On Quitting Reddit
March 3rd, 2024
Michael D. from Queen Creek AZ
I finished the book You Should Quit Reddit (written by author Jacob Desforges) the other day and felt like I had to say a few quick words about it and some other books I've read that were, if not exactly similar in content, very similar in sentiment. Social media has never sat right with me; it is like a splinter in my finger or an uncomfortable itch below the surface of the skin. I have had trouble articulating exactly what seemed so off and distressing about social media, so I started reading the book as mentioned along with a few others: Digital Madness and Glow Kids both by Nicholas Kardaras, Your Data Their Billions by Jane Hoffman, Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday and Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport in the hopes of getting more knowledge on the topics. All of them were excellent reads.
Each book affected me in their own unique ways: Digital Madness and Glow Kids encouraged me to vastly reduce my own use of smart phones while stoking the desire to throw away and burn them for my children; Your Data Their Billions pushed me into closing all social media sites (with the exception of Reddit) and beginning a process of migrating away from "free" services like gmail and drive and instead using privacy-conscious alternatives; Trust Me, I'm Lying helped me see how easily people will lie for clicks and that the standards for trustworthy journalism has taken a nosedive in the age of online news consumption, and last, but not least, You Should Quit Reddit helped me see how Reddit wasn't any better of an alternative. I could be accused of being a Luddite but I would say that is a mischaracterization: I work in technology, I use technology but I am more discerning these days about using it as a tool and not as a life-long attachment.
Social media (and Reddit is no different) are exceptional time-wasters. The infinite feed, the "doom scroll" on FB are designed to keep your attention fixed on those platforms. I loved the way Desforges described it in relation to the billions of links and troves of information all over the Internet: "you can't scroll to the end of the Internet, but you can scroll until the end of your life" (I may not have quoted that exactly, but you get the idea). The algorithms on FB, Reddit, and other social media services are designed for you to see targeted content that makes you sad, laugh, or get angry, all in the name of drawing more eyeballs, clicks and ad-revenue. And I'm not going to participate in the continued polarization that Big Tech profits on any longer.
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