Thanks for the memories, but good riddance. I deleted Instagram. Two days ago. The reasons are as you would expect: doomscrolling, fatigue, vapidness, and of course, all of the horrifying[1] things Meta enables. Concerning Instagram itself, the list is long. The app started innocently enough: a place to visually share what you were up to right now. A successor to Flickr for the smartphone age, and combining the on-the-go status-style of Twitter, it launched in October 2010, and quickly became successful. I signed up for the service on November 5, 2010, at 7:02pm[2], shortly after. It was a fun place of course — the early days of social networks before we (as an industry) started calling them social graphs, and other terms that made these networks business-aligned. Sharing square 1:1 ratio photos immediately from your iPhone with Hipstamatic-like filters was simple and caught on amongst most I knew. You had Twitter, you had Instagram. Over the decades, and a big acquisition, the app started to head down the enshittification path. Competitors like Snapchat, and VSCO[3] brought a bit of heat in various ways: Snapchat with its close-friends temporal content, VSCO with it’s more privacy-focused and artful social network, and then came TikTok. Instagram responded to any new comers by simply ripping-off their features wholesale. Inertia in a platform is borne out of convenience and the FOMO of connections already made. My own habits had naturally declined in recent years, and much like my abandonment of Twitter in 2015, Instagram existed on my device purely for direct messaging, and keeping tabs and supporting friends and family. My posting had gone down to almost nil, and I rarely interacted or cared about engagement anymore, even with a dedicated group of people who followed me (~3.4K, small by influencer standards, but sizable for someone who’s just doing my best to be myself). As Mastodon, and the indieweb has taken over my internet participation (this very website!), Nick Sherman summarized my own feelings on this, especially as someone who identifies with the DIY-skate-punk-musician-outsider ethos: It’s been a tough year so far but I really find joy in the community here on Mastodon and the larger Fediverse. There’s a satisfying DIY punk rock feeling to it all, as if I’m sticking it to dystopian billionaires every time I boost someone’s Mastodon post or fave someone’s Pixelfed image or try out some new Fedi app or follow some interesting stranger on some weird platform I’ve never heard of but can still interact with because it’s federated. It’s what the internet is supposed to feel like. — Nick Sherman I’m chasing a through line here with my last two posts and this one, and it’s been weighing on my mind amongst all of the modern horrors of our current world. It’s just one that I can control, and opt-out of[4]. It’s okay to like, or love something for a while in a mutually beneficial relationship, but when one side is only taking, it’s also freeing to let it go. Hey Instagram, see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya. Content warning: This is just one example (please do your own research if you aren’t aware somehow) but Erin Kissane’s reporting here is astounding, heavy, damning, and dutiful work. ↩︎ I downloaded my archive and it’s surprisingly robust. And also mildly creepy. ↩︎ Full disclosure, I worked at VSCO first as a contractor, then full-time from 2016-2018. ↩︎ If you stay, please consider not making them further money and using your data. ↩︎ Visit this post on the web or Reply via email

Create a home that gives you energy. In meatspace, if you’re fortunate, you likely reside somewhere. How that looks varies from person-to-person. For some, they own. For others, they rent. For those who don’t subscribe to a stationary life, it may be a vehicle, van, or camper. Or hostels, hotels, and short-term accommodations. They come in various forms and shapes. Digital space follows similar patterns. You procure space on a server somewhere, whether using your own, or paying for a hosting service. You upload some HTML files. And mixed into that, if you’re technically proficient, a CMS that someone else built or you rolled your own. Later, services popped up that took all of that out of your hands and you could focus on creating. This residence is available at a URL, on the open web, that people are able to view. This is your website. Your site is a home. Eventually, social networks were created: MySpace, Friendster, Facebook. Late came Twitter and Instagram. Novelty and the promise of interconnectedness by gathering in a common town square to blast out whatever was going on in our lives eventually won out. But you might have still had your website, your home to return to. Your environment, your quiet, your safe space. The place you could think, eat, sleep, and recharge. The place you built. Things started to change and instead of going home, you, and everybody else started to live in the town square. Suddenly you had to compete with them for space, time, attention, and engagement. The central meeting place continued to attract many as the place to