why I quit social media
My relationship with social media has been turbulent. Oscillating between being very active on it and disabling my accounts for long periods of time. At the start of the New Year, I decided to leave for good. The only thing that was holding me back was the network of people I have vague connections with throughout my almost decade on these sites but a couple things pushed me over the edge.
- Social Media isn't social anymore. It's 90% entertainment. The main feeds of basically every platform have turned into personalized, easily-digestible content. It's takes extra work to do the main thing I wanted to do with social media, connect with people.
- It makes me anti-social. I don't know if it's universal but social media makes me feel like I'm socializing by passively liking posts and stories, and sending random reels to friends. That placates my need for social connection enough that I don't feel the need to do the hard but fulfilling work of actually reaching out and meeting up with friends.
- I hate infinite scroll. I was about to say short form content but I realized the I don't really mind that. What I hate is millions of short videos being algorithmically curated to be just interesting enough that I would mindlessly spend hours scrolling through them. I know it's bad. The companies that create it know it's bad. Yet they continue to do it. I went along with it for as long as possible but at a certain point, I no longer wanted to give up my agency to these algorithms and support these companies through my attention. You vote with your attention and doomscrolling wasn't getting mine.
- It feels like an mlm. "You're only one post away from your life changing" has been said in what seems like millions of posts in millions of ways. So many content creators make a living convincing people to create content. That thought itself raised some flags for me. Add on the courses being sold to you every third reel and the influx of UGC creators, real or AI, and you got something that feels suspiciously like an mlm. Nothing against mlms, I just don't want to be in one.
- It's passive. Connecting with people is passive, you "follow" someone rather than connect. Engaging with posts is passive, it's weird if you say anything that resembles a sentence in a comment (as a guy). It's better to leave it to two fire emojis. Why swipe up on a story when you can just leave a like? Everything is just meh.
- It's very performative. This is probably the least significant reason. Everything is performative, social media just adds fuel to the fire. To avoid the performance, people just prefer to not post. The worst part is that each performance is not unique. It's the same baggy jeans, dress shirt with a tie combo I keep seeing. Or it's that gym post with the person strategically facing 180 degrees away from the camera. I'd much rather just avoid it all together.