Uncharted Thoughts.

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“Slow down, you crazy child. Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while. It’s alright, you can afford to loose a day or two. – Billie Joel, Vienna.

We have a choice here ladies and gentlemen, one that is paramount to the survival of democracy, intelligence and one that alone can save our souls.

I understand the this will be a long article, one that may at times drag and become flimsy in its wording. But I beg that you heed my words, at least do me the courtesy of allowing my voice to be heard. For I am not a religious man, nor a man with an abundance of intellectual prowess. But the salvation of our souls is found through one, very clear, very pungent message.

DELETE ALL SOCIAL MEDIA. NOW. NOT LATER. NO EXCUSES. PLEASE, SAVE YOURSELVES.

Over a year ago I posted an article on Uncharted Thoughts called Deleting the Devil… find it Here. And I find myself here, again. However this time I am a hypocrite, lets have a catch up before we get into this properly and please, take a seat wherever you are, take a breath, get a snack and a glass of water. This is important…

Lets Start from the begining.

If you do not have the time to explore this and want to skip to a more… direct part of this article them please go to the next title and start from there. If you are interested in the full monty, here we go…

I deleted social media in all forms about five years ago. I did it because I wanted to spend more time living and less time, fingering a glass window. I never really cared about what other people were doing and I always felt, empty after some nightly doom-scrolling. Additionally, there were way too many pictures on social media I’d rather leave in whatever empty pit they fall into.

For five years, I was free from liking, swiping, following, clicking and sharing. I was a man that lived his days in bliss, away from the worlds problems. Of course, I still had my vices. Where once I spent hours fingering through old friends and double tapping on flings from years prior. My time spent on Youtube increased. I watched long form media, lots of other, random shit that I expect was equally as disruptive and mind-numbing as the tapping of social media. But, I was happier, there is no doubt in that.

Bring the clocks forward and here we are again, Facebook, Instagram and X all back on my phone. Like a electronical phantom blob that has crawled its way from the waste bin of my phone, back onto the screen. In my defence, which I would argue is poor at best, I was encouraged to redownload these poisonous square pixels by my university.

As a journalist the best way to find stories is on Facebook and X. So, I took the plunge, around October last years, and now I deeply regret it.

In 2024 I started my documentary: Frontlines: The Battle for Britain’s Minds (found here). It was supposed to be the project that flung me into the career I desired. A project ambitious and creative. I was in the run again after years away from education I was back on the ball, equally as determined and two years wiser than before… However, like most things in my life this turned, very rapidly into an obsession.

I spent many of pounds on transport, accommodation and equipment. I chipped away at my lifeline as I spend hundreds of hours edition, researching, emailing, watching and reading political content. I lost two months of my life, stuck inside a vortex of extremist ideologies.

From Tommy Robinson, to Nigel Farage. Elon Musk to Donald Trump. Mohammed Hijab to that other weird Muslim guy that goes to speakers corner and rants about the most irrelevant aspects of our society, I forget his name but to be honest, I don’t wish to waist another second of my time on him.

I got deep, I mean deep into the rabbit hole. I was on first named basis with some of Tommy Robinsons closest supporters, one of which I interviewed. I was interviewing academics, Muslims, everyday citizens and rioters.

By January, two or three weeks before the documentary was published I noticed something wasn’t right. My brain was, becoming more sympathetic towards the right, I was edging towards placing a bet.

I remember daily the feeling of anger, spite and in some ways a victim. Each day my brain was fixated on finding the cure to these political issues, and with each passing day, I was becoming more and more radicalised.

I think this was because I am British, white and working class. I often feel downtrodden by the fact I am not able to buy a house, get paid more than minimum wage. I found someone to blame in this crazy world of online politics.

I would like to state here before moving forward that I am not a racist, I do not see the white man a superior, neither Christians to be more compelling or righteous than a Muslim. I dislike religion on the whole to be honest but that’s something I have discussed before and won’t get into here. I love all, I have travelled to Muslim countries, I have been and seen with my eyes the kindness of all races, creeds and religions. Even at my darkest moments in this pit of despair, I never wanted harm to come to any person due to race, religion or country of origin.

I am still, even after having had months off of social media and paying very minimal attention to the news, very concerned about our great nation. About illegal immigration, about its culture and economic failings, an issue caused by twenty or more years of poor management from the Government.

