Its time to stop using Facebook as a gatekeeper and to start directly reconnecting with the world wide web.

Here are 4 things you can do today to burst the highly engineered and covertly cultivated social media bubble of facebook, instagram, twitter et al….. and re-discover the wild world wide web.

1. Subscribe to an RSS aggregator.
2. Change your search engine to Duck Duck Go.
3. Consider starting your own website or blog.
4. Critique the social media torrent.

Subscribe to an RSS aggregator.

The most effective way to rediscover the world wide web is to begin to collect those websites and content creators that you visit often or really like, and then use an aggregator to grab their latest posts and give them to you directly. On your terms and in your well chosen time.

Feedly is my personal favourite tool for this. Although there are others equally useful.

Each morning during breakfast I can read the latest news headlines, browse a couple of blog posts/videos from people I follow, and scan through articles from some of the more interesting web hubs (for example I follow Longform a site that itself collects really interesting and slower, deeper reads).

There are oodles of excellent content websites that do not march to FaceBook or Googles algorithmic profiles and remain invisible to you. Get outside the bubble and start to discover them!

Here is a video on how to get yourself all set up with Feedly.

Change your search engine from Google to Duck Duck Go.

There are so many reasons. Here they are.

Start your OWN website.

If you are moved to be a creator, be it writing, photography, poetry, videography, art or just plain old venting your spleen, think about starting your own website and establish a presence outside of the controlled social media bubbles. Link out and connect with others to form content sharing communities.  Become a part of the solution.

And it doesn’t just have to be a muse of creativity to get you blogging. You can simply use a blog as a personal hub, to allow people to keep in contact with you and follow your life adventures.
That was the way we used to do it before Facebook (…but after postcards).

Critique the SoMe torrent:

The next time you open facebook and begin the rolling thumb scroll, take a moment to critique each individual post you look at. Not just the things you stop and ‘like’ but all that stuff that just zips by and off the screen.

Ask yourself these three things:

1. Is this post something that is really is worth my time?
2. Is this an add, or product placement, or brand enabler, or post that is engineered to sell me something I am not actively looking for right now?
3. Do I have a actual and/or meaningful physical or emotional relationship with the person who posted this?

Afterwards think about the signal (useful/meaningful) to noise (rubbish) ratio of your feed. Think about how much time during the day you spend amongst the rubbish.

Think about how important it is to spend time engaged with the useful and meaningful. The really useful and meaningful whilst online. Ask yourself  if FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram etc are a tool or a distraction in accomplishing this.

Re calibrate your content, your resources, and your time accordingly.