It may seem out of the blue, but for me, this has been a long time coming. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and even LinkedIn to some degree, have become a place for tribal-like division, look-at-me, and feelings-over-facts. Gone are the days where social media platforms formed a place to connect people, have fun, and shout your thoughts into the void. With this in mind, I am taking a social media hiatus.
While I can’t explain all my reasonings, the main one is that I found myself watching the perpetually outraged mob flitter from one thing to the next and this really started getting under my skin. People are so desperate for things to care about, or in most cases, to be seen to be caring about things, that they move from one injustice to the next without pause. And wo to any of those that dare to deviate, offer a different opinion, or state facts that don’t line up with feelings. That, my friend, will put you firmly in the camp of the enemy, whoever that may be at the time. And the mob piles on.
People have been put through hell just for deviating from the accepted group think.
Is this something I want to be a part of, even as a bystander?
Another one of my reasons is from a fantastic podcast I heard, and it boils it down to this: garbage in, garbage out. What you put in is what you get out. Whatever you choose to feed your mind, tends to form the type of person you become.
Garbage in, garbage out
From today, I have reset the password on my social media accounts – specifically Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. I have ensured that multifactor is enabled (and this is a reminder that you should too!) so no bad actors can get in.
And I have logged out.
For how long, who knows. I’ll still be posting on Instagram, and those posts will go to Facebook and Twitter sometimes. But I will no longer be interacting with anything on those platforms going forward.
My only concession, apart from Instagram, is Facebook Messenger, although I will be very deliberate how much I engage with it. For the simple reason that plan making has gone from text, to Facebook, to now Facebook Messenger.
Simone will be looking after the podcast’s Twitter page, and since we don’t really have any Facebook reach, I am OK to let that part of it go. It’s probably for the best, since user engagement in Facebook is down any way. Simone has been doing an amazing job with the Instagram side of things, so I trust her completely to do a great job on Twitter. One less thing for me to worry about, allowing me to focus more on growing and expanding what the podcast does.
As for me, well I am removing myself from something that has annoyed me on a near constant basis for some time. The apps on my phone will be deleted before I change the password, so that downloading and logging in again is just that much difficult for me. And human behavior shows that we constantly take the path of least resistance most of the time.
The idea I have in my head is to only start thinking about engaging in these platforms after I have accomplished certain things. It has become too easy to sit on the couch and just scroll through the outrage after an exhausting day at work, instead of actually being productive. Or even doing something you really want to do.
The goals I want to accomplish are centered around my digital life. From OneNote, to my To Do list, to the over 80,000 photos I have – many of which are duplicates. I want to dig into my music collection that has been growing ever since I got Apple Music and really curate it, rather than add artists for the sake of adding. I want to sort stuff out, get organised for the next steps in my life.
And I’ll be blogging. A lot more. I have an idea to add an investment tab to my site, and talk to anyone interested about my investments, strategy and what it looks like from a practical point of view. If you’re interested, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll be blogging my thoughts, music, tech and travel, with maybe some short stories as well. Pretty much the standard around here!
(And please whitelist my site).
The time has come for me to step away from the frivolity and focus on what is really important.
