Now that you've seen the dangers of social media, the question is, what are you going to do about it?

Social media networks are built to be walled gardens, and come with all the problems of walled gardens. For instance, social media networks can be bought and remade in the image of their owners, they can deprioritize your posts if you’re not paying, they can indoctrinate you via algorithms meant for maximizing engagement, they can ban you for wrongthink.

Maybe it’s time for you to adopt the open web, in these (possibly not so) easy steps:

1. Adopt an RSS/Atom feed reader.
2. Own your online identity, by starting a blog on your domain.
3. Break up with your smartphone.

Social media posts are shallow, whereas more thought and details goes into website articles and blog posts. Your favorite people on the web have better thoughts when they blog. And RSS/Atom feeds are still the best way to consume the web.

You don’t want your livelihood to depend on the whims of algorithms or polarized mobs or tech owners that want to do politics. Starting a blog on your domain is still the best way to have an online voice.

Blogs are still relevant and awesome. Initially, you may not have much of an audience, but you need to remember that the primary audience for your blog is you. The more you write, the more you clarify your thoughts, and also, the more you remember. My blog is also a personal wiki. That you get an audience out of it, that’s a bonus. Although, note that people who have had blogs for a while actually get more traffic on their blogs; that’s because blogs get linked in documentation, or are indexed by search engines, or are subscribed (by RSS or email) by loyal followers, so the traffic you get is constant, whereas the traffic for social media posts is fleeting.

I like alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky, but make no mistake about it — the perils are still there because it’s the same format that drives people to shallowness and polarization, and their distribution and federation story is less than ideal. Yes, join Mastodon or Bluesky, but use social networks primarily for the distribution of web links and for the discovery of blogs that you can follow. Adopt POSSE!

Social media is driven by its always-on availability due to the internet-connected device in our pocket. It’s junk food for socialization or for staying up to date. If we remove social media from our phone, its appeal drops. Therefore, we have to adopt digital minimalism and make our smartphone a dumber one by uninstalling all addictive slot machines from it.

Write and read blogs, you’ll be happier for it 😉