Social Networks of Mass Disinformation

In the past months I've slowly deleted all my social networks. The apps, the profiles, the information. Everything.

A few days ago I finally deleted Twitter, the last one standing.

I'm still "recovering", I'm still feeling the withdrawal. Still, I wanted to share with you why I did it, and how I did it.

Why

I wasn't learning or growing from it. I didn't feel like I was actually connecting with the people there.
The "useful" info, what I felt could be useful for me at least, was constrained to the templates of the platforms, and always mixed with a lot of noise (from ads to uninteresting comments). Filtering it was a huge effort.
When I wanted to launch info, it felt like shouting into a void. If it was not marketable, not viral, not funny, it sank instantaneously.
Form was vastly more important than the content.
The stream of information was overwhelming. The scroll never ends.
With every change, the networks became frenzier. The last one I tried was Tiktok, it felt epileptic.
I forgot how to get bored. So much information from the exterior meant that I couldn't stop to digest and produce my own.
Everything I thought, I connected to something I had seen previously. This can be interesting, but sometimes means that I couldn't escape what already existed, I felt like I couldn't create anything new.
I was spending 6-8 hours daily on my "smart"phone. I still grab it every time I get "bored", fortunately I don't have much to check anymore.
It had became a way to escape, to avoid the real world. This is still scary, but until I turned off notifications I honestly didn't realize how much I was missing from the real world.

Turn off notifications for a set amount of time (X hours everyday).
Turn off you phone for a set amount of time (X hours everyday).
Uninstall the apps, only use the webs.
Remove the networks one by one:
1. Unfriend / unfollow everyone that doesn't "spark joy".
2. Download the data
3. Set a message with you new contact system. I recommend a non-google email address.
4. Give some time to assess that you are not "losing" anyone important, and delete the network. JustDeleteMe is pretty useful for that.
If you had interesting data on the downloaded archives, you can set up a website to host it. For example, my Gallery was originally a dump of the photos from Instagram.
Enjoy your newly-found free time. Pick a book (6 hours everyday would mean a book every couple days), watch a movie or documentary (6 hours a day are more than 3 full movies), learn to unicycle (6 hours a day means learning to unicycle in two or three days)...