

On Instagram and Lent: Diaries of a Korean Catholic Kid

oh world. world, world, world. hello. how you all feeling?

i’m feeling like cafeteria mashed potatoes scooped onto a rectangular tray. like sfffflaaap. SHPLAAT. splat. steam rising.

today i want to talk about the end of a 40 day spiritual project I embarked on, titled, “Logging Off for Lent.”

“Beauty” by Monique Fay. Aptos, California. 2007. Dharma College Collection.

first of all, let me come out and state that yes, i was born and raised in a Korean family of Catholics. “huh? but aren’t most Koreans Protestant?” i’ve heard that a lot. more recently, it’s been “but you don’t seem like it?” surprise. i wonder why.

needless to say, the church and i have had our fair share of clashes and quarrels. some private, some quite out loud. it might have begun when my dad tried to drag me to Sunday morning mass while i adamantly played sick in bed. (could that have been the beginning of my journey as an actor playing patients?)

this year, the 40-day period from Wednesday February 18th to Thursday April 2nd marked the period of Lent. to observe Lent, typically you would refrain from eating meat on Fridays and relinquish a “luxury” item in your own life. “i’m giving up sugar for Lent,” you might have heard someone say. the 40-day period is linked to the 40 days that Jesus spent fasting and praying in the desert before starting his public ministry. even the most casual Catholic knows that Lent is kind of an important tradition, especially because it leads into the week of Easter.

the night before the beginning of the 40-day stretch, i pondered how i would observe Lent. despite my history of skepticism towards institutionalized religion, for some reason it felt apparent that i would practice the tradition. but what would i give up? where do i even start? the list of all the “luxury” items in my life that i enjoy would be as long as a CVS receipt.

i kicked my feet up on my desk and spent the evening aimlessly scrolling through my Instagram feed. then, a post from a man in Los Angeles stopped me halfway through my scroll. it was my uncle. he posted a 20-count photo dump of his year of 2025 in review, before signing off from the app with the caption, “#loggingoffforLent.”

maybe it was the unfiltered life photo album that i’ll always appreciate seeing. or maybe it was the hashtag in the caption that tinted his post with a tasteful tinge of “unc.” or maybe it was something i’d been mulling over in my sleep for a while, and seeing my uncle’s post online was just the assistive agent that catalyzed an inner chemical reaction.

6O2 + C6H12O6 —> 6CO2 + 6H2O + 38 ATP.

the next day, it came to me. ‘let’s try logging off Instagram for Lent,’ i said to myself. and so i did.

at times, it seemed banal and trivial. i questioned the weight of my relinquishment. i already did a fairly decent job of maintaining basic digital technology hygiene. sure, i’d fall into the trap of a two-hour doom scroll on the occasional Wednesday night, but rarely did that turn into a malignant habit. i could easily name five other things i felt more intensely attached to than this one social media platform.

was i really giving up all that much by logging off Instagram?

maybe not. nonetheless, i held firm to the project because i wanted to experience a self-disciplined achievement, however small. we all need those wins, don’t we? more importantly, i wanted some space to examine how image-based social media impacts my life. what role does it play? do i feel worse without it? do i feel better? when? how? critical reflections.

now, the 40 days has past. i sat with a high school senior named B today and he asked if i’m on Instagram. huh, i thought. i didn’t even realize that it was four days past the end of my project. suddenly, i became free to log back on.

B’s follow request is waiting in my inbox, along with several others from the past 40 days. i’m sure i’ve missed plenty of stories and posts and dumps and maybe even a few messages. i picture a coat rack full of hats and scarves from a cold winter, left alone to collect dust in a room.

the other thing about Instagram as an image-based platform is the significance of the profile. you’re always on view. to your followers, if you’re on private, and to any account user, if you’re on public. but as long as i’m logged off, access is denied for me.

there’s nothing quite like Instagram in reeling you in, viewing the world from your private lens, and connecting with the people who compose your life history. i’m surprised to say that i’m coming away with a greater appreciation for the platform, as opposed to antagonism.

yet, i’m also apprehensive to return. the 40 days offline revealed the image-consciousness i carry inside of me, like a hyper sensitive spot on my skin. some of this cannot be helped. we live in an image-conscious society founded on capitalism — both material capital and social capital — which means that social media platforms are bound to stir up some level of image self-consciousness in the average user. the irony, of course, is that the purpose of social media is to reach another person: connection. the solution i envision for healthy social media is to build some level of self-trust that you are able to connect with yourself before connecting with others. in other words, to know how to connect with the self before you connect with images.

i am still learning to build this system myself. it’s always unfamiliar territory online. ever the philosopher, i must continue contemplating. what do i want my relationship to social media platforms to be? what role do i foresee them playing in my future?

i expected to have definitive answers to the questions i asked myself at the beginning of Lent. i still don’t have the answers and i have yet to log back on. something is telling me to wait just a little longer. there’s a slow-rolling sweetness in the prolongation. it’s like watching a scoop of ice cream melt, making its first drip… drip… drip… down a cone on a warm day. just a little longer.