Andrew Melder

My first week after turning off a bunch of social media accounts. Instagram, Threads, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Reddit etc all either disabled or logged out.

The only one I didn’t turn off was Facebook. This isn’t such an issue as I don’t have a desire to use it often; only requiring access to kids’ school and activity groups, and only using it on my laptop.

Photography without social

Being an amateur photographer, I’ve been sharing photos on my personal site but also wondering why just a little. I don’t make money from photography; it is purely a hobby. But I find myself wanting to share my work more broadly, which makes it seem slightly counterintuitive to not engage in social media.

But on the flipside, I know the moods on my photography will go up or down based on the reactions (likes, comments or lack thereof) on photos posted on social media. So, is there really any value doing so?

There’s a reason I don’t have any analytics enabled on my personal sites; I don’t want to have how I feel about what I put out there influenced by the reaction.

The transformation of Instagram in recent years has helped here. It’s no longer a space for those of us like myself, who primarily take and share photos, want it to be. Yet, despite other options becoming available, if I’m thinking about sharing my photos more broadly; it’s still Instagram I gravitate towards.

I’m undecided here. Even when (if) I decide to engage in social media more; I’m unsure where photography will fit.

Microblogging as a distraction mechanism

It’s Monday. I have work I need to complete as part of a project. I’m not behind on work, but I do need to ensure I’m getting things done.

Instead, I instinctively try to open LinkedIn on my work computer; good move past me, I hibernated the account. I find myself picking up and unlocking my phone without consciously realising, only to have nothing to do. The apps are gone in addition to the logins being suspended or deleted.

I’m procrastinating, but my usual vices are no longer there. It’s true, social media just distracts us from the things in our lives right in front of us that we can do.

I found the answer, right? Wrong!

Time saved on social media needs to be made up with changes in other aspects to make the most of your time. Work chat and other channels suddenly become a substitute distraction method.

No social media doesn’t fix your lack of drive or productivity at times; it hopefully makes you notice what is going on and triggers you to make changes in what you do to avoid the traps, but the traps can creep up in other forms.

Why did I buy another gadget?

I purchased another ereader this week. Why?

The justification is I want to read more. I already have a Kindle and a eink writing tablet (Supernote A6X) that I do a bit of reading on. I’ve read more this week, filling in the time I would have previously used on social media. So why yet another device to read more?

Well, my justification now is this one is a phone form factor. As such, I can take it around more and read wherever I go instead of just at home, or places where I’ve taken the effort to bring my Supernote around.

The plan is this device will take the place of my phone in my front pocket, with the phone being relegated to my fanny pack.

Will this make books the distracting factor instead of social media? Maybe. Can’t be the worst thing to do though.

While I’m not depressed or at a sort of life crossroads; I do feel overwhelmed and not keeping up. I’ve never been great at coordination, to-do lists and time management, but I feel more out of sequence on what I need to do than ever before.

This maybe a result of a culmination of life events highlighting my existing inefficiencies. However it does feel like my ongoing struggle to maintain healthy online habits may be an unnecessary factor here.

I’ve posted previously on how I manage my online habits, particularly on my phone. Restrictions I place on when and where I use online services but I still feel distracted. I don’t hate my time on social platforms, indeed there are some great communities of likeminded interests; however it doesn’t stop it feeling like it’s taking away my focus and time on other things I should be doing.

It maybe time for a change. A hard cutoff from the online services. Not just from my phone, not just logging off from them and resisting; a full detox and deletion.

The question I keep coming back to internally is: do any of these microblogging services actually provide more value in my life than what it takes from me?

No doubt, I’ve interacted and actually met some cool people in my online interactions. Some of them I may lose contact with. That part of the disconnect will suck.

I also know I can’t just disconnect from it all and expect other items to magically get better. I hope to use more of my focus to improve my ability to organise and get life items addressed.

Then there’s aspects of real life that now blends into the online life that gets slightly more annoying to disconnect.

My kids sporting clubs and school groups are all on Facebook. While I don’t personally have much of an issue with Facebook usage, I would love to still turn that tap off. However, I also don’t think it would be very fair to dump those things for my wife to keep track of for me.

I will discuss with her before I decide on that one.

Outside of Facebook, the plan is to get rid of the following: Instagram, Threads, Reddit, one of my micro.blogs, a few small forums I’m part of, and even Mastodon.

LinkedIn is an interesting one. It feels like a need to have given I’m in the technology industry. I know you can very much communicate and connect without it, but I’m not a natural face-to-face communicator and connector. Networking is hard enough as it is for me; the added friction of trying to do so without a LinkedIn connection feels a step too much.

I don’t have a firm date of when I will pull the plug, but it will be sooner rather than later. It’s coming up to the beginning of May; a new month seems like a good a time as any.

I take and share a few photos. Recently many of those photos have been by the beach, as I and many others take advantage of the nice weather before winter comes around. I generally don’t like taking photos of people directly, but sometimes the context of the goings on within the community is a nice reference for trying to document how life is like within a specific time period.

However, the viewpoint I’ve been capturing is very much a privileged view of life here. The other, and unfortunately increasingly more common, part of life here in Western Australia is people doing it tough and sleeping rough.

It’s an aspect of life I do not capture because it feels exploitative to photograph those struggling to just survive. But in a State that is full of people who are lucky enough to have (like myself), it also feels slightly shameful to hide and minimise the plight of those who have not.

To be clear, I don’t think photographs are the answer to anything here. I’m just thinking of the bigger picture.

I honestly get overwhelmed thinking on what I as an individual can do to help, beyond the occasional act. As one person it feels like a crisis too big to get close to solving; let alone have the means to assist in any real, lasting way.

The situation is being noticed here. People in Perth are increasingly aware of homelessness and there’s occasionally a local news story highlighting the matter. However the tone of the voices on the subject, particularly by those in positions of both power and influence to make a meaningful difference, is often one expressing frustration at the inconvenience of the homeless on their privileged lives; then dismissal of the issue as someone else’s problem.

I don’t have a solution but it feels like more can be done. Politically though it might be a tough sell to, as an example, provide basic shelter for rough sleepers when there is a cost of living crisis overall and many are doing it tough and often going without meals just to maintain access to a shelter. It would be understandable for those people to feel disadvantaged by such an action just because you are scraping by to afford to live in a place but are barely getting by yourself.

But in a State where there’s no shortage of wealth being displayed or resources to be used, collectively we can do more.