Why I avoid posting online

This comment by coffeemug on HN resonates with my thoughts:

My twitter account wasn’t big, but it was non-trivial (~30K followers). A post could usually get me to experts on most topics, find people to hang out with in most countries, etc. There were many benefits, so deleting was very hard.

But it was eating my brain. I found myself mostly having tweet-shaped thoughts, there was an irresistible compulsion to check mentions 100 times a day, I somehow felt excluded from all the “cool” parts which was making me miserable. But most importantly, I was completely audience captured. To continue growing the account I had to post more and more ridiculous things. Saying reasonable things doesn’t get you anywhere on Twitter, so my brain was slowly trained to have, honestly, dumb thoughts to please the algorithm. It also did something to attention. Reading a book cover to cover became impossible.

There came a point when I decided I just don’t want this anymore, but signing out didn’t work– it would always pull me back in. So I deleted my account. I can read books again and think again; it’s plainly obvious to me now that I was very, very addicted.

Multiply this by millions of people, and it feels like a catastrophe. I think this stuff is probably very bad for the world, and it’s almost certainly very bad for you. For anyone thinking about deleting social media accounts, I very strongly encourage you to do it. Have you been able to get consumed by a book in the past few years? And if not, is this really the version of yourself you really want?

Life goes by very fast. Perhaps have a digital garden, perhaps interact with a core group of people you care about online, use email, and spend the rest of the time with your family.