Moving on… I was deep, deep into far right ideologies, and by the time the documentary was edited and put on Youtube. I was a convert. I was convinced that Islam was coming to take over the UK, that Sharia law was going to be implemented and Asian men were to blame for the rape of woman across the country and that children were not safe around them…. It must be stated here that I was, to my own admiration, fighting this from the beginning.

I was wrestling with the devil, and I was putting up a fight, because it isn’t in my nature to be hateful, to be racist and prejudice toward any of my fellow man/woman/ I am not a hateful person. But, after months of Tommy Robinson. I lost the battle… but not the war.

Like many poisonous chemicals, social media changes the mind, and like many drugs, there is a gateway drug that starts it all off. Facebook and X were my gateway drug, my weed if you will. This is where thing starts to become, worrying.

I started researching Tommy, his rhetoric is simple. Muslim bad… Children and woman need protection. Easy and effective. Now, this is poisonous, I am not discrediting the horror and illness this can cause in a person, neither do I think this is less racist than the next ‘drug’. But after Tommy, things began to get weird.

I began to explore other strange organisations. White Lives Matter, The British Movement… (See here). These ideologies are more… cocaine than weed. They are about the Great White Replacement theory. Nazism. The third Reich. White power. Alt-Chritian, anti Muslim… and at times, anti black rhetoric. The belief in race war, that kinds garbage.

This is when I knew I had to stop. That social media was crushing me under an immense weight…. Either I loose my soul, my humanity and my moral code, or I delete social media… The documentary was in its final stages, It was now or never. I chose, and I would choose it again and again and again… Do not, give into this hatred.

Just to clarify here, I do not think at any point I was going to fall for this latter drug… I fell for Tommy, for two months I was under his spell. My dislike of religion, not religious people… but of organised religion allowed him to spark kindling deep in the basement of my soul. I value children above all, woman second and animal next. He convinced me, that Islam was a religion built on the exploitation of children, sexual crimes against woman and cruelty to animals.

He did a classic, lesson 101 of manipulation and propaganda… he convinced me of an enemy by using fear and rare, and far-flung happenings for an entire peoples. That Afghanistan was a good example of Islam. That Iraq was a good example of Islam. He tricked me… and for that he will never have my forgiveness…

Moving on… I am out of the burning woods. I can still see the glow of hatred behind me, but I smell and feel a cool breeze and I am ready to continue in that direction.

Delete it now…

Before reading this, open Facebook, Instagram and or X, and follow these steps HERE. There is a reason they make deleting these apps harder and harder each passing year. Delete it while you still can. Please… read on.

Let me tell you how the algorithm works. Let me tell you some statistics and let me inform you how this effecting the society we live in…

The ALGORITHM

The algorithm is a digital electronic mathematical machine. It is a self thinking coding mechanism that decides what you do and do not see on social media. Of course it was created by man, however, like a gathering snowball man has pushed the small ball, and allowed it to do its own thing from there on out.

If I started a new Instagram profile, the algorithm would have started collecting data the second I download the App… What’s my name? Jack… Okay so the algorithm knows I am most likely European. Second name Smith, Okay, English background. Age: 30. So a millennial, what do they like? White. Okay so let get rid of this and this… Atheist, let get rid off all the religious stuff. What’s next… sexuality, straight. Okay he want to see tits, and ass and probably porn… let set that up and, he is ready to go…

My account has been open for less than a minute, and the algorithm is already pushing what I want to see.

So here is my screen tonight… It’s actually pretty timid compared to some other evenings, but lets explore it real quick.

Left to right, top to bottom: Porn, violence, animal getting beaten to death, porn, porn, sexually explicit, AI war propaganda, sex appeal video, sex appeal video, sex appeal video, pro-Christian anti Muslim AI propaganda, sexual content, Warhammer and then a boat with coconuts in it with that annoying laugh sound effect.

So, even after a couple weeks away from the ‘far right’ stuff I have two videos promoting it. 7 videos containing sexually explicit content and a video of a Gorilla beating a squirrel to death.

