Leaving behind the social networks

My blog is my most open and personal place where I talk about anything on my mind. Ten years ago, it was facebook and twitter. In the last few years, it has been instagram and reddit.

But for a very long time now, I’ve been feeling frustrated and drained by these networks (not by my blog). They’ve successfully used retention tactics to keep me hooked on their apps.

In 2019, I was doing a great job avoiding social media in general but slowly, I gave in and the amount of time I was spending went up steadily. Early 2019, on a daily basis, I was spending 5-15 minutes on Instagram and about 20-30 minutes on reddit, today I’m spending over an hour on each.

I am stealing time away from things that do benefit my mental health and overall well-being like sleeping, reading, listening to music, even eating mindfully and just resting by myself. Every single day, I’m getting notifications and alerts for pointless and time-wasting things. Reddit has become so good at this that it alerts me about topics I might be interested in and sometimes, my weak human mind gives into those shiny notifications.

With social networks, the age-old sell is that they help you connect with your friends, family, and interests. That’s true, but I’m ‘connecting’ and ‘socializing’ for maybe an hour a week and the rest 10-20 hours are burnt on scrolling through junk created by strangers on the internet. I am giving up on trying to find some quality from the unlimited quantity of content online.

I’ll catch up on news, memes, and interesting things once in awhile but for right now, I’m concerned about my own mental health. I have deleted my Facebook permanently and I’m going to delete the other apps off my phone. If I have the urge to post something, I’ll post it on this blog. Otherwise, I want to stay away from social networks online.