The great content purge

Having recently started a new job two weeks ago, I've felt the need to adjust my information diet, as well as social media and content feeds to suit my new role.

And with that, I've gone about unsubscribing to newsletters and RSS feeds, unfollowing loads of inactive Twitter folks and Instagram accounts, clearing out my old Pocket reading queue, making room on my often-full Watch Later playlist on YouTube (5,000 videos is the limit), and closing tabs that I haven't bothered to look at for days.

It got me thinking about a bunch of things:

• How many people's tweets can you actually follow? If your list includes media publications that tweet every article they publish, you're likely getting a lot of content from them in your feed, and not a lot of stuff from real people who tweet less.

• The same applies to YouTube channels in a way, but the effect feels different. I follow a diverse bunch of channels, but it seems like YouTube tweaks the mix of content every so often on its own. I don't always get the same weighted blend of cooking, travel, tech, and music content year-round.

• Another Twitter thing: as a journalist, I followed hundreds of reporters and editors hoping to learn more about how they work, read their scoops as soon as they're out, and build relationships. Turns out many of them just want to be regular people on Twitter, and talk about the sports, traffic, pop culture, and local issues a lot of the time — content I don't care for and can't engage with. It's not what I signed up for, but that's on me. I'd be much better off adding them to lists, and think of that as a rolodex of sorts.

• A lot of content creators' work can become irrelevant or less interesting to you as your tastes and preferences evolve. That's not a knock on them, it's just a consequence of consuming media for a long period of time. And it's okay to ditch them when that happens.

  Besides, if someone you used to follow creates a seriously great piece of content, you'll likely come across it some other way. Don't sweat missing out.

  

  Yeah I don't really need to stay subscribed to Guga Foods any more.

• How come there's no AI to just purge unread articles on Pocket yet? If you've been using it like I have for nearly a decade, you've likely accumulated a lot of rubbish that you don't need to read years later. Clearing these old articles out manually is time-consuming, and the bulk editor tool is buggy. Not exactly a 2022 experience.

What happens after you purge?

• It naturally has an effect on the content that surfaces in your feed; how profound that change is depends on how much you've pruned your lists. You'll see content bubble up from users and channels you hadn't thought of in ages, you'll discover even more stuff you don't care about anymore and can unfollow.

• Some purging only feels good like when you clean out pocket lint, but has no significant effect on your feed: clearing out old Pocket articles, unfollowing inactive Twitter users.

• This exercise reminded me that it's not worth all the time I spend scrolling through my various feeds. I'm battling serious screen addiction, and while I have some success avoiding devices once in a while, it's hardly consistent.

What am I going to do differently from now on?

• Save fewer things to read later; scan articles instead of getting enamoured by sharp headlines.

• When possible and necessary, I make notes about articles and store them in Notion.

• Add people on social networks to lists, rather than follow them by default.

I hope that cutting down on how much stuff I've subscribed to and saved for later will help me spend less time staring at screens looking for something to consume. I'd pay good money to make that happen, but for now, it's up to me.