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Why I am Finally Leaving Facebook and Aiming to Write More on Medium
Posting to Facebook feels like trying to entertain a UFC stadium, while posting to Medium feels like an open mic.
As the pandemic swept across the world and we all started spending more time on Facebook and other apps, I decided to stop lurking all the time and start participating more. The widespread resonance of the term “doomscrolling” made me wonder: why do we spend so much time scrolling through these feeds if they make us miserable?
I thought participation may be part of the solution, and that sharing useful, interesting, accurate information would improve the Facebook experience for me and for my friends. Maybe, I thought, I could add some clean water to the stream of toxic waste, and inspire others to do the same.
So, I posted peer-reviewed articles about hydroxychloroquine, earnest thoughts on the dangers of the 45th president, and basically every explanatory piece published by Zeynep Tufekci in the last few months. Before election day, I shared a piece by a journalist at the Associated Press, noting that election results would likely remain unknown for several days.
After a few months of regular Facebook posts, my overall experience was inconsistent and unsettling…
