I deleted Instagram for the fourth time last month. It lasted eleven days. That’s a personal record.
The thing I’m defying isn’t social media itself — it’s the specific way it flattens experience into content. The sunset isn’t a sunset anymore, it’s a potential story. The meal isn’t a meal, it’s a grid opportunity. The thought isn’t a thought, it’s a thread. Everything gets pre-processed through the filter of how will this perform before you’ve even finished experiencing it.
And I know this. I know this the way a smoker knows cigarettes are bad. Knowing doesn’t help. The architecture is smarter than my willpower.
So instead of grand gestures — deleting accounts, throwing away my phone, moving to a cabin — I’m trying small acts. Reading a physical book. Cooking without photographing it. Going for a walk and leaving the phone on the desk. Writing in a journal that nobody will see. Having an opinion I don’t post.
These sound trivial. They are trivial. That’s sort of the point. The algorithm runs on spectacle. The antidote is banality. The most subversive thing you can do in 2025 is have a moment that isn’t documented. Be somewhere without broadcasting it. Think something without sharing it.
I’m aware of the irony of writing this on a website. The irony is the tax I pay for still being partly inside the machine. I’ll take the hit.