I deleted my Vinted App

I am really proud of myself now. I did it! I deleted my Vinted App!

In case you don’t know, it is an app, where (mostly) girls and women exchange, buy and sell second hand clothes. Most European countries have a website and mobile version of it. Why am I making such a big deal out of it then? It’s just an app. Let me explain.

Vinted started in Czech Republic more than a decade ago. I joined when I was like sixteen or seventeen, so I have the account for almost ten years. That is a hell lot of time. You wonder what is so great about a second-hand-clothes-app? Well, I never really sold clothes on there. I didn’t even buy many. But there is a function for opening a new threads for discussions in the community section of the app (or website). You can discuss anything from motherhood, style, shopping tips, household struggles, love affairs, family issues, really anything. You can ask the community for help, when you can’t decide what colour of a handbag you should choose, you can ask others for tips and opinions on topics like Zero waste or going vegan, you can ask for advice, when your relationship doesn’t feel right or when your pet won’t stop chewing your shoes.

I am pretty sure there are other platforms like this and that most young people are a part of some online community, where they can discuss stuff and share what occupies them. The thing is, being active on Vinted for almost a decade really took overhand several times. I spend whole nights researching options and trying to advise complete strangers in their difficult life situations, I shared every success and failure with those strangers first, too. Sometimes, they would know more about my fears, worries, wishes, achievements and failures than my best friends and family. I have not seen some of my friends for months or even years but I checked Vinted every day multiple times, to see, if anything new happened. I installed the mobile app maybe five years ago, after I moved to Germany and got my first real smartphone. I didn’t feel so alone, with hundreds of women being there for me any time of the day. I haven’t made any real girlfriends since I moved abroad and I only get to see my old friends few times a year.

Last few weeks or maybe months I’ve been really trying hard to change and improve my life. I’ve been using the app QualityTime to track how much time I actually spend on my phone. I knew it was a lot. I use it for a lot of tasks after all, chatting, learning, reading, listening to podcasts, music, audiobooks, banking, shopping – it saves me a lot of time, too. I was convinced I use it for important and useful stuff.

I looked at the data from the QualityTime app and realized I have been spending 4 – 7 hours a day on my phone! That is like a part time job! Only that I don’t get paid for it. Moreover, I pay for the internet and battery charging. On the top of that, at least one hour a day but mostly at least the half of the whole time I spent on my phone was this Vinted app.

Even when I’m really optimistic and count very low and would say I spent half an hour a day on there the last 8 years (website and app) – still it is 1460 hours, 60 days – but I’m sure it’s more – I spent several months of my life on an online platform with total strangers. I got several good tips, I learned a lot, I met some interesting people and I made a few “friends”. I travelled to Romania with a group of people I met there. I bought several cool pieces of clothes I love, I explored shops, websites and lifestyles I would have never find out about. I have helped people and got help and support, when I needed it, that is definitely a good thing. Still, it wasn’t worth the time.

Now you see, it was a big deal for me. And now it’s over a week since I deleted it. Do I miss it? Yes. Do I still use the platform? Yes. I am not (yet) prepared to delete an account I had for so long. Do I still use my phone too much? Yes, I do. But hey, I even had a day or two in the last week, when I didn’t even thought of signing in until late at night. And you know what? I missed nothing. Nobody died or made fatally bad decision without my advice. Nobody missed me. I’m happy I did it. It took like one minute to make a big change and a real impact on my life. It cost no money and didn’t even hurt.

PS: I wrote this article back in January or maybe first week of February. Now it’s the end of March. It is really “out of sight – out of mind” I have not signed in for at least two weeks. I wonder sometimes how some girls from the community are doing but I didn’t care enough to sign in. I managed to reduce my screen time to somewhere between 1-3 hours a day. I think there is still some improvement potential in there but it is still the half of the time I used to spend on my phone and that’s huge for me. Just in two moths I broke a habit I had for years – I would have never believed it’s so easy and painless.