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▲ of the Mind [010]

About a month ago, I wrote my farewell letter to social media. I’d been trending in a direction when it came to platforms like Instagram and Twitter, based on this post from two years earlier. That post ended with the tongue-in-cheek closing:

Don’t consider this me quitting social media. Consider it me heading out for a coffee… or a pack of cigarettes.

Needless to say, it ended up being a pack of cigarettes and now I’m calling to say “put mommy on the phone” a la Harlem Nights.

It was a slow death, but one month later, I can say I wish I would have done it a long time ago. Leaving Twitter became easy with Space Karen at the helm. When you’re on a platform and the only relevant discussion becomes the death and dismay of said platform, things have a way of becoming clear.

Last week, the announcement was made that Twitter no longer allows 3rd party app developers to use the API for any functionality that “mimics” the official app. If I hadn’t already been 3 blocks away, that would have been the moment I walked out of the theatre.

The above linked post summarizes my feelings. It is a chapter closed of my online existence, and I’m at peace with it. Like “real life” chapters, they don’t all continue to have ink bleed onto the pages infinitely. While I wish my departure (and many others in the small tech circle I followed there) signaled the true attention apocalypse and reckoning I believe will come someday, it’s a start.

1️⃣ Something I drooled over…

My Modern House: Charlotte Taylor

This is a truly beautiful space and the interview with the interdisciplinary designer, Charlotte Taylor, that lives there is a joy to read as well. Two statements resonated with me, personally:

I think the natural light in this flat was the thing that attracted me the most.

My wife and I make the same statement about our current home.

Light = life.

I think my design work is ultimately leading to my goal of becoming an architect at some point even though I’m seriously under-qualified.

If I had it to do all over again, I’d likely trend toward being an architect.

2️⃣ Something I nerded out on…

Road Sign Style Guide

Anyone that does UI design of any kind could nerd out on this 900-ish page style guide for US road signs. This mention of a decade-long drama about a new sign typeface is also just the type of juicy background story I’d dive into.

3️⃣ Something I read…

The Age of Social Media is Ending

This… sad, but feels right to me:

If change is possible, carrying it out will be difficult, because we have adapted our lives to conform to social media’s pleasures and torments. It’s seemingly as hard to give up on social media as it was to give up smoking en masse, like Americans did in the 20th century. Quitting that habit took decades of regulatory intervention, public-relations campaigning, social shaming, and aesthetic shifts. At a cultural level, we didn’t stop smoking just because the habit was unpleasant or uncool or even because it might kill us. We did so slowly and over time, by forcing social life to suffocate the practice. That process must now begin in earnest for social media.

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