A Thousand Words: Logging off

 

Although I missed Halley’s last appearance, I was fortunate to be born and raised in a “disconnected” world. Even though I had the chance to own a smartphone as a young adult, I chose to stay out of that trend. I graduated without a smartphone and, in fact, with very limited internet access—I spent my entire second year of college relying solely on the university library’s connection, as there was still no broadband available on my street.

 

I put the digital world in my pocket exactly ten years ago while pursuing a master’s degree in Remote Sensing at INPE. I was the only one among my colleagues without WhatsApp, and that never bothered me. Even less so the fact that I had no Instagram or Twitter. By that time, I had already abandoned my Facebook account for quite a while. In March 2015, with the intention of optimizing fieldwork, I bought a Samsung S4, mainly because it had features that would help me, such as a GPS with accuracy close to the Garmin I could afford at the time. Additionally, the S4 had a thermometer and a barometer—features that a Garmin in the same price range lacked.

 

For a while, then, WhatsApp became my sole social network. In the early days of my almost-always-connected world, old Facebook was already dead, Instagram hadn’t yet taken off, and Twitter—along with its older cousin TikTok—had never even crossed my mind. I prefer to be low profile, both online and offline.

 

It was shortly before this period that I started taking photography more seriously. I bought my first DSLR before I even owned a smartphone. In fact, I’ve owned more different DSLR and mirrorless cameras than smartphones. Eventually, at the recommendation—and persistent insistence!—of a photographer friend, I created an Instagram account in July 2017.

 

There, I found fertile ground for studying photography. I followed major influences, met many people, discovered amazing work, and made countless valuable connections, even though I never dedicated much effort to publishing my own work there.

 

But that 2017 Instagram is gone. In its place, there’s a strange, unappealing space filled with noise and advertisements, trying first to be a TikTok clone, then a Twitter copy, and failing at both, it abandoned what once made it unique—photography. A prime example of backward pragmatism, where the secondary becomes the essential, leading yet another social network to turn into a digital trash museum, like Orkut, alongside the dying Facebook. Perhaps Flashes, the new photography-focused social network launched by BlueSky, will fill part of the digital void left by Instagram, but only time will tell. And I don’t know if I have the willingness to build a profile there from scratch.

 

That’s why I’m joining the growing movement of disconnecting from social media. But unlike many who are quitting Instagram due to burnout, addiction, or even depression, my case is different. It’s the gradual realization that this platform has already served its purpose in my photographic journey, and now I need the space it occupies in my life to take bigger steps forward.

 

Moreover, through this blog, I’ve discovered that I enjoy writing about photography, and Instagram is a terrible place for that—its text limits and deliberate suppression of written content make it an unfriendly platform for deeper discussions. Perhaps for this reason, I’ve always despised Twitter/X, long before its political shift. In fact, the Twitterization of science and public debate—where complex topics are reduced to shallow explanations within a finite number of characters—has undoubtedly contributed to the expanding intellectual void of this century’s second decade. A vacuum of rationality that is being filled with the demonic specters of the second decade of the last century.

 

Still, there’s plenty of interesting activity happening in the niche and somewhat elitist world of photographic art—exhibitions, fairs, and events. Just last weekend, for example, I attended the fifteenth edition of the Tiradentes Photography Festival. In three days, I saw a significantly smaller number of photos than I would have in a single wasted afternoon on Instagram. And the quality of these observations—handling books, studying photo essays, and interacting personally with artists—is incomparably superior to the “experience” of endlessly scrolling through a screen anywhere in the world. Living those three days of the festival gave me more references and ideas than the past few years on Instagram.

 

Even as I distance myself from the platform, my profile will remain active since my link is already shared in many places. I will prioritize interactions via direct messages, redirecting new contacts here. I’ll also increase the use of my quarterly email list and this blog to share my photographic updates with the world, knowing that my time on Instagram was well spent. There, I learned that an image is not worth more than a thousand words, that the platform’s imposed format limitations also limit the depth of its content, and, most importantly, that what appears on the screen often has nothing to do with the essence of truth.

 

Disconnecting from the superficial is essential to reconnect with what truly matters, to strengthen humanist bonds, and to seek inspiration. Leaving Instagram means reclaiming my free time from those who profit from it. It’s the challenge of searching for authentic forms of communication in spaces where human beings are the agents and machines are merely tools—the opposite of what any digital social network has to offer.