"delete my account" 

It's time to unplug.

I have mostly completed this task myself, and I would encourage anyone else to experiment with this.  For all the life-hacking and human optimization tricks you see online, turning off social media, closing your computer, leaving your phone at home - can really improve the quality of your life and direction and intention of your two most precious assets in this human life - you time and your attention. 

For quite some time, I have found it distressing that the phone has become a shield to avoid human interaction.  It is a convenient thing to hide behind; a glowing brick to blot out the glare of the eyes of another person.  A pacifier for a mind in troubled times.  And i, too, have been a king of a skull-sized fiefdom.  So I cannot judge anyone.  But I have deleted almost everything and feel so much better.  The empirical evidence is very clear - turning this stuff off can be as affective for human flourishing as therapy. [citations forthcoming]

I have been doing some research into social media and the effects on the mind - and by extension the spirit and the psyche.

I'm not sure what social media is doing to us and what the end-game looks like.  But it doesn't look good.  Social media has fomented genocides, extremism, violence and political polarization to the point where the political and social left and right have bent towards each other and becoming indistinguishable in their rage and (as per the the horseshoe theory.

Social media is doing this.  This includes all of them, not just the usual suspects like TikTok and facebook.  This extends to other platforms as well, YouTube, and probably to some extent LinkedIn.  (At least LinkedIn is a bit narrower in the scope of their mission, focusing on pride and greed instead of fear and maximum engagement - Although I am happy to entertain counterpoints).

But from my personal experience, never clicking on a youtube recommended video. I went to YouTube in an incognito browser and want to watch Django Reinhardt playing "Brazil" and was recommended a video that was a gateway to political extremism.  Is the greed at social media companies so great - their desperation to put you in a filter bubble so blatant, that you can't watch a jazz guitarist from the 1940s without being lured into extremism.

The algorithms are tuned for maximum attention.  They do this in order to grow revenue by selling you advertisements.  They are not trying to educate, they are not concerned with human flourishing or happiness.  The goals is to trap  you into endlessly scrolling through increasingly titillating content while your time and your life passes you by. 

If you made it this far reading this post, I applaud you, perhaps your have reclaimed a modicum of your attention - or you never donated your personal cognitive cycles to any of the Fear Machines.  If so, thank you!