I deleted TikTok last night.

It was the last major social platform I still had.

I kept it for a while because I saw it as a creative outlet, a quick sketchpad, and a space where ideas could flow freely and art could be a bit rough around the edges.

Sometimes it was that, but most of the time it wasn't.

Social media is part of my job. I occasionally work in social media marketing, so I need to understand how these platforms work and how they change and how people interact with each other.

Leaving isn’t just practical. It's self-care.

There’s a personal side to being online. When you post publicly, you’re also exposed. This means you can be seen by people who are drunk on having a voice and eager to misunderstand and misrepresent you. They often reduce your work and intentions to odd caricatures fueled by their own resentment. Caricatures they were shown BY SOCIAL MEDIA.

That part gets tiring.

But that wasn't the main reason I left.

Connection is important to me, maybe more than it should be. I believe that people can create meaning, ethics, and progress together without needing anything supernatural to guide them.

Because of that, I try to find humanity in the systems we create.

For a long time, I viewed social media as messy, loud, and imperfect, but still fundamentally human.

Lately, it seems different. Connection is hard to find because connection is no longer the goal.

The people running these platforms learned a simple rule: anger spreads, outrage grabs attention, and conflict keeps people scrolling. When you mix that with algorithms designed for maximum engagement, you get a system that teaches people to dislike each other.

We know everything about everyone now. Every opinion, every mistake, every half-formed thought.

Instead of helping us understand each other better, it often just breeds suspicion.

I found myself logging in and immediately facing the ugliest parts of humanity on a schedule, every day, multiple times a day.

Eventually, the obvious solution became clear: I don’t have to keep entering that space.

Creativity needs quiet, and curiosity needs room to breathe. Right now, those platforms feel like spaces filled with smoke.

So I stepped outside.

I’m still here, still creating, just not in that machine.

Maybe one day I’ll go back, not because I miss the noise, but because my work touches those platforms whether I like it or not.

If that day comes, I hope the atmosphere has improved a bit.

Humans are incredible toolmakers. We create languages, printing presses, microscopes, and satellites. We find ways to share ideas and art around the world.

Social media is just another tool in that long line.

Right now, it’s mostly used for arguing with strangers.

But tools can be used in different ways.

Humans have accomplished MUCH harder things than making the internet a bit kinder.

So if I return someday, I hope it's to a place where people remember that. Where the aim isn’t to win arguments, but to create something interesting together.

Because humans are truly amazing.

It would be a shame if the most powerful tool we’ve built for connecting with each other is mostly remembered as a place to practice hating one another.