Charlie Warzel, writing in The Atlantic, has some good advice for those still clinging to the chaos that is modern social media.

To watch the destruction in Los Angeles through the prism of our fractured social-media ecosystem is to feel acutely disoriented. The country is burning; your friends are going on vacation; next week Donald Trump will be president; the government is setting the fires to stage a “land grab”; a new cannabis-infused drink will help you “crush” Dry January. Mutual-aid posts stand alongside those from climate denialists and doomers. Stay online long enough and it’s easy to get a sense that the world is simultaneously ending and somehow indifferent to that fact. It all feels ridiculous. A viral post suggests that “climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it.” You scroll some more and learn that the author of that post wrote the line while on the toilet (though the author has since deleted the confession).

Call it doomscrolling, gawking, bearing witness, or whatever you want, but there is an irresistible pull in moments of disaster to consume information. This is coupled with the bone-deep realization that the experience of staring at our devices while others suffer rarely provides the solidarity one might hope. Amanda Hess captured this distinctly modern feeling in a 2023 article about watching footage of dead Gazan children on Instagram: “I am not a survivor or a responder. I’m a witness, or a voyeur. The distress I am feeling is shame.”

When Twitter was still good, it told the stories of disasters or near disasters. It was information immediately. The news right now. Not always accurate, but without it there was a feeling of “Fear of Missing Out.” What do you mean you don’t know about this thing that’s happening right this very second!

I decided, in the last couple of years, that learning about someone who I haven’t seen in person in over a decade just got a new dog is a waste of my time. So, I consciously don’t go on Facebook much anymore. It’s the same feeling with Instagram. I don’t need to do that much anymore, but I have become slightly addicted to Reels. I recognize the addition, so the next step is to do something about it… probably deleting it from my phone.

Then there’s Twitter. I had it perfectly curated into lists. I used Tweetdeck and other apps. I never saw the For You tab. Now, it is intolerable to use. I migrated to Threads and Bluesky, tried to build that same curated digital garden, but now it seems like so much work and I’m not getting much out of it personally.

I’m finding I don’t need social media. I’ll keep my accounts, but I simply don’t go there anymore.

Today, I’ve moved all in with RSS and Inoreader for the kind of news, articles, and similar types of content I might have found or been directed to through social media. Curating my RSS feeds is far better than trying to curate the social media platforms. The sites and writers I want to read have been added to Inoreader through RSS feeds either included in their design or created by me.

I follow like The Atlantic and New York Magazine via RSS, but mostly I follow individual writers. It allows me to curate who I read or at least who I see to read. Inoreader has a place for to follow specific Bluesky accounts, so that’s a plus too.

Every day I go through my RSS feeds and newsletters. I use the Read later feature a lot as I go through new additions. I also use the Tags feature if there’s something interesting I want to add to the blog or save for other nefarious reasons. That’s it.

I’ve curated my digital garden to be exactly what I want. It might work for you too. In any case, it’s far more healthy than doomscrolling through a half a dozen social media feeds.

Pulling back from the social media pull is difficult, but not impossible. I’ve replaced it with something better. Maybe you can as well.