A quick update just in case anyone is wondering why I have suddenly gone all quiet on social media. 

As you might know I closed down my Facebook account a few years ago (for many reasons including these) and have not regretted it for a moment.

I have continued to use Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) and Twitter. To keep track of friends and acquaintances, to self promote this website, and to, you know….FOMO. 

Today I finally threw the switch and permanently shut down my accounts on both Twitter and Instagram. 

The tipping point for me has been the ongoing bushfire catastrophe currently impacting the east (and now west) coast of Australia. Instead of being a useful tool to keep up with what is going on during the crisis (and social media has a great potential to deliver in such scenarios), my feeds quickly degenerated into angry shouting back and forth about climate change, politics, and point-scoring gotcha moments as the author of each post underlined why they are so very right.

It seems like a perfect reflection of the entire social media ecosystem these days. A whole lot of people talking AT each other rather than TO each other.

To be clear, I believe there are plenty of instances when the 3 big social media platforms can provide connectivity, information and community that value adds to peoples lives. Many individuals get a lot out of it. Perhaps you are one.

But for me at least those instances have now been swamped by an ever-increasing spoil of feed manipulating algorithms, personal data collection, time sucking social engineering, political skullduggery, and just plain old people being total dicks to each other.

And then there is that whole stress and struggle thing of constantly cultivating the persona (or personal brand or perfect family or whatever) that you want to present to the world.

Looking for other ways to cultivate meaningful social connectivity online will be a challenge without the aid of an endless scroll. But I think it is totally doable.

I you are interested in connecting with me you can still do so:

1. Via the most excellent Telegram app as @shojiwax
   Everyone should ditch whatsapp (also owned by Facebook) and start using Telegram IMHO.
2. Via the contact page on this website.
3. Hang out at your favourite local coffee shop. Im bound to turn up sooner or later.