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Personal Politics

Why I Removed My Social Media Apps

“Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

The whole world seems to have gone crazy. That’s the impression that I have from what I see on social media apps. So, I deleted all of the apps. I didn’t delete accounts. I still “exist” there, but i have abandoned my activity there. Here’s a few recent tweets that only highlight the insanity of the world:

People form opinions. They do this based on the information available to them. Often, that information is nudged in a direction by the most reactive of people.  Far too often the first judgement of an event or news is based on limited information. Social Media serves as a tool to push that opinion early however. This poisons the seeds of reason. People approach an event with the predisposition of what they heard before they get all of the facts.

The News isn’t reliable. This has been nominally true for decades. Since Donald Trump has taken office this has become a major problem. While I’m certainly no fan of the president, it’s disgusting to see one lie after another reported about him as fact. Instead of de-legitimizing his tenure, major news outlets have reinforced the right wing notion that they are constantly under attack. The demonizing of classic movies and literature as sexist and racist only scares people into feeling what they enjoy and believe in is under attack.

Social Media is an echo chamber for confirmation bias. To promote activity and engagement on social media platforms, engineers have developed algorithms to show people what they want to see. If you’re a strong supporter of Donald Trump, you’ll probably see some nationalist headlines and link bait articles that only provide further evidence to what you already believe. You don’t get out of your bubble. Occasionally, when you do see something that critiques your world view, it feels like an attack.

Entitlement is the worst. The biggest problem I see with social media today, is the expectation that you either agree with someone’s position, or you are the enemy.

Calling someone else’s belief system hateful, because it’s different than yours is intolerance at it’s highest.

It’s all too much. The vitriol and anger that’s constant on Facebook, Instagram, and especially Twitter are more than I want in my life. At no point in my life have I ever wanted to move to the middle of nowhere as much as I do now.

By ftpcory

I am a fitness, technology, and music enthusiast. I enjoy introspection and reflection. I believe in decentralization of the web and freedom of expression.

4 replies on “Why I Removed My Social Media Apps”

Social media is crazy. I too have removed most of my accounts (deleted the Facebook/Instagram accounts too) but more from the surveillance capitalism reasons. That being safe, remember this, we exist as the last generation that can remember what life was like before the internet and social media.

Stay sane brother. Think of you often!

Thanks Robert. I thoroughly appreciate it. Miss you too. I worry less about the data mining that happens on social media as much as the insanity that gets promoted there.

It’s hard to fathom that we grew up in an era when there wasn’t social media. We grew up thinking adults had their shit together. It’s all pretty laughable now.

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