Leaving the Meta/X-Verse
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It Started With the Question, "Is This Really How I Want to Spend My Time?"
I joined Facebook and Twitter in 2009, at the height of a personal health crisis. They were both much different experiences then. I was friends with people I wanted to connect with and hear from, and when we posted, our friends did see it. It was fun to get reacquainted with people all the way back to elementary school. And it was an important place to connect while I was facing a lot of uncertainty in my life. Overall, it felt like a pretty positive and uplifting place to be - until election time. The first couple of elections we went through on social media revealed some pretty horrible things about pretty much all of us.
In order to stay in that environment, I had to start filtering what I was seeing. Longtime friends were unfollowed, unfriended, and blocked because I felt directly attacked by their vitriol. I started to realize that if they knew how I really felt, I wouldn't just be a former friend. They would now view me as a political enemy - and ultimately, that put me at risk of their violence and abuse. In order to make social media a safe enough space to participate, I had to hide them - and hide myself from them.
That is no longer enough. Neither X or Facebook has been a particularly enriching place to be for a long time. On Facebook, for every post from a friend that I see, I am fed a stream of tabloid-style "content" - a word that I have grown to hate - that I have zero control over and that I have no desire to see. The same articles show up repeatedly for days at a time. My life stopped being enhanced by my time there years ago. Why has it taken so long to cut the cord? Maybe I was just hopeful it could get better again.
Leaving Abusive Relationships Isn't Easy
I left X shortly after Elon Musk made the purchase. He guaranteed that he wanted it to be the flaming hellhole it became. His own posts ensured that people would react in an inflammatory way. I knew immediately that I had no more use for it. It had stopped being a positive place for me in any personal way, and there was no business benefit to staying there either.
The latest announcement by Mark Zuckerberg sealed the fate of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp for me. Does he want it to become another wasteland? Neither he nor Musk want to have any responsibility for the veracity or truth of what people post. They're inviting foreign governments to misinform and disinform while pointing the finger at TikTok for being a bad player. They have no investment in the quality of our experience there, and they have signaled that they really don't care.
For centuries, tabloids have known that misinformation sells really well. Social media magnates have bought into the same idea. The more sensational and the higher the dopamine hit, the more money they make. Keeping us scrolling feeds the coffers. Spectacle keeps us hooked. Inflammatory speech and lies just keep us all watching the growing train wreck. Our adrenaline is triggered and spent. It is no longer a life-enriching or life-enhancing experience. It's reality TV on steroids. I don't want to feed the beast anymore.
The Other Elephants in the Room
I'll be addressing my Amazon dependency in the months to come. Jeff Bezos has shown himself to be as cynical and unconcerned for the welfare of the people who work for him and buy his stuff. The convenience of Kindle and Audible have made them central companions in my days, and I don't want to start filling my house with actual books again. And it's sad that the integrity of a paper like the Washington Post died with Ben Bradlee and Katherine Graham.
Of all the tech dependencies I have to sort out, Google is the hardest. I use so many Google-owned apps for my life and business that it will probably take a year to unravel. I'm well aware that they stopped following their own rule of "Don't be evil" quite a while ago, but I was already too deep. I also feel a greater sense of control and less invasiveness with the apps I use. YouTube still allows me to control much of what I see there. Paying not to see ads makes it much more bearable.
For now, I've removed my business pages from Facebook. I won't post to my personal profiles on Facebook and Instagram while I remove the photos and videos I want to keep. Once I have those backed up, I'll delete those accounts and WhatsApp, which I've used the least of all. I've already deleted my account on Threads, which I barely used. My plan is to minimize my digital footprint and make it as meaningful as possible.
What Am I Going To Do Now?
I have a BlueSky account, but I'm not sure how much I will use it. That format of posting isn't very interesting to me, and I don't trust social media platforms to stay true to their users as long as profit remains their top goal. I follow a few people on Substack but don't start waving their willingness to let neo-nazis post newsletters there in front of my face. Try to find anywhere to go where vermin aren't allowed. I like Substack because it only shows me the authors I've chosen to see. I also like the longer form writing that I see there. I follow fewer people, but the level of depth of their writing is excellent.
I will still post to my YouTube channels and this blog, and I will also post my podcast in all the usual places. Although I hate what Spotify has done to the music industry, that has been an inevitable outcome since the first mp3s were uploaded. For the time being, they will still distribute my podcasts. I have a Pinterest account that I enjoy for personal use, and I will be one of the 170 million who will miss TikTok when it's gone.
I also plan to read more books, schedule more real conversations, and write letters to people. Some of my favorite books have been collections of letters exchanged by people who knew how to communicate their inner worlds in impeccable ways. That sounds more fun to me.
What About Business and Visibility?
We've been duped into believing that social media, email, and digital advertising are the only ways to reach potential customers and form and maintain relationships with them. At one time, they offered simple and inexpensive ways to reach large numbers of people. That's not so much the case anymore. Add AI to the mix, and the volume and mediocrity of what we send each other leaves a lot to be desired. I can still attend networking meetings, hand out business cards and meaningful freebies, and do talks and presentations. I can still invite people to meet over coffee, food, or beverages. My business will be just fine.
I trust that if you really need to find me, you will. I won't be missed in the socials. I wasn't all that active there, to begin with. I'll be more selective as to who I choose to check up on. I won't have to know everything about everyone, and that will be a relief. Those of you who have my email are invited to use it. Those who don't can use the convenient contact form below. Want to chat? My calendar link is on the contact form.
I know that one person out of four billion users won't make a dent in the social media industrial complex, but I will at least have the peace of mind that comes with removing myself from the stream. Letting go of these distractions will be good for my mental health. I won't have the chemical cocktail of dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, and cortisol surging through my bloodstream several times a day, and I expect to feel much, much better.
I'll see you around.