be. Millions. All of these voices want a little bit of your space, even when there's none left. All of these voices shouting over each other to see how many of us would pay attention. There is no rest at the town square. It is an everlasting party, or an eternal mosh pit. There is a shape to your physical home. Arranged and organized in the ways that make sense for you, the reward is a space that works for you. That you can keep adding to or subtracting from, rearranging or re-doing when things no longer work or your energy or lifestyle seeks a new configuration that best suits you where you are. A platform or network doesn’t allow for much configuration. The town square isn’t owned by you. It’s owned and operated by parties who have business goals, or otherwise, to achieve. The town square they built wasn’t created for the public good, even if that’s what they told us. They built it so they could put up massive billboards and flashing signs and lights everywhere, screens changing with the loudest voices that some of your fellow square members paid for. The town square now exists because you’re there and an opportunity exists. Sometimes they’d promote your voice for “free.” People would briefly pay attention to you. And you’d feel really good about that. For a few moments at least. People became absolutely reliant on the same gathering place, Nazis and all. They become used to sleeping in the plaza, butting up against friends, frenemies, and enemies. The convenience of seeing friends (sometimes) outweighed your other neighbors spouting garbage and hate. You came to rely on this place for everything. You brought your sleeping pad and bag, and maybe a little tent, and are ready for anything. You can still have a home. A place to hang up your jacket, or park your shoes. A place where you can breathe out. A place where you can hear yourself think critically. A place you might share with loved ones who you can give to, and receive from. My previous homes have come in various forms, shapes, sizes, and ambitions. My digital ones have followed similarly — they have matched my life, evolving as I did. I have as much control and independence as I’d like. I have very little at the town square, because it’s not a public one. It’s a walled-off town square, whose rules and borders change at the whims of those who created it. The secret is that it’s not even that: it’s actually a panopticon. As conceived of by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham, a panopticon is an institutional building — a prison — designed with a central tower at its center while the inmates reside in a circle around it, under its watch. Between 1926 and 1931, the Cuban government built four such panopticons connected with tunnels to a massive central structure that served as a community centre. Each panopticon had five floors with 93 cells. In keeping with Bentham's ideas, none of the cells had doors. Prisoners were free to roam the prison and participate in workshops to learn a trade or become literate, with the hope being that they would become productive citizens. However, by the time Fidel Castro was imprisoned at Presidio Modelo, the four circulars were packed with 6,000 men, every floor was filled with trash, there was no running water, food rations were meagre, and the government supplied only the bare necessities of life. Wikipedia Social networks adopt a playbook that feels similar. Give your users leeway, but only so much so they can survive and feel some modicum of freedom or creativity, but hold back on customer support, moderation, and a code of conduct or guidelines that would ever allow for anyone to truly thrive. When I was kindly interviewed by Kai Brach for Offscreen Magazine, I said, “As I get older, I’m realizing that I’d rather leave a meaningful impact with a small group of people I know than faceless millions. The connection matters to me.” That was in 2013, when I was 36. 11 years later, I still feel that way. I don’t need to be in a walled garden but I’d love to have you over at my place. Thanks for visiting my home. I’m glad you dropped by. I’d love to see yours sometime. Visit this post on the web or Reply via email

Smartphones are a distraction. Numerous studies and research have proven out various scenarios: from students unable to learn as well, to laws prohibiting hands-on device use while driving, and the various apps and platforms that buzz, ping, and are designed to distract. People are looking at ways to solve this modern problem — from the dumb phone movement to companies creating phones with restraint and limits[1]. The options revolve around the actual device being limited. For some people, this may be a necessary route. Save for Messages and WhatsApp[2], and during work hours, Slack, I’ve never had notifications on for any social media apps or any other apps. But the problem lies further up the chain: the design of the device itself. