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The effects of deleting a social medium
March 06th, 2020
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I recently removed the Instagram app from my phone. (pause for
applause).
This is not a statement about the evils of social media, or the
objectification of ketogenic foods, or whatever else you might be
guessing. It's about time.
I removed the app because of the little magnifying-glass button
next to the home feed. There was a tendency for me to fill my time
by looking at random pictures Instagram thought relevant to me.
This was really easy for their algorithm to game and optimize.
Very quickly I had an endless scroll of "neat" stuff, and that was
sucking up way too much of my time without any tangible reward.
I like my own instagram feed. Seeing photos from friends and
places that interest me is cool and relatively quick to consume.
I don't need to read much and I can "catch up" quickly in a linear
timeline. If there were a way to disable that little magnifier
icon the app would still be on my phone.
I've since started posting pictures on pixelfed [0]. There's not
much to that app except the posting of pictures, so the temptation
to check it at other times is gone. When I post something I give
the feed a quick scroll to see if anything new is there, and then
I'm done. Easy!
HTML [0] pixelfed
Even so, in the days following the Instagram change I went through
the usual withdrawl. I ended up closing and opening mastodon again
several times in a row as my hands tried to fill the habit with
the available tools. Now several days in I'm no longer in that
habitual loop and I've begun reclaiming my time [1].
HTML [1] Reclaiming my time
The first effect is my improved patience with long-form content.
I've been catching up on phlogs & blogs (RSS) more readily. That
was unexpected but appreciated. It makes me wonder about the
implications too. If cutting out one small habit that involved
short attention-span cycling has such a major effect on my overall
patience, how crippled is my current state? If I cut out Mastodon
and even IRC, would that attention continue to grow? How fast?
This might warrant some experimentation.
Another effect is a diminishing of the value of my phone.
I haven't ceased using it and there are plenty of other apps that
hold my attention for lengthy periods. Still, the change has been
tangible. Again, further experimentation is needed.
I know this community is filled with folks who have gone through
similar changes. What's your experience with cutting out a social
platform? Has it remained cut out? Do you still see the tangibles
in your life, or did those fade to some sort of "rest state"? Were
there notable negatives?