I am no longer on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. I didn't bother with Snapchat and TikTok, so the need to uninstall them didn't arise when I decided to purge my presence from these networks. I deleted my accounts a while ago, not because I didn't want to stay abreast of the latest in cat memes or photographs of how my friends were holidaying, but because I started to question the basis of how these platforms were changing our view of the world.

The number of people interested in how I live has dwindled since then, to one or two over the past couple of years, which I believe is a direct fallout of my refusal to engage with social media. When I created a Facebook account a decade ago, it seemed as if friends and acquaintances poured out of the woodwork overnight, liking every status update, congratulating me on minor accomplishments such as checking into a cool restaurant. Today, no one asks if I have watched the unmissable Netflix show of the week, or if I have an opinion on what a foreign government is doing. They are all busy discussing the unmissable show of the week and putting up lengthy posts on what foreign governments should be doing. I am happy for them and happier about the fact that I have been left alone to live without sharing how I am living.