It sounds like I am making a big thing of such an insignificant decision that barely affects any other person than me.
Every since I started to think of field recording as a way to truly slow down, as a way to respond to capitalism to some instance (or the act of listening itself, like the musician Carlos Ferreira said, being an anti-capitalist act), I started to form conflicting feelings regarding using a social media platform that relies and profits mostly on the appealing visuals of standardized beauty patterns and consequent ads of products for it, by means of engaging users to the point of addiction, like I felt myself sometimes.
Although I never use it much more than to promote work and work related ideas, besides getting news from other artists and friends, this was simply a world I didn’t want to take part in any more. How I was following over 1000 people seems shallow taken that I don’t know most of them or don’t know their work and it’s a lot to navigate in. Perhaps I can make my world a little smaller in numbers but with meaningful connections. In times when it’s more than urgent to form community and change consumption habits, when we need to think, truly connect and mostly to listen, I don’t feel like IG fits me any more or that I am doing anyone a service by keeping an account.
Along with this decision, I started to write down my friends’ important events, I am reading more, I have less mechanical urge to reach for tapping and scroll, which is making me feel a bit calmer if I analyse myself a bit.
And well, I find myself in Stockholm for the time being, visiting friends, dreading the traffic noise outside compared to my place in the countryside in Portugal, but loving how an apartment with a room-mate sounds like, with all the stories and thoughts exchanged in here. Happily busy with earth.fm and a horror audio drama (I know!). I will return to edit 2021’s field recordings during next Spring. I’ve recorded around my area in the countryside, the Greater Vale do Côa (we will need to talk about this sometime) and Orléans, France. This year also has also seen or created a big shift in the ways I record and am in place. We will also talk about this.
Hugs to all!
Melissa Pons 
I think that’s a brilliant idea, Melissa. More of us should do the same. Enjoy the Swedish winter (yah…says a guy from Canada).
Thank you! 🙂 I am sitting inside comfortably, enjoying the snow outside.
Good choice. I left all of Meta and Twitter more than 2 years ago and never looked back. I’ve been on Mastodon ever since and it’s a completely different experience, outside of any logic of monetization and without an algorithm. True contact between people.
It makes me think that leaving social media is less than a problem that is seems initially. I understand for work purposes but IG does not at all fit a sound recordist’s profile or needs, at least in my experience. Because it takes time to listen and this is not what instagram is made for. I have met nice people and artists through it but I felt it’s no longer doing anything.
I too fell into the blackmailing trope “if you’re not on social media it’s bad for your business”. Turns out it’s complete BS, at least to me (and many others that I’ve met afterwards). The real key is a balanced usage of newsletters, RSS — which is how I found out about this post of yours — and a healthy part of the collective internet such as the Fediverse, in my case in the form of Mastodon. Real contact eclipses algorithms + ads-based business models.
Thanks Simone.
While I think that IG eventually helped with reaching out about my work, it took me a lot more time than what I considered to have been a corresponding return. For sure I know that reacting to stories about news didn’t at all mean that people actually went listening or reading to what I posted. Everything is too fast with a lot of social media and I am honestly looking to slow down.