Rethinking my relationship with social media

09 Feb, 2026

Some time in the distant past, I quit all social media. It wasn't terribly hard, I was only really on Facebook at the time. The hardest part was getting people to shift our digital conversations from Facebook Messenger to some other platform.

I drifted back for a variety of reasons, the primary one was that a band in the 21st century can't afford to not have a social media presence, and I needed to "do the socials" part of promoting our music. Over time since rejoining, my usage spiked, and I started going to Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit... all for a dopamine hit whenever I was the slightest bit bored or understimulated. I caught myself more than once opening Instagram during a real world conversation, and I was utterly disgusted with myself.

So in December last year, I uninstalled everything from my phone. No more social media in my pocket. And for a handful of days, it was tricky. I felt my mood fluctuating more, and I had a manual tic that I was desperate to satisfy whenever I wasn't already engaged with something: I would find myself unlocking my phone and just... swiping around the screen. I felt ridiculous. But eventually that urge passed, and I felt a wave of serenity pass over me.

In the past two weeks I have had cause to open Facebook and Instagram once each. Both times I logged on, and very quickly noted two things:

1. Both of these platforms (and other culprits as well) rely on a constant feeling of ephemerality to make you feel like you are missing out if you are not always looking at what they have to offer. Stories are a particularly good example of this, forcing you to open your app every 24 hours at most, lest you miss out on what your friends¹ are up to.
2. I felt no connection to the things that I saw on either platform. For a medium that claims to be in the business of connecting people, I sure felt isolated and inadequate very quickly. Adverts and self-promotion, unfunny videos or images, rampant attention seeking (all three of which I myself have been guilty of myself at one time or another), and AI. Oh Gaia, the AI slop.

This experience was very similar to my experience of trying marijuana again after a long hiatus. I immediately felt paranoid, nauseous, and stressed. Opening Meta's products made me feel exactly the same way, after just a few weeks away. That's not hyperbole or dramatic effect. I physically felt all of those things in my body. From opening an app. From something that claims to be good for humanity.

And yet... I can't quite pull myself away. Not yet. I'm cooking up a new musical project, and... Well. You have to go where the audience is. Bands arrange gigs through Instagram and Facebook. Promotion for shows happens on social media. Building an audience happens, yes, at live events. But between shows, a small band's following lives and dies by its ability to be present on social media. I've not figured out how that looks for me yet. I want to make music, and I want to share that music with the world. I'm not quite sure how to do that without social media any more.

And so, I'm still here. But not really. My account remains active, but the apps are long gone from my phone. I'm not signing in. I'm not receiving notifications. If you want to get in touch with me, or catch up, you either already have my email, or you can ask for it. Or you can send one on here, via my handy contact page!

So what's this, then? Well, I'm back on my blogging bullshit. New year, new website, new platform, new me. Bear Blog has me excited to publish a website again for the first time in ages. It's reminiscent of the old MySpace days; getting to tweak my theme just the way I want it. So this site, the one you're reading right now, is where I'll be for the foreseeable. You can subscribe by RSS, if you like.

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