Social media

My name‿ is‿ Alex. I have used social media│ since‿ I was fifteen,│ and‿ I have come to see it‿ as‿ a curated performance space rather than‿ a way of communicating with friends.

The platforms‿ are designed for‿ engagement,│ which means they are designed to keep me scrolling‿ an(d) slightly dissatisfied. My feed shows me the bes(t) ten minutes‿ of‿ everybody's week,│ an(d) comparison‿ is the inevitable result. I fel(t) this│ before‿ I could‿ explain‿ it:│ the validation‿ of‿ a notification‿ is‿ a genuine reward,│ and‿ an‿ algorithmic feed delivers‿ it more‿ efficiently than‿ any friendship does. I also noticed my attention span shortening,│ which was the change that frightened me most.

What helped was not deleting‿ everything but changing the terms. I switched‿ off notifications,│ I unfollowed twenty^twen-dy accounts,│ and‿ I restricted my privacy settings. Now I use the platforms for‿ about forty^for-dy minutes‿ a day,│ mostly to share photographs with people‿ I actually know. Influencers‿ are not the problem,│ an(d) neither‿ is the technology as such. The problem‿ is that the business model requires my attention to be harvested,│ and‿ if the platforms will not regulate themselves,│ somebody else will have to^hafta.