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, it was indeed a much lauded moment in the category. Prior to this, phones came in a variety of form factors. They were as large as satellite phones, then became smaller foldables or slideables: a hybrid approach with a tactile physical mini-keyboard mated to a small screen. Palm introduced the Pilot series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996 with the Pilot 1000 and 5000, with mostly screen, driven primarily with a stylus. The iPhone truly revolutionized the industrial design and brought us to our current moment: a full-screen device that you could touch, tap, drag, and swipe to interact with. It brought down the wall that a keyboard or stylus blocked. We no longer needed the middleware. We could touch all the things! Prior to this, screens were large and encumbered. Classic TVs were housed in cabinets and were more furniture than centerpieces. They’ve become slimmer and larger over the decades but for the most part are still primarily active devices. One turns on a TV to watch something. A TV doesn’t necessarily reach out to you. It’s a consumption device. It generally is turned off. Now, a small screen, or a larger one as a tablet, sits positioned. A phone is usually on, 24/7, 365 days a year. A person may choose to have it in a cradle propped up for display. Screens and battery have made it such that always-on is a feature, and no longer a decision. It acts as a supposed gateway to connection: access to the broader world as you know it. I place mine face down. When possible, I tuck it away[3]. And I even leave it at home when I know I want peace and solitude: on a run, climbing, spending time with friends and family. My attention is focused. The phone disrupts that. In the last two years, even that wasn’t quite enough and I started to research what proponents of limited or dumb phones were looking for: Limited access to apps or inability to install most distraction-designed or attention-grabbing apps. E-ink or black-and-white displays. Basic core apps: phone, messaging, calendar, contacts, sometimes a camera, book/reader apps. No notifications. Those were the common ones that stood out to me the most. We have the ability to organize our home screens. And while Android users have been blessed with the ultimate in customization over the years, it’s only been recently that iOS users have been able to hack and then customize their screens. Prior to iOS 18, I attempted my first real foray into a minimalist phone. This worked quite well, but what you don't see is the second screen. It was still chock full of apps and folders. I was still going over there more often than not. And then came iOS 18. The answer for me ultimately was born out of my own Mac desktop and how I've set that up. I hide the Dock, collapse and stack all files and folders, and use Spotlight, and only very recently Raycast, to get to my apps. If I need it, I’ll launch it. Otherwise, I don’t see options for apps I’m not actively using. Porting this approach to my phone, I wondered if Spotlight on iOS would do the trick, coupled with relegating everything to the App Library. I settled on two home screens. The first is my general core apps. Very basic things: Settings, WhatsApp, NetNewsWire, Ivory, Maps, Music, Photos, Camera. Default dock contains Messages, Mail, Safari, and Bear. The second is my work/reference screen with two bonus “in test” apps: Claude, Slack, YouTube, Retro, Uppercase (disclaimer: I am the founding designer), Touchstone (climbing gym membership bookmark for entry), Pixelfed, Tapestry (testing), and Art of Fauna (testing/playing). I’ve been using this for a few weeks now, and it’s been great. Previously, I could never remember where I put some app I don’t access regularly and have to hunt around in folders for them. Swiping down to search for them is far more natural (and faster, especially if it’s a particularly unused one) and if used enough or recently, is listed right at the top. And you can always swipe between recent apps as well. I really have to remember to trigger an app that I used to just tap because it was there, like so many empty calories. If you have to, set app limits. I reduced my Instagram visits tenfold last year by setting a 5-minute time limit on it, and the prompts got annoying enough that I’d just stop. You do have to be an active participant in that decision; otherwise, it’s easy to “Allow for today”, but it’s a good reminder of why you implemented it. Today, I’m just about to leave Instagram altogether because of Meta. Short of getting a limited device, see what you can do with giving your phone a deep cleaning, and rearrange or purge that furniture you’ve been hanging onto for no good reason. I personally dig surveying this category of devices: Light Phone, Punkt, etc. ↩︎ For my family abroad. WhatsApp is widely used in Asia, and elsewhere. From restaurant reservations, to general inquiries, all the way to recently using Cathay Pacific’s customer service business chat when we flew from San Francisco to Kuala Lumpur via Hong Kong, it’s a compromise I’ve made to stay in touch with them. We used Signal for a bit, but it was difficult to get them to adopt it. ↩︎ I don’t even carry it in my pocket these days, opting to stash in a small bag or such. ↩︎ Visit this post on the web or Reply via email