On leaving Instagram again: Why disconnecting feels different this time

The end of a social media era

Earlier this summer, I’d had enough. I posted a story on Instagram announcing a temporary break. I put contact info in there, since some people I’m only in touch with via IG, but 2 hours later, my impulsive nature got the best of me. I deactivated before most people even had a chance to see it.

I thought I’d be back in a week or two. But it’s lost its appeal.

This past decade, I’ve deactivated my Instagram about once a year. Sometimes just for a week — sometimes a lot longer. But this time, I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing. Social media has changed. And I may be done with Instagram altogether.

The app lost its appeal in a similar way to Facebook. Both started as fun ways to connect with friends, but as brands and commercialised personalities became dominant, they both began to feel stale.

Instagram feels like socialising with your friends while being observed by marketers and advertisers as a focus group. No wonder so many people all but stopped making posts except for the occasional ephemeral Instagram story. Instagram feels like LinkedIn for the non-professional part of our lives.

Moving on

I’m writing this post to address my friends, so to anyone reading this: hey, friend •‿•

I want to let you know how you can find me. I’ll continue running my Instagram accounts for Calm & Fluffy (@calmfluffy), this newsletter, and Hard Berlin (@hardberlin), where I use IG stories to curate local events in the harder styles of electronic music. I hardly go on them, though, unless I have a specific task to complete. I highly recommend this approach, so you can ween your personal life off of the platform.

The best way to stay in touch with me is through my phone number. If you don’t have it, email me. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Bluesky, or my personal homepage.

Since the rise of Facebook, we’ve gotten used to knowing what friends and acquaintances are up to, without the need to interact with them. For that, this newsletter is a good avenue, as I use it as a lens to bring things into focus for myself, the people I care about most, and everyone else who chooses to follow along (and become someone I care about by doing so).

The vibe shift

A few years ago, I penned a piece dubbing the 2020s the “decade of community”. It examined trends like loneliness and distrust in corporations as dynamics that would divert some of our attention away from infinite-scroll feeds and towards spaces shared with smaller circles.

What I didn’t anticipate, as recently as 2022 when I wrote it, was the quick rise of AI slop. It feels like the attention economy is burning itself out. No wonder it’s the first time I’ve deactivated Instagram and haven’t looked back.

As a recent hard-hitting essay by James O’Sullivan in Noema magazine put it (emphases mine):

“These are the last days of social media, not because we lack content, but because the attention economy has neared its outer limit — we have exhausted the capacity to care. There is more to watch, read, click and react to than ever before — an endless buffet of stimulation. But novelty has become indistinguishable from noise. Every scroll brings more, and each addition subtracts meaning. We are indeed drowning. In this saturation, even the most outrageous or emotive content struggles to provoke more than a blink.

Outrage fatigues. Irony flattens. Virality cannibalizes itself. The feed no longer surprises but sedates, and in that sedation, something quietly breaks, and social media no longer feels like a place to be; it is a surface to skim.”

This week, I’ll be reactivating my personal account to exchange a few contacts and announce a longer departure. And then it’s time to turn a page.

Stay in touch, friends.

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Next week: announcing October’s challenge

Next week, I’ll be sharing the details for my October challenge. And you’ll be able to participate, too!

It won’t go quite as far as March’s experiment of leaving my phone at home every day, but it will still be a challenge.

Don’t worry. I’ll make it easy for you. And fun.

I’m working on a little surprise, but it needs a few more hours of love before I can share it. But know that it will help you feel calm & fluffy - whatever intensity you bring to it.

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Water & Music opens its archives

If you’re not familiar: Water & Music is an excellent music industry resource founded by Cherie Hu. Some of my best writing was done for Water & Music and until recently, those articles had been behind a paywall. No longer.

My favourite piece combines my background in developing music streaming products with industry analysis, and is titlted How Spotify’s recommendations UX might be pushing down per-stream royalty rates — even if total payouts increase. It’s a good place to start.

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(- ‿- ) For your ears

Dengue Fever combine Cambodian music with psychedelic rock, which simply sounds phenomenal. Their 2005 album Escape From Dragon House is a good departure point for a journey into their unique sound.