---
title: I left social networks
slug: i-left-social-networks
publishDate: 2020-06-01T20:13:04.000Z
lastmod: 2020-06-01T20:13:04.000Z
tags: [Experiments]
description: Some sort of virtual quarantine? How long will it last, this time?
images:
- /images/2020/06/Screenshot_20200601-150643.png
---

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook and Twitter. On one hand, it's a big forum with millions of people, all my friends are there, I meet new friends, they say some funny stuff, some cute stuff, I get all of my news there. It's super useful to share my work, and to reach people who might like it. I love just saying randomly what's on my mind for comedy, at the attention to whoever might hear it and find this funny. It's probably the greatest invention humanity have ever made. And at the same time, it's also probably the worst invention ever. You see greatness at its best, yes, but also stupidity at its worst.

It's also very addictive, there's a wealth of information out there and they made it very easy to scroll all day for entertainment. After all that's how the companies behind them make money, I guess. The more people pay for ads, the more people see them on their feeds, and the more people stay on those feeds, the more Facebook makes money. But at what cost? Unproductivity? I work freelance, working on my projects in the comfort of my home, hoping one of them gets somewhat popular enough I could live from it. The huge problem with that is that those social media are very distractive and as you're your own boss, there's nothing from keeping you off them other than self-control.

So, yesterday, Sunday morning, after a heated debate about #BlackLivesMatter with one friend on Facebook (I won't detail what I think about it here as it's definitely out of scope for this article, but know that I'm with you), I decided this was enough. People getting beaten up in protests by police officers, people getting angry about it and acting irrationally, selecting what they want to hear, confusing terminology leading to miscommunications, officials who seemingly don't have time to react correctly with how fast everything goes on the social networks, among other things, that was too sad and depressing to watch. Something I could watch helplessly for hours, other than contributing my opinions in a sea of other opinions. Cute anime girls won't make up for it this time. Even meme and satire pages gave up making funny memes about it without looking out of place or straight up offensive.

That was the last straw for me. I realized I needed more of that self-control. I closed both the Facebook and Twitter tabs I usually have on all the time. I removed their respective icons from the launcher on my phone. I'm only going to check them for notifications, in case someone wants to talk to me, and to post updates such as this post. Just when I need it. I did a similar experiment a few weeks ago with only Facebook, while I reduced the amount of time the tab was open in my browser, this generally failed. I still found myself scrolling Facebook for hours, not knowing what to do with my life, just like I did for the past 10 years I've been there. But an earlier experiment years ago with Tumblr was a success, though. Been a while I've been there. I'm going more drastic this time, hoping to use this time better. I'm going to try to stick to more than 2 virtual metres from Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey's websites, hoping this is going to stick this time. This is probably not going to happen overnight, but eh.

Day 1. It kinda felt like the classic five stages of grief, except I actually wanted it gone. Kinda felt bad for everyone I might have hurt (which in reality it's probably no one as this debate ended nicely), then missed the good things about it. That was weird. Kind of like a good friend I don't want to leave. I still wasn't quite productive, but eh. We have to start somewhere. And it was Sunday, so I just took a break from everything, watching some YouTube, playing some games and dealing with random stuff. YouTube thankfully doesn't have the same problems as their algorithm is more fine-tuned to what I actually like and less what the people I follow like, since it's videos it's more for entertainment and less for weird thoughts everyone can immediately reply to without going out of your way to get a recording setup. Anyway. Attempted to start a project, but eh. It was late by now.

It is now Day 2 of virtual confinement. I feel pretty good today. I wrote this 890-word blog post. I like writing. Which is the point of this blog. I'm still haunted by a white page syndrome on Zarmina, hopefully writing about something else would work. Also kinda why I picked [Horse Life 98](/horselife/) back up. I had some new ideas for it. Maybe I'd do some programming again, been a while I did that. And I'm a programmer. Or something else entirely. I have so much ideas, and I can't do that much at the same time.

Anyway. Wish me luck, and see ya next time on this blog.
