Antisocial Media

Twitter in 2008 felt enormous. I was on Facebook when most people were still in StudiVZ groups. I posted breakfast photos to Instagram when sepia filters were brand new. It all genuinely felt great—social networks, actual connection, witnessing what moved someone else in the moment.

Back then social media was just scummy marketer talk, used to impress executives who didn’t understand the internet. There were no influencers, no strategy, no algorithm playing friend. YouTube was kids with stolen cameras. The internet could have stayed that way.

But somewhere along the line, the platforms figured out the real product: you. Your clicks, pauses, stops. Your interests, your fears, your network. Once everything became measurable, it became sellable. Authenticity turned into a style to perform. Vulnerability became a brand. Instagram became a catalog of things to want. Twitter became a mob. Facebook became a place where your relatives argued about politics while the company took notes.

Staying felt necessary, because everyone was there and leaving meant disappearing. The stress crept up slowly. Every time I opened these apps, I felt something drain out. Not refreshed—worse. Watching people I liked present these careful versions of themselves, knowing how much time and thought went into looking effortless. Doing the exact same thing myself, shaping my random thoughts for an audience that didn’t exist or didn’t care.

The time sink without payoff destroyed me slowly. You feed the algorithm for hours and get back anxiety and this creeping sense that your actual life isn’t as interesting as what you’re seeing. The apps are built to make you feel that way. Every notification is designed to hook you back. Someone you know liked a photo from three days ago. Why would I care? I’d open it anyway.

At some point the performance became obvious. I was editing my own thoughts for spectators. That’s when I started deleting. Twitter first. Then Instagram. Then Facebook, which felt strange—that was my oldest record, fifteen years of my own life scrollable in one place.

The shift was immediate. Not some noble silence, but actual relief. My mood changed. I slept better. Thoughts didn’t need validation to feel real. I forgot about people I’d never met. The constant noise just stopped. And in that absence, I understood how miserable I’d been without quite noticing it.

This wasn’t about rejecting connection or doubting the initial promise of these platforms. But I understand now that they were never designed to bring people together—they’re attention vacuums that pay you in anxiety. They promised to open the world and ended up closing it, funneling everything through feeds and algorithms that serve the machine.

The internet I loved in 2008 still exists somewhere—ungoverned, strange, full of people chasing genuine interests down weird paths. But it’s not on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. Those places have been colonized and flattened into something else. They became the thing they said they’d never be.

Leaving wasn’t a statement or crusade for me. It was just admitting that something I’d loved had turned into something that hurt. Not using it better or less often or more mindfully—just stopping. The happiness that followed made me realize I’d been drowning and mistaken the water for air.