I’m constantly glued to my phone, scrolling through Instagram reels and YouTube videos like it’s my job. I mean, who needs TV when you’ve got the For You page or the feed, am I right? I’ve dedicated years to fine-tuning that For You page algorithm, trying to mold it into the perfect entertainment match for my soul. But let me tell you, sometimes it just decides to take a wild, inexplicable detour into the land of the absurd!
It usually takes about an hour until I start seeing things outside of what I typically watch, and often, it’s content intended to enrage me. Content that is obviously designed to get me to respond or interact with the content negatively. By then, I know what’s going on because my happy, fun videos are gone, and it’s time for me to leave the internet alone.
I don’t even attempt to try another social media platform because I’ve also noticed that when one platform goes off the rails, they all do. Once it’s gone off the rails, I decided to unplug.
I close all the apps and don’t open them for a week. I’ve noticed that it’s like a hard reset to my algorithms. I like to imagine that it leaves the algorithms saying, “Uh oh, we messed up this time. Let’s return to the start. We have to fix everything before she gets back.”
Sadly, I’ve also invested a lot of time trying to figure out how to prevent these sites from tracking me on other platforms, but it’s too much work. It’s me versus teams of software and social engineers working to get me to respond how they want.
The only thing that works is not using the site; I enjoy reading a book or watching a show during that week or maybe longer.
Variation Venus 
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