Byte-Sized Scribbles and Notes
For the past couple of months, I have been suffering from Writer’s Drought. “Block” is simply too good a word, suggesting a stream of creative discourse is merely backed up, desperate to be unclogged by some cognitive Mr Muscle. My mind is a barren wilderness. If you listen close enough you may hear the wisp of the occasional heading or opening sentence as it tumbles from ear to ear.
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In the age of instant access, limited patience and diminishing attention spans, “social” exchanges are commonly reduced to that of few words at a time. The likes of Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and Line have enabled us to mindlessly chat away with each other at the press of a button, but what does that do to the quality and meaning of the content therein? How much thought goes into an emoji? Gone are the days when a thoughtful letter rich in content was the regular communicative method of choice for most people. Even if you have a pen pal or long distance acquaintance, an email can reach them in seconds. How much more time & effort would you make if it didn’t reach them for days, and took a week to get a response?
SLOWLY is a digital platform for a traditional pen pal experience.
Designed for people in search of meaningful conversations in the era of instant messaging, their aim is “to connect people around the world at a slower but better pace – one letter at a time.”
Read MoreWhy is it such a pain to remove old URLs?
When it comes to leaving a social media platform, some websites make it incredibly difficult to actually delete your account. When leaving Facebook, it’s purposely awkward procedures would only allow me to initially “deactivate” my profile first, and would not permanently scrub me from their databanks until 90 days of inactivity had passed.
So I was pleasantly surprised at the relative ease of erasing my Instagram account by comparison.
Yes, I’ve done it. A couple of days after requesting my export link, the email dropped in my inbox. Once I’d safely downloaded all of my images, the deletion process was very straightforward. A couple of clicks, another to re-confirm my intentions despite a desperate plea bargain to stay, and I was gone for good. Ahh…
Read MoreIs it me, or have the number of ads on Instagram shot up in the past few months? I swear it’s getting to the point where half my feed is sponsored, and they’re not just your usual gaming or corporate posts. It’s also the paid-for promoted content from other users that are starting to aggressively infiltrate my feed. I’m certainly not enjoying my time with the platform as much as I used to. I’m contemplating deleting my account and leaving the site altogether (as I did with Facebook several years ago), especially now that more of the dubious targeting practices seem to be gradually working their way into its architecture. It’s also contributed to what’s become a personal routine of procrastination. Something I desire to drastically change.
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