I’m no longer a sharecropper working on a digital plantation

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Unless you’re an idiot or a masochist, you wouldn’t apply for that job. I wouldn’t, either. I would laugh at it and mock the intelligence of anybody who would fall for such a one-sided deal.

But when I’m honest with myself, I realize that’s what I’ve been doing for years on social media.

I started joining social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even Threads — starting in about 2007. The value proposition was simple: You connect with your friends and anybody else you want to connect with. Your friends will be shown everything you post. You’ll see everything they post. And there’s no charge for this. What a deal.

As the social media companies grew more popular, they changed the deal. They introduced algorithms which determined which tiny portion of your posts would be shown to your friends. Then the companies started randomly showing you posts you never asked for — from people you’ve never heard of, about things you don’t care about.

But we put up with it, because we had developed a weird addiction to social media. We created all of the editorial content for companies which have gotten fabulously wealthy. We’ve been bewildered sharecroppers on a digital plantation.

Today, I’m starting the process of walking away from all of that. This is not what I signed up for.

I’ve dipped a toe into these waters before. I’ve left Facebook for months at a time on multiple occasions. I’ve threatened to stop posting to Instagram. I abandoned my Twitter account and I never used the Threads account I set up.

My tentative attempts to walk away have been unsuccessful for one simple reason. I’ve been addicted to the attention that comes from posting.

I like having a place to post my thoughts and links and photos. I’ve liked being able to connect with people who agreed with my iconoclastic thoughts. I’ve been addicted to the “likes” and “loves.” I’ve enjoyed the public approval far more than I want to admit.

But Facebook’s algorithm doesn’t care for the things I post. Even though I have close to a thousand “followers” on there, my links and text posts were routinely shown to very few people — sometimes fewer than a dozen.

What’s the point of composing my thoughts or editing my photos or posting my links if the platform is going to hide them — so that it can show my friends and followers more faux entertainment, as it turns itself into TikTok Lite?

On Instagram, I have many followers for my two accounts, especially my animal account. At one time, I could post a photo and instantly have dozens of reactions and comments. Today, the platform shows my photos to so few people that most of my posts are “liked” by the same half a dozen people, if I’m lucky.

I’ve invested a lot of time and effort into Facebook and Instagram. I finally realized that I am working for free for a company which no longer even keeps the bargain that we struck when I signed up.

If I’m going to work for free — to write essays and make videos — I might as well limit my efforts to somewhere I’m in control. And that’s why I’m going to focus on my own website as the place to post my work. I’m not writing material that’s designed to attract a mass audience — as it was when I used to write political content years ago — but I’m writing what I need to write.

And on here, there’s no moderator or algorithm to dictate who sees what I publish.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been a professional writer and photographer before, but I haven’t been paid for my creative work for a long time. I’d love to be paid again — for writing or for films — but if I’m going to end up just publishing for my wonderful regular readers anyway, why not stick to the place where I can control it? Why keep giving my work to social media platforms which offer a lousy deal for us?

There are other reasons to get away from social media, at least for me. I’ve written recently about the cesspool that social media has become, so that’s part of it. But I’ve also written — quite a long time ago — about how social media is a psychological trap for those of us who were raised by narcissists.

There’s another issue, too. When you have constant access to faux entertainment that presents itself to you in a long and endless scroll, it’s easy to waste your time. I’ve done that more than I want to admit. Many of my friends do it. I’m constantly being barraged with social media links that people liked and shared with me.

Even though a few of them are momentarily entertaining, they’re doing nothing more than wasting time that I should be spending on creating my own work. I literally don’t care about 98 percent of what I watch on Facebook — that I run across myself or get from others — but I somehow end up wasting time on it anyway.

It’s even worse than the trap of watching junk television. I gave up watching television many years ago — after reading Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” — but I somehow stumbled into something even more dangerous and more time-consuming.

I thought social media was a waste of time when it first started, but I set up a Facebook account because a girlfriend wanted me to. It seemed like a harmless way to make her happy. It turned into a tremendous waste of time. I’m not blaming her. I’m not even blaming the platforms. I’m blaming myself for sticking around so long — even after I knew it was a mistake for me.

My time on this Earth is limited. The time I spend on these platforms is a terrible use of my time, whether it’s material I find myself or random junk that others send to me. I’ve been a terrible steward of my time in this respect.

That is changing, starting today.

It will take me a few days to figure out how to back away from various bits and pieces of my social media life, but it’s all going away. I’ll eventually have a way to post my photos — the ones currently going to Instagram — here on my site. I’ll have more to say as I figure it out.

In the days ahead, I plan to use the time I’ve been wasting on social media — either creating or consuming — on my own work.

I have multiple books I want to finish writing. I have a short film to make soon. I’d like to make feature films. I have a lot more to say about ideas I care about, both through essays and video.

None of those are possible if I keep wasting my time and attention on social media.

I’m finished consuming social media. I’m finished giving my work away to the companies.

If I’m going to work for nothing, I’m going to do it for myself. I’m finished being a sharecropper on a vast digital plantation. I’m walking out. Starting today.