Educational institutions are also using social media like whatsapp for facilitating communication between teachers, parents, and students which doesn’t help any attempt to reduce the usage. This becomes especially difficult to delay the time at which your kids have their own cellphones, their own computers, because it becomes a hindrance to their education.

Personally, I’m prone to compulsive behavior which is why when I use social media I tend to get swooped into the infinite scroll and lose hours of my day. We know an offspring is genetically the most similar person you have to yourself, so it can be said with some degree of certainty that my kids would also be in a similar place.

When it comes to limiting use of social media, people are quick to respond with apps and protocols that will help reduce screen time like do-not-disturb settings near bedtime and periodic nudges to take breaks. But I was a kid once. I was curious. And I knew very well how to break and bypass such systems. Plus, I don’t think it’s the right way to go about regulating behavior by regulating access. I would want my kids to understand why I’m against social media and the algorithms instead of going “because I told you so”. It would frustrate me if someone restricted my activities without a reasonable argument. It would be best combated by getting the buy-in from your kids.

I am also not a fan of the way modern infinite-scroll platforms pretty much hijack your mind where you go through so many emotions so fast that I feel overall messes with your emotional regulation. It’s easy to become prone to instant mood changes. This is the worst of it.

Targeted advertising and ad-surveillance are a blight on the human race.

We have sufficient evidence today highlighting how people prone to depression are more susceptible to getting sucked into doomscrolling.

Some might say social media and phones are just a new flavor of screens and that we had TV in the past. But TV was never with you 24x7. It wasn’t with you on the bus, or in the classroom, or in your bed. The mobile phone is a super invasive device, poking itself into every single area of life where the utility it offers forces you to carry it everywhere. Some of the utility it offers could be done away with, and there’s little convenience here but individuals are forced into adopting these apps/services because the offline mode of doing the same thing is purposely kneecapped.

What motivated me to perma-delete instagram? Over the years I had become aware of its vicious influence and tried solving it by treating the symptoms. I tried apps that would help limit screen time, controls offered by Android that would limit screen time for a specific app, outright uninstalling the apps. But bypassing controls was always less than 2 taps away. And while I observed positive effects during the time I had it uninstalled, sooner or later I’d find myself having reinstalled it for one reason or another and being hooked back in. Rinse and repeat.

Early this year I had a conversation with my manager and we were discussing how these platforms have such hold over our attention span, how we must reclaim our attention span if we’re going to do any sort of deep work. He recommended I read through a booklet called The Dopamine Detox. Frankly, I still believe self-help stuff doesn’t help anyone. But I decided to read it anyway. It’s nothing groundbreaking, it doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know if you’ve been trying to solve your screen time problem. But it put me in a mood where I acted on an impulse and triggered the perma-delete feature. I had nothing to lose, I don’t really post much. Then I just had to sit back and wait 30 days for it to be final. Was easily done. And I’ve never looked back.

Modern social media feeds on your FOMO. It makes you believe you will be out of touch if you aren’t constantly checking the latest trends, what the people you follow are up to. But it doesn’t matter. I have a fairly close knit social circle and I keep in check with them through alternative means.

I’ve also reduced my reliance on WhatsApp, another Meta platform. I nudge my friends to come over to signal instead. I’ve also rediscovered the value in IRC and it’s pleasant to see it still active and thriving. It’s a lot less noisy and not populated with grifters and cryptobros unlike Discord. Mind you, Discord does have some decent communities, but it has a low signal/noise ratio. It’s also quite fun to learn how IRC influenced the modern messaging platforms. It’s a little corner of the internet that isn’t crowded which I find nice.

I want to raise kids because I want to see the world anew through their eyes.