Leaving Bluesky
Two major things happened today: I went to the Apple Store to collect my laptop after a battery repair, and I said goodbye to my BlueSky account. The laptop is now fine. It doesn't overheat anymore, and even though I can't yet be sure the battery life will be optimal, at least it's not suddenly dying on me as it used to do until a few days ago (I couldn't even watch a movie on it). Turns out that my model needed the entire bottom part repaired, keyboard included, and because I didn't say anything about it, they replaced it with a UK QWERTY keyboard, which is not too annoying, but still, it'll take a bit of getting used to. More importantly, because now the entire bottom half of it looks spanking new, it's kind of giving me that 'new toy' feeling. You know what I'm talking about? That feeling you get when you unbox a tech gadget for the first time and every possibility feels within reach. It's making me want to write and do stuff with it, which is a nice change of pace, if you consider that before the battery replacement I would've rather poked my eyes out than use this laggy, slow computer. But it's not laggy nor slow, now!
Then, on a whim, I deleted my Bluesky account. I don't think there's anything wrong with the app specifically, or even with the circle of people I used to interact with on it. But social media is just not the vibe right now, and plus, I was barely using it. I figured I could do without, so I took that first step and simply deleted my account. Funny story: because of laws in the UK, some content is restricted to +18 y.o. users, and the way you verify your age involves either sharing some official documents, or taking some pictures of your face and sending them to you know who. I refused to do this on principle, which means that I'm still not able to access a lot of website or services, including direct messages on Bluesky. It's ridiculous, but it is what it is.
I’m thinking about deleting other socials. There’s no part of me that wants to be a pawn in this billionaires’ game, and every second spent on Insta feels like something I won’t be able to claim back. Sure, there is the issue of not being able to communicate with people as easily (pretty much all of my friends use Instagram as their primary communication tool), but I don’t even think that’s entirely true. I think we’ve become lazier, and have offloaded the responsibility of keeping in touch with our friends to an app that routinely reminds us of their existence. We interact because we’re constantly bombarded with small updates from them, not because of a genuine desire to interact. I say this because I know firsthand. When I take my breaks from Instagram, my daily interactions fall drastically, and I have to reach out to people more often than they do with me. I think this is normal! It’s just a different lifestyle that takes some getting used to.
Bluesky wasn’t really doing it for me, but Instagram is a different matter. Deleting it permanently would mean adjusting to a different reality and, more importantly, living in a reality that is different from most of my friends’. I guess the next deleted app will be Facebook, once I figure out how to download all the media I’ve put on it in the past, gosh, 16 years. And then we’ll see. Bonus picture: I went to the park to read a book under the sun today, so here’s a photo of the actual Bluesky.
