Many of us at the beginning of a new year make resolutions that we seldom keep…..and this year I have heard some say they want to try and wean themselves off of social media…

To that I say good luck.

I was not one of those people for I have absolutely no social media presents other than a blog….for me social media is where the brain goes to die…as an old fart I want my brain to keep working as long as it can.

It is the first Sunday of the New Year and I want to help as best I can so this is my first FYI for 2025.

Part of living on the modern internet is realizing that a social network just isn’t useful or fun anymore. The thing that you used to get from social media—friends, jokes, or information—have disappeared, generally replaced by some combination of rage, churn, and monetization schemes. 

Even knowing this, though, it can be hard to give up the habit of visiting Facebook, X, Instagram (or whatever network you still use) that’s been part of your life for years or even decades. Part of this is just human nature—we’re creatures of habit. Another part of this is that most social networks employ teams of brilliant psychologists and designers who work hard to make quitting as hard as possible. 

The good news? You can fight back, turning the tricks these companies use against you to your advantage. A new year is about to begin—resolve to stop spending time on a website that you hate. Here’s a few ways you can do that.

The companies that build social networks work hard to reduce friction—those moments of annoyance that might cause you to do something else. If a page takes a while to load, for example, you might decide to do something else instead.

Knowing about friction can help you train yourself to visit particular social networks less often: you just need to add some friction. If you tend to reflexively open a social network on your phone, for example, you could remove the icon for the social network from your phone’s home screen, meaning you’ll have to scroll through your list of apps in order to launch it. Or, to make things more annoying, you could uninstall the app entirely.

https://www.popsci.com/diy/how-to-quit-social-media/

I realize that an addiction is a hard mistress but if you are serious about the break then I hope this did help a bit to ease your recovery.

Have a wonderful Sunday….and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”