Oct 26, 2026
When the Internet was first created, we realized pretty early on the potential it had for creating new forms of social interaction. This was the environment that birthed blogs, chat-rooms, forums, and eventually, social media. There was a lot of potential for good.
Things took a turn when social media companies realized the money that could be made by transforming their "social" media platforms into addictive ad presenters. It's not about social interaction anymore. It's about building a doom-scrolling trap that harvests our attention for profit. We all know that social media is bad for us, but we still use it.
Why? Perhaps people don't fully understand what doom-scrolling is costing them. Perhaps they feel like there isn't an alternative, and so they keep coming back to the same destructive behavior over and over.
Since there are already plenty of people spreading awareness about the psychological cost of social media addictions, I'd like to focus more of my attention on helping people find alternatives to social media.
To do this, I first need to replace social media in my own life. Completely. And successfully stay away from it. I can't really give other people advice about how they can permanently replace social media with healthier alternatives until I manage to do it myself.