I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my relationship with social media. Over the years, I’ve struggled between enjoying it’s benefits while also watching it consume valuable time that I will never get back. I would take social media breaks, in the hopes that I would be able to have more control over my time while still being active on the platforms. The problem was that I kept coming back and getting sucked into the same cycle of consumption over creation.

Last year, I came across a few personal websites/blogs which made me re-think my usage of social media. They made me ask questions like:

• What is my intention behind using social media?
• How do I want to utilize my attention on a daily basis?

Eventually, I set out to answer these questions and began to think more and more about the intention behind many things that I do, not just with my time and attention on social media, but in life overall. So much so, that I think my word of the year for 2023 will be intention. What could be more crucial than how I spend my time when my life could end tomorrow? I seriously doubt that when I look back on my life, I’ll be reminiscing on the tweets and Instagram posts that I liked. I want to be able to look back and recall ideas that I brought to fruition, the creative ways in which I engaged with the world, and the like-minded individuals I met along the way.

In today’s mainstream society, when we are inundated with a plethora of media and opinions vying for our attention, living as many moments as one can manage with intention may seem like an impossible task. I know one thing for certain – I can’t continue siphoning my attention towards the addictive aspects of social media.

• Addiction

Social media is naturally made to be addictive.

Over the past 10 years, social media has been finetuned to work against you and to push for your attention.

• Social Media Impacts the Whole World

Most people use social media, it impacts a very large aspect of the world.

Most social media generally has an “algorithm” to promote content. This algorithm is always being balanced and modified ever so slightly.

They modify it to make people think certain ways, or to promote certain types of content over others. Effectively giving them the ability to brainwash the world.

Look at those Tiktok challenges. No other platform promoted these challenges as much as Tiktok. It convinced people to do stupid things that they wouldn’t have done otherwise.

It even got to the point that schools had to shutdown.

• Not Being in Control Over Content

How are you not in control? You get to choose who you follow. Yep you do, but I constantly get crap in my feed that I don’t want to see.

Things that I don’t follow get forced in my face no matter what.

I want to be in control of the things that I get to see on social media.

In my opinion it would be best just to be connected with your friends and family. I don’t care about the celebrities and all the other junk that gets thrown in my face.

• Being a Hypocrite

I don’t support where social media is headed, and how manipulative it’s getting.

Therefore, I will not use it. Under normal circumstances

• Why I Kinda Use Social Media

A year ago I deleted my Instagram/Facebook/Whatsapp account. Here’s my philosophy that led to me deleting it.

If you don’t support it, don’t use it.

You know, basically don’t be a hypocrite.

Since then, I missed seeing what my friends are up to and connecting to them through that. So it’s hard to support both, you know? I don’t want to support Facebook by using Instagram, but I want to support my friends by seeing and messaging with them on the platform.

So I decided to get back on the platform. But I have a specific way of going about things that screws over Facebook and Instagram 😂

The Solution

I won’t post on Instagram. I will instead be using my blog.

Posts on my microblog will be similar to how I would post on Instagram. I will keep my blog seperate, because my posts there will be more technical and informational.

Anyways, social media is messy and big tech is making it a terrible platform to be on. Social media isn’t all bad, it’s definitely being used for good. But the platforms are designed to work against you for your attention. So it’s best to have alternative ways of reaching others, not just through social media.