(no title)
dashundchen | 1 month ago
First I removed the Instagram app from my phone, because it was full of dark patterns meant to keep users scrolling.
Endless reposted stories from people you follow, endless suggested posts when you ran out of posts from people you actually know, and then the slop bucket known as reels. I found myself sucked in too often.
I used the web app version on my phone for a bit, which has a lot fewer dark patterns, but eventually I ditched that too because I found myself checking it out of habit.
Now I still have a login on my desktop browser, because for whatever reason some businesses insist on only sharing hours/menus etc via an Instagram post. But I'm close to pulling the plug on Instagram altogether.
Is there an xcancel equivalent for Instagram that lets me bypass the login wall in a pinch?
I also added a ublock origin filter list for tuning out social media distractions. Now my YouTube and Reddits are essentially blank feeds - no suggested posts, stories or recommendations.
https://github.com/BevizLaszlo/UBlock-Filters-for-Social-Med...
socalgal2|1 month ago
What I found is that sometime betweent the last time I used it and now they add a "Following" button at the top center. If I click that the moment I start the app then I get nothing but posts from people I'm following. If I forget then I get random shit they're trying to addict me to. At least, at the moment, I have the option to just see my friends.
X is the same. There's a "home" feed and a "following" feed at the top. The moment I open it I pick "following" and then I only see people I follow.
I don't use either of them all that much but I'm happy that, at least for now. It's possible to use them without the slop.
That said, I know everyone else had this experience but the Facebook app has finally hit too low of a signal to noise ratio for me. For some reason to the end of 2025 I got very little non-friend posts. As of 2026 is about 3 to 2 crap I didn't ask for >:(