Facebook was deleted. Threads was too. I unsubscribed from Amazon Prime a few weeks ago. A friend recently said, “Facebook felt dirty”. I feel the same way. A lot of my friends are moving to Bluesky (my tag is 3gperez). They recently announced a new photo sharing app is coming soon. When that happens I’m deleting Instagram. People say, “I can’t leave Meta or X because all my friends and family are there.” That’s cool. All my friends and family were there too, but I rarely saw their posts. The new algorithms changed everything. I saw what it wanted me to see. Before I deleted Facebook I said it wasn’t social media anymore. It was just media. The changes happened slowly over time. Maybe they thought people wouldn’t notice. I noticed. I’m relieved to get off the grocery store pony ride. That’s what Meta is. It makes you think you have a lot of friends. When you ride a grocery store pony you imagine you’re a real cowboy. You’re not. When you realize you’re not a real cowboy you’ve lost a bunch of nickels.
I did switch to Bluesky, but it isn’t the answer to all life’s problems. Guess what happens if you follow a bunch of random people along with your friends? Your friends posts get buried in the feed. Now you’re back to the same problem. You don’t see your friends posts. A good remedy to this was to only follow my friends. If I want news I’ll get it somewhere else. Heck, I’ll go buy a newspaper and use it to start the fireplace when I’m finished with it. I can read it at the coffee shop uninterrupted. My generation knows what life was like before the internet. Then we were led down the yellow brick road to see the Great Wizard of Zuck. After the curtain was drawn back we saw pasty faced Zuck cracking his knuckles and chuckling like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. After you see that, you want to go back home to Kansas.
Canceling Amazon Prime wasn’t that hard. I support unions and drivers shouldn’t be treated like Bezos treats them. And, what happened to the Washington Post? Bezos owns them too. Top journalists are leaving due to changes in “journalistic integrity”. After Bezos donated a million dollars to the felon I bailed. All of this aside, Amazon felt like a bad addiction to consumerism. Without it I’m rediscovering the local library and bookstores. Locally, a store opened up that sells used movie DVD’s for $1.50. My wife and I went there and purchased 12 movies.
I know I sound like a cranky old fart. You’ll get there too someday and be proud of it. But, I’m not completely against technology. I embraced it for a long time. I worked with computers and software for most of my career. I don’t fear technology. My angst comes from social media. It just doesn’t feel right anymore. It feels like an addiction and the dealers seem criminal. I know a little something about criminals. I retired from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. There was an inmate who worked in our office as a clerk. His special talent was getting hookers addicted to drugs. After they were addicted he made them rob banks to pay for more drugs. Unfortunately, we’re all like those poor addicted people. I know a little something about addiction too. I’m on my 3rd or 4th attempt to quit drinking alcohol. That’s another story. Or is it?
The Heron 