Some of you familiar with this site know that a couple of years ago - at the end of 2024 - Meta up and deleted my original accounts with them. All of them. Some of which (Facebook) I'd had almost since Facebook existed at all - back when you had to have a college email address to sign up. No appeal. Just. Gone.
Honestly, social media hasn't really felt the same since then, and if I'm really honest with myself, even long before that. The algorithms took over. The Outrage Machine began to dominate. What was once a way to connect with family, friends, and like-minded individuals - and maybe even grow a personal project brand became, well, none of that anymore. Now, as a brand you either pay to play or you're nobody anyone is ever going to see. You don't even see the people or brands you like or follow anymore near as much as what said Outrage Machine thinks will keep you on that site the longest.
I have fallen for it more than I care to admit - and more than I care to, period.
Quite frankly, I'd rather be reading.
Thus, I am officially declaring my independence from social media this July 7, 2026.
I am not actually shutting them down - I am going to post an image of this page to each of them, pinning it where possible... and then I'm simply going to walk away. Close the tabs on my browser, uninstall the apps from my phone and other devices, and just be.
For one, I truly enjoy working the Reader's Coffeehouse Facebook Group's Great Big Giveaway Day at the end of every summer, and I'll continue to do this as long as they'll have me. There, I help out via keeping a spreadsheet of all of the books being given away and who ultimately wins each giveaway, and I've been doing this for several years. It is always a chaotic day, but honestly it is by far one of my truly favorite book-related days of any given year. This year it is in just under a month, on August 4, so I will be there for that.
For two, I will continue posting audio versions of my book reviews on YouTube. They don't get seen often (again, Outrage Machine), but I enjoy creating them and I honestly think they are ultimately useful for at least some who perhaps can't read text well for whatever reason. I can also simply post them and not be obsessed with interactions, so there's that.
Finally, I will also keep up my monthly email summary of all of that month's writings and book reviews via Substack, though even this will be changing a bit in format as I will no longer be posting all reviews there natively (or natively as Twitter/ X articles), instead simply linking the reviews from this very site in what I hope will be a very similar format to the emails I first began sending out last August. Again, I think these may be useful, and I think I can create these in a manner that doesn't suck me back into the Outrage Machine. If I am shown to be wrong there, I may yet end said emails at a later date - at which point, this site will be the only place other than YouTube or the various book review sites (BookBub, BookHype, Goodreads, TheStoryGraph) where I will continue to post my reviews.
To be crystal clear, I have exactly zero intentions of leaving book blogging itself any time soon (or ever, so far as I can see right now), and I will always be contactable via jeff@bookanon.com for any direct communication you may desire. Also, for any authors who may wish to find me specifically to request I review their books, my information at BookSirens and NetGalley will remain current.
Beyond this though, I'm declaring my independence from social media.
I'd rather be reading.