People were losing excitement about the internet, starting to articulate a set of new truisms. Facebook had become tedious, trivial, exhausting. Instagram seemed better, but would soon reveal its underlying function as a three-ring circus of happiness and popularity and success. Twitter, for all its discursive promise, was where everyone tweeted

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Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are engines of distraction and cultural rot. They stand in front of the more difficult but more rewarding aspects of life: deep work, intimate connections with friends and loved ones, focused attention for hobbies with intrinsic rewards. By training users to crave constant novelty and the immediate approval of... See more

The illusionary perception that social media has brought us closer has faded. Living a performative life for the Internet is a recipe for emptiness. What has been revealed is that we are alone. We crave connection. Wherever we end up going, we want it to be more real. This means we should probably stop supporting centralized platforms, even if they... See more