I miss my friends.
Social media is toxic.
Published Oct 13, 2025 · Around 2 minutes to read
I used to be an avid news reader. I would read BBC News multiple times a day. As a kid, I saw my dad always reading the newspaper or listening to BBC radio. I thought it was extremely boring. But in my teens, I got really interested in knowing what was happening around the world.
BBC News was my default browser tab for almost 20 years. It made me feel smart.
A few years ago, I realized that the news is just pessimism. There’s rarely good news. Only bad news. Because fear sells. And some stories were so awful that it started affecting my mental health. So I quit the news.
Then I realized social media makes me feel like crap as well.
I first signed up for Facebook in 2007 (when it was only open to college students with an .edu email). It was exciting and silly at first: writing on friends’ walls and poking them. Over time, it became a nice way to passively keep up with people: their hangouts, vacations, or even just pictures of food. I didn’t know I’d miss those mundane updates.
Then came the ads. And the politics.
You know how addictive and polarizing these platforms are designed to be. Fear and anxiety sell. And social media is fear and anxiety on steroids. News wishes it could be social media.
I don’t like social media, because I can’t take my eyes off it. I want to go back to simpler updates. I just want to know what you’re up to. Not your politics. Not your activism. Just, how are you?
DM me your address. I’ll handwrite you a letter.
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P.S. I have a 5 minute daily limit timer for Instagram.
P.P.S. I was reading the label on my pita bread. There was a QR code to follow the pita bread on TikTok. Like, what? I don’t need to know what my pita bread is up to.
P.P.S. I know LinkedIn is still social media, but there’s solid practitioner insight here. You just need to find it within all the noise and fakeness.