Stephen Diehl put into words my own feelings about social media:

To pretend these digital platforms are benign tools is a delusion of the highest order. Waking up and mainlining Instagram is the neurological equivalent of gargling battery acid. It is a firehose of curated perfection and performative outrage aimed directly at your still-dreaming brain, a jolt of psychic poison before you’ve even had your morning lattte. These platforms are not social clubs; they are unregulated neurochemical casinos. Your brain is the mark, and the house has rigged every game. The variable reward schedules of likes and push notifications are not just cute features; they are a weaponized form of dopamine manipulation, turning your phone into a slot machine that pays out in fleeting hits of social validation while systematically dismantling your ability to concentrate on anything for longer than a TikTok video.

He thinks we have no choice but to opt out. Like me, he blogs. But as he points out, a blog post is fixed. It has a beginning and an end. It is (we like to think) written by a thoughtful, sincere human sharing their musings on life. Diehl favors a static website, as do I.

I particularly share his final sentiment:

Opting out is not about rejecting the future; it is about reclaiming the present. It is the realization that the most valuable thing you own is your attention, and you have decided to stop giving it away for free.

You should read the whole thing. It’s not very long and he makes a better case than I do.

It is about reclaiming the present.