I went offline.

It wasn't so much a choice at first. I spent much of the summer on the road, which meant that getting online was nearly always a struggle, and so when I didn't have to, I stayed off. And when I did get on—I was working my remote job doing book research—doing work was the focus. I didn't fall prey to the usual distractions of endless scrolling on Instagram and Bluesky, because when weighed against the effort to get and stay online, it didn't seem worth it.

Once I was in a place with a more reliable connection, I reconnected, but not to social sites. I tracked the news enough, but not obsessively. I kept in touch with friends, mostly via text and WhatsApp. But when it came to social, I'd venture in and turn back around, Grandpa Simpsons style.

Because logging in after a while away, it was painfully clear just how broken it all was. All the things that made social media so vital a decade or two ago have fallen apart, replaced by algorithms, engagement hacks, and endless, bottomless, screaming.

We're in a cycle of constant outrage (which is not to downplay how actually outrageous the time we're living in is), pushed by the insatiable need for engagement that has been stoked by algorithms and the misaligned incentive structures that have emerged in the last few years that need people to stay mad bro to keep the dollars flowing.

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