How to deal with Social Media
Take back control with these simple steps
Social media can be fun! Useful! Amazing!
It’s also a total time suck, and it’s run by predatory corporations who view you as fodder for their advertising machines — to be exploited and abused as necessary to achieve quarterly goals.
Screw that.
Don’t believe me? I’m a designer and I work on these things. I’ve worked on projects for Google, and my friends and colleagues keep me updated on the latest at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all the rest.
If you value your mental health, your happiness, your focus, your work, your family — you owe it to yourself to keep them at arms length. Human downgrading is a real thing, and you can avoid its worst effects. Let me show you how!
All platforms
Notifications
Obviously, for all of them, turn these off. Every single one. The only exception you might make would be for direct messages, but do you really need these instantly delivered?
Emails
Same deal, basically — turn them off. For Linkedin I get emails for DM’s, that’s it. That way I can batch ’em at the end of the week.
Twitter, ah, how much I want to like you. Unfortunately, with your infinite scroll, incessant notifications, hate-amplifying algorithms, and fascist-friendly policies, you’re just as bad as the rest. Screw you.
Sadly, Twitter’s really useful for work, fun, and profit — so I’m still on it, for now. It does feel like dealing with crappy, dangerous radioactive material though. Like every company in this list, it’s designed in an adverserial way — with you as the product to be sold to advertisers. “Hi, Twitter product team! Sort your shit out will you? No?! … I guess not.”
So let’s draw up some barriers, shall we? First thing to fix:
Infinite Scroll
Firefox (Give it a go again! It’s really good these days)
Chrome (you really OK with Google tracking your every move and selling this info to anyone who wants it?)
- Twitter infinite scroll disabler
- Infinite Scroll Blocker (just found this — works for all sites. Untested but looks good)
Metrics
Metrics are just irrelevant most of the time, dangerous the rest. They’re distracting and they incentivize unhealthy behaviour. Let’s turn them off. Click this link, skim the blurb, and install this:
You can thank me later.
Tracking
Final note — Did you know Twitter tracks your activity across any website with a ‘tweet’ button? Stop that right now by switching to Firefox and installing Twitter Container.
Mobile
Options are limited here. On iOS, Twitterific ain’t bad. Feels a bit less like a one-armed bandit than the regular app. Still got an infinite scroll though! On Android you can run Firefox Mobile with some of the addons above, which feels way better. It’s also clunky as hell in the browser, which to be honest adds some useful friction. Let the pain put you off using it.
Youtube
“But Bill! Youtube isn’t social media!” I hear you say. And you’re right — but I’m including it here as it has the same rabbit-hole infinite scroll effects as the others. The good news is you can mitigate against these effects, at least in the browser. Get these addons:
- Ublock Origin— well, this goes without saying, surely? But get a decent adblocker, please. (Firefox, Chrome)
- Adblocker for Youtube — because Ublock just isn’t enough to stop Silicon Valley feeding you microtargetted garbage. (Firefox, Chrome)
- Remove Youtube suggestions — that endless list of videos shown to the side and at the end of the last virally targetted piece of trash you watched? Gone, with these simple addons. (Firefox, Chrome)
Gah, it’s the elephant in the room really ain’t it? All I can say is — don’t waste your time with random recruiters, mute or block anyone trying to sell you anything, and use it as little as possible. Encourage any interesting contacts to talk to you elsewhere.
I have found it useful for work, and I’ve kept my job history up to date. Everyone seems to look at this. Posts also seem to get lots of attention sometimes.
But let’s face it, it’s a clunky trashfire of a website, and their product team clearly don’t give a damn if you waste hours scrolling through garbage in the feed.
If you’re not a marketer of some kind — get in, and get out as fast as you can. Seek out people directly relevant to your jobsearch and ask them for advice or a chat. Bookmark your profile instead of the main site, so when you type the address or click that link you don’t get sucked into wasting time.
Facebook & Instagram
These two are simple:
Just don’t f-ing use them. Horrible products, horrible company, horrible design.
I know this is divisive — and I have friends who work at these places. But really, this needs to be said.
As you’ve probably heard, there are proven links between time spent on these platforms and depression. I don’t need to go into details on how Zuckerberg’s empire is responsible for damaging democracy, ruining any chance of debate or consensus, and driving people into radicalisation.
For now, I still have my accounts, but I use them the absolute bare minimum. I feel kind of queasy every time I do. Such a shame, I used to really like Instagram. Ah well.
Final note — even if you’re not a ‘user’ of Facebook products, they can still track you across and build a profile to sell to advertisers. Stop this by switching to Firefox and installing Facebook Container.
TikTok, Snapchat, etc.
Garbage apps made by garbage people who don’t give a damn about you or your kids. Keep ’em off this stuff and they’ll be happier, healthier and free-er.
Like the giants they’re inspired by, they put 99% of their focus into chasing advertiser’s money, with occassional forays into cleaning up the abuse, racism, self-harm, suicidal ideation, sexualization of children, child predation, Nazis, and extremist radicalisation rampant on their platforms. Search for 5 minutes and you’ll find endless horror stories of kids scarred by what they’ve seen on these platforms.
So that’s it — don’t use them, simple.
You’re welcome.
Recommended
If you made it this far, here’s some light comedy to watch. Just kidding! It’s frikkin’ terrifying. Just make sure you install the above Youtube addons before you click play — if you value your time, sanity, and mental health.
Oh and I came across Telepath recently. It actually looks pretty good, compared to the cretins above. Early days yet though.
Finally, I have some questions
This is what works for me. How do you deal with social media? Does any of this concern you? Perhaps you’re not bothered about Zuckerberg and pals knowing more about you than you do?
Can you recommend any alternatives to the Google Facebook etc. anti-human time-wasters? Please help me out here. Thanks!
