Sometime around last year, I deleted my Facebook. It had been years since I posted. The app had changed drastically over the years. The profile and friends section had been cornered and videos and algorithm based feed had taken over. Deleting Facebook wasn't really a decision which was made after much deliberation. I just decided on a random day that it needs to go. I did not want my name and pictures to be associated with a company and its apps especially when it became clear to me I will never go back to using it again.
I created my Facebook account on a small keypad device which my mother had. Or it was probably my dad's. I do not remember. But I remember the ecstasy I felt when I first set up my account and saw my profile. A shiny place on the internet which I had just recently come to explore. I instantly found a lot of my school friends on the platform. Connecting with my existing friends on a social platform using a device with a peanut screen for sure boosted my dopamine levels off the charts. I regularly posted there, random movie posters, WWE fighters, and the pictures I clicked around. This was a time when internet was a luxury for people like me. I extensively used Facebook for a good number of years and made a lot of internet friends. Majority of them I knew personally. However, sometime around 2017, I found another app owned and operated by the Facebook company. Instagram. I thought I ought to try it.
My first experience of Instagram was much the same as it was with Facebook years ago. The only difference was that now I had a device of my own and internet was not really a luxury, it had become a neccessity. The first time I landed on my Instagram feed after I finished setting up my account, I noticed something peculiar. Instagram was a PHOTO APP. Yes. Imagine my shock. If it hadn't already been clear to me, now it was. Pictures took the entire width of the screen. I could not "react" using 6 different emojis to a post like I could on Facebook. I could only "like" them. Same for the comments. Feed was always in the reverse chronological order. And the thing which stood out to me was, #hashtags were everywhere. They were the basics to fame on the platform. #hashtags were so important to the overall functioning of Instagram that there were several apps which especially sorted most popular ones for any given genre and category. One could just copy a bunch from these apps and paste them in their post description. And boom! Suddenly that post was being seen and liked by people around the world. Crazy work.
Sometime around 2019, I made my last photo post on Facebook. It was a group photo with my friends I took at school. And that was it. Instagram had taken over. Almost all of the same friends I had on Facebook had moved over to Instagram and the latter had a more modern UI and intuitive features. It just made sense to focus on this app instead.
Instagram was a cool place for a while. I posted a ton of random stories about my days and life. Posted selfies and pictures of places I visited. #hashtags were fun to use. However around this period (19-20) something was emerging and spreading rapidly around the internet. TikTok. Indians went crazy on there. The rising tide lifted all boats. Influencers were everywhere. If you just had a passion of something and courage to shoot videos about it in under a minute, you were guaranteed to become popular. I never tried the app because I realized while I had passion for things, I didn't have the courage.
It went on for a while. Crazy videos used to go viral on TikTok. YouTube v TikTok influencer battles took place. It was all going down. And then, the government booted TikTok into oblivion. Something to do with data privacy. In any case, I was far away from all the video craziness which was happening on the internet since Instagram was a photo app. It had videos but they were not really it. The platform catered to photographs.
But now suddenly there were 1.3 billion people in India, majority of whom had used TikTok, left in the void. The Facebook company knew this was their moment. To enter the algorithmic-video feed market. And thus, Reels was born. It didn't take Instagram a week to roll it out. Suddenly nobody missed TikTok anymore apart from the influencers who had amassed great followings. With the advent of Reels, Instagram changed forever. The reverse chronological feed was in dust. #hashtags were made redundant. Algorithm was made king. TikTok marketers flooded to Instagram and the app ran with all the money. For half a decade I kept up with the bullshit. Reels had eaten countless hours of my life. I became slave to the algorithm written by some developers who probably had no idea what they were unleashing on the world.
Last week, I decided to deactivate my Instagram. I had enough. I felt toasted. I couldn't keep up with the pace at which it was coming to me anymore. I didn't think about deletion as I wanted to safekeep my iconic username. In any case, I am not going back. I already feel good about my days, occupied by important things and even if I don't have stuff to do, I am watching genuine videos on YouTube which are not brainrot. I will take it.
My journey of Facebook and Instagram is a true example of how in 15 years, social media has gone from connecting friends and families to marketing and brainrot. They can continue to ride the tide for as long as possible. But I am out. And I am happy.
It reminds me of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that for any spontaneous process, the total entropy of the universe, or any isolated system, will always increase over time, never decrease. This means that systems naturally progress from ordered to disordered states, or that energy becomes less useful and more spread out, which explains why heat flows spontaneously from hotter to colder objects but not the reverse.
The decision means that now I am active on one less social platform. My Bluesky and Mastodon is going strong. My blog is better than ever. And while I do not yet have any friends who have moved to these platforms, I am sticking around. I realize I am mature enough to swim about myself. Maybe a future tide will lift new boats, one of which I might hop on.
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