Removing Social Media (from my phone)

 The past few months my Twitter usage has increased. Initially it was because there was a lot of "word of mouth" information about vaccine availability (and we got our jabs quite early thanks to Twitter). And then it was because it's a good way (perhaps the best way?) to tap into the foreigners in Japan "community".

But lately, I've felt like Twitter's been sucking me down a hole and eating too much of my time. Especially in the mornings when I first wake up. It hits me with all of the injustice and crises in the world. And for no real benefit...

YouTube tries to feed me nothing but political outrage. It's mostly unusable unless I'm directly linked to a video or subscribed to a channel. And while there's plenty to be outraged about, it's nothing new. I don't want to watch political outrage before bed. I want to watch documentaries about the good parts of society. Documentaries about coffee, art and, public transportation.

Instagram feeds me mostly travel content and photos of bread. Honestly, mostly not bad. But I all I think about each time I open the app is that I'm helping feed Facebook and their success.

I'm going to try what Cal Newport advises when trying to cut down on social: remove the apps and logout after each session to add friction to get started.

So far I've deleted Instagram off my phone. I've logged out of Twitter and delete its app as well. YouTube gets a pass, but only as I use it to sling Simon to my TV for Leo.

My hope is that I'll be able to reclaim the mental space taken by social media, slow down again, and start doing things that matter with that time.