Now, this is where I explain what happens after the account has been set up. If you linger over something but do not click on it, this will trigger the algorithm into thinking you want more of this content. So it will promote that content to you… So, if I see boobs, guess what, my Instagram is going to be full of them… If I see a man being beheaded, guess what… I’m going to see the same content over and over again.

This is good if you are into fitness and good food right? No. Most fitness people will begin with ripped lads and gals eating clean, doing cringe morning routines and vibrant yoga pants. Butt it wont take long before more… concerning content will arrive on ones screens. Drug abuse, fighting, horrible accidents in the gym, girls squatting very quickly becomes softcore porn… and then the flood gates open.

We as humans are susceptible to disturbing content… we like drama and to be scared, hence soap operas and horror films and such. So it is hard to not navigate through these parts of the internet without hovering over nudity, violent and racist ideologies as we are biologically ingrained to see it.. hence the boobs.

Once you are in the cycle of horrific, brainrot, vile content it is extremely hard to escape. You have to be aware that you are a victim to know that something has to be done. Same goes with pornography, you have to be aware that it isn’t healthy for you to do something about it. Once it has you, then comes the brainwashing.

Remember the algorithm has one goal, to keep you swiping, to keep you engaged for as long as possible, that it. Nothing else, it has no loyalties to your well being or to a cause… its job is eyes and views. Nothing more.

Now, as a journalist I now know for a fact that content creators have one job and one job only to attract your attention. The algorithm will do the rest, they just need your eyes for 3-5 seconds and they got you locked in for weeks. As said before the best way to get people to view your stuff, is shock factor and sex… that is it.

So, extremist political ideologies use this to get their message out there. They will post the most extreme content possible in an attempt to get your eyes, and then, its the unbiased algorithm to take you the rest of the way.

Statistics.

2 and a half hours a day is spent on average on social media. That is 17 hours a week. 70 hours a month. 840 hours a year. That is 35 days spent scrolling, on average. Some people out there probably breach 50 days.

Our attention span has dropped by 25% between 2000-2015… on that note we’d be heading to 40% maybe more by April 2025.

The average user will check their phone 1500 times a week.

Most users would have left the page they read within 15-20 seconds… explains my viewership.

WHat is this doing to us and our society.

Well, to put it simply, it is causing mass mental health illness and crumbling our society into segregated schools of thought backed by ‘evidence’.. no I’m not being dramatic.

When it comes to mental health, we as a nation, as a globe are at an epidemic scale. 5% of all adults are suffering with depression (globally). 1 in every 10 of us is currently diagnosed with anxiety. 1 in every 4 of us, at have been to the doctor about mental health issues, each year.

This is very much a new phenomenon of the extreme levels of mental illness is linked often with social media. As are some of the atrocities found within our nightly news. Mass shootings in the US, stabbings in the UK, and sexual crime globally are often linked to exposure to the darker side of the internet, found through social media.

Additionally it is promoting ideologies that were once on the fringes of society. Nazism is without doubt one of the most hated groups of politics, as is white supremacy. However, with social media, membership, views and likes of these groups is now on the rise. Actual activism remains to be seen, it is hard to determine how these groups operate and how many members there actually are. But with social media, ten men working day and night producing content can look like thousands.

It is deceiving.

We are becoming polarised beyond belief. This is equal to the left as it is the right. The left failed British politics by putting the woes of the minorities above the masses. I mean that in all senses… the left prioritised trans-rights, homosexual rights and the rights of migrants over economic policy, affordable housing for families, and the safety of communities. Of course, the rights of every human is important, but politics is and was drowned in identity politics rather than supporting the masses.

Many people blame Trump for the 2021, 6th of January Capitol attack. Some people blame Biden or Kamala, or Obama or Alex Jones or capitalism, or illegal immigrants, or Hillary and the Clintons, or gay frogs or poisoned water. But, the truth is. Social media allowed this to happen, it spread a message of corruption through the American people. Like a society exposed to opioids, people were dragged into a grand criminal act out of addiction to a narrative. It exposed to the world the dangers of false narrative and exposure to misinformation.

Delete is now…. go forth and prosper.

“The man takes a drink, the drink takes a man” – Stephen King, the shinning.

Of course, deleting social media brings some drawback. Perhaps loosing contact with people you love. Perhaps missing news and cultural relevance and meme’s. But is this all worth your health… Smoking has upsides, it lowers stress levