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.