I was never the biggest fan of social media. I embraced Twitter quickly because of the novelty factor, although it never quite made sense and it still doesn't, probably for most people that have tried it. I refused to be on Facebook for years, but I eventually caved, in part because I felt that I was missing the fun, in part because I needed it to promote my mobile games.

Social media does have its uses, having some sort of instant connection with many people at any given time can lead to interesting exchanges and to some business even. It's also a quick way to keep an eye on friends and family (Facebook mostly). However, social media can also be a big time waster, it's limiting because it pushes one to express himself with short sentences, and it's also weird in a way: there's this constant state of observing and being observed, or rather, being scrolled-up. It's a very passive media. Content is also not so great: after a while, people tend to repeat themselves quite a bit, me included. What's interesting about people is how they grow intellectually with time. This is not something that can be noticed on social media because it's all in bits and pieces and arguments.

That said, the decision now to start to focus less on social media comes more from the realization that it has become an oppressive environment. It started a few years ago, but it's escalating really quickly since 2020, mostly because of the US Presidential Elections. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in particular have set themselves to be the gatekeeper of truth, mostly about politics, but not necessarily. Some people embrace censorship with open arms, because they figure that it's objective and done by "the good guys". Of course the premise is laughable. It's a fundamental, and frankly basic error to think in terms of solving the World's problems by establishing a Ministry of Truth of sorts.

It baffles me to see how certain fundamental questions about the importance of freedom of expression have been debated for hundreds of years at least, and yet, today the average person is still raised seemingly oblivious to that which should be an obvious conclusion, somehow having to rediscover it once again for himself or herself.

Being a fan of freedom of expression and of freedom in general, I'd feel complicit in eroding those rights if I continued to give as much time to social media as I am today.

It should be noted that there are social media alternatives today that pose themselves as free speech alternatives. While I have great hope for those, I also think that it doesn't make sense to put too much content specifically on yet another service, which will either die off or live long enough to become the next villain.