Harry Styles was 16 when, as a member of One Direction, he achieved breakout success. Now, at 32, the musician says he has taken steps to detox himself from the extreme public attention. Logging off Instagram was one such step.
He shares these reflections on himself in a recent interview with The Sunday Times.
The British singer, who has been advancing his career as a solo artist for years, shares that he took a step away from the spotlight for a while to focus on himself and emerge as a different person.
“I’d always thought, or hoped, that I was the kind of person who didn’t need the dopamine hits that doing this job often gives you,” he says, referring to his fame-dominated profession.
The Fine Line hitmaker admits, though, he never attempted to try whether he would be dependent on such dopamine because he feared what if he was wrong.
“But I hadn’t actually removed myself from it and it’s hard to eliminate the doubt that maybe if it all went away, I’d really miss it. That’s always been a fear for me.”
To face his fears, Styles shares that he went on a psychological reset, focusing on himself while detaching his public image.
It went perfectly well; in the musician’s words, this gave him “pure freedom” he had never known before.
“So living my life in a way where I could really like who I am away from this world has been so powerful for me. Without question that has influenced the work I’m now making because it came from a place of pure freedom.”
Styles, in addition, also notes that this was a necessary test to undertake because he had internalized what others perceived about him.
“It was important to get away from the image I had of myself. Since I was young I’d been seeing this version of me that other people see and that was constantly being mirrored back at me.”
He particularly points out the role of social media in solidifying what he describes as “mirrored reality.”
“That’s especially the case in the way we use social media now — for everyone — and I’m not immune to that. In having time away from everything, it’s allowed me to have conversations with myself on a deeper level that I didn’t have time to explore before.”
To detox, Styles says he logged off and silently deleted Instagram from his phone.
“I’ve made small changes, like not having Instagram on my phone any more,” he shares, before concluding, “I feel so much healthier in my relationship with this world that I’m stepping back into.”
