We have become accustomed to hunching over a small rectangular screen, where a jumble of things scroll by. This includes breaking news (which isn't really that breaking), the sixty-eight layers of cream a girl on the other side of the world slathers on her face, unsolicited ads for sanitary pads (or equally intrusive offers depending on your gender), children dying under bombs or from starvation, Trump-Saying-Things, more ads, gossip of every kind, and people who are beautiful or perpetually on vacation or fashionable—or all three at once.
What does all this have to do with my usual posts? A lot. You can’t write without an attentive, focused and sharp mind. The same qualities are required for travel: without the ability to observe, study and ask questions, the journey becomes nothing more than a mechanical process. Writing requires, above all, the ability to think critically before, during and after; to question what we see and read and focus on what is essential. Otherwise, it would be better not to pick up that pen and stay home. Pardon my impertinence.
We have, for reasons that have long since been forgotten, agreed to submit ourselves, on a daily basis, to a non-stop stream of trivialities and horrors, of superficial images and real violence, all of which is jumbled together without any kind of hierarchy, context, or respite. I may sound extreme, but after months away from social media (except for the wonderful world of the Fediverse), I can say with certainty that it is urgent and necessary to abandon Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, and, for different reasons, even WhatsApp. The impact on my life has been immense, with enhanced mental clarity, diminished anxiety and a substantial reduction in cognitive burden. I'm perfectly fine without knowing what creams Maria uses or where John goes on vacation because the people I care about have my phone number and email address.
Instagram and TikTok have become our go-to platforms for political organising, activism, information and social connections, but the quality of these interactions is extremely low. We log in to distract ourselves and end up increasing our stress levels, and we log in to stay informed and end up numbing ourselves. This should be obvious by 2026, but it isn't. Social media doesn't change opinions — it hardens them. It doesn't inspire action; it numbs us. Performative activism makes us feel 'good' right after posting a story about Rafah, but it consumes energy, water and environmental resources in the meantime, fuelling egos, envy and competition. Anyone who claims to use social media to 'stay informed' should consider subscribing to high-quality news sources, even if it costs a few euros a month.
Moreover, "being there" isn't just about having a profile; it's about consistently producing content over an extended period, constantly interacting, and feeding an algorithm that penalises you if you stop and buries you if you don't pay. It's a job that requires full-time commitment and no payment, with the profits being given to Meta and Tencent.
The result is that a huge amount of time, mental energy and emotional strength is taken away from what matters and converted into economic value for those who already hold power. The same goes for TikTok, but I’ve never used it. It's all well and good, but can you really waste your life doing pointless dances or, worse yet, watching them? I don't care if I sound presumptuous, but I think it's idiotic.
But to what extent is it our fault? These platforms are designed to be addictive; several studies have compared their effects to cocaine addiction. They use intermittent rewards, stimulate dopamine production and fragment our attention. They’ve made it difficult to be bored, to be present, and to truly rest. They turn our free time into a source of anxiety, shatter our experience of reality, and make deep, sustained thought impossible. As philosophers have always pointed out since the dawn of time, isn't reason what distinguishes us from beasts?
Recently, I have been particularly concerned about the actions of so-called Tech Bros, the tech oligarchs. These individuals not only openly support authoritarian regimes (like Trump's, for example), but also possess a staggering amount of sensitive data on their users, including names, contact information, preferences, and even political and sexual orientations. Many apps know the places where we spend our nights and where we spend most of our day, thereby managing to reconstruct where we live, where we work and even track down members of the government or the military. Today, they use this data to show us targeted adverts, but what will they do with it tomorrow? The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as tomorrow: we are already aware of the fact that in the U.S., ICE uses the Elite app, which is owned by Palantir, to ascertain the location of immigrants and detain them.
What if this data were used to target people with different political views? A different sexual orientation?
Meanwhile, as we scroll through useless digital content, Meta accumulates power, data and resources. The company has already proven itself willing to collaborate with authoritarian governments, censor activists, and facilitate human rights violations. It's not paranoia to wonder where our data would end up in a slightly more dystopian scenario.
Finally, I want to emphasise that social media isn't free: we pay with our attention and our brainpower in exchange for low-quality, trashy information that impoverishes our lives—not to mention the cognitive warfare that has been raging in recent years.
War is no longer just about dropping bombs; it's also about manipulating ideas. It alters the narrative, disrupts our reasoning, and fragments our thoughts into brief, sporadic bursts, causing feelings of anger and confusion by tapping into our deepest, most sensitive areas while we sit with our heads bowed over that rectangular screen.
In an age when the ability to reason is the only truly revolutionary act we can perform to save ourselves, this fragmentation becomes a concrete threat to our mental freedom.