I make a living in tech and I saw the internet come into homes. Still, I’ve started to feel like I’m reaching an age where I don’t understand how some people use social media. I’m not sure how much of it is about age, and younger folks probably don’t get the way I use it either.

Before the internet, media was always one way. A small, privileged group of journalists and media companies made the content, it reached us through newspapers, magazines and TV, and we read it (younger folks won’t remember).

When the internet came into our homes in the 90s, the logic stayed the same, so webmasters made the content and the rest of us mortals consumed it. Later came what we called Web 2.0 in the mid-2000s, with forums, blogs and, in Turkey, the “sözlük” sites, where people could make things for each other.

After that came social media, and now almost the whole internet is social media. There’s no such thing as browsing anymore. We used to surf the internet, then we had timelines, where you saw what people did in order and at some point it ended. That’s gone too.

There’s a push and pull idea here. Before the internet, content was pushed to us from a few TV channels or the newspaper stand. With the internet, we could pull whatever we liked from infinite options. But now the internet is going back to push, and since we’re inside it, we don’t really notice.

These days I see two kinds of social media use. The first is a catalog, where YouTube’s home page or Instagram’s explore tab push things at you too, but you still pick from what’s there, and that’s where my use is.

The other one, TikTok or Reels, is more like a conveyor belt, or watching a highway, where you have no idea what’s coming next. You like things and hope the next one is more interesting, so you rely on the algorithm.

I never really got into that. I don’t think I trained my algorithms well, I don’t want my choice taken away, and I have no patience for wasted time. My Instagram screen time is about 10–15 minutes a day, mostly videos from friends and messages.

To be fair, I’m not on the “social media is bad, think of the children” side, which I find a bit dumb. We’re adults, smart enough to stay away from brain rot, and if it’s fun, why not. The weird thing is, I don’t have fun at all, and I have no idea how people enjoy scrolling.

So what do I do instead? Twitter, which is maybe even worse, because it only looks like you’re choosing. The algorithm still decides, I barely see the people I follow, and it keeps showing me terrible things to keep me hooked. Actually, it got so bad that I went back to reading books after almost 30 years.

Eventually, good or bad, I think we should be aware of how much control we have over what we consume. I’d like to enjoy content I don’t control, but I can’t predict if it’s worth my time. The internet is a place for reading for me, so I even read the caption while an Instagram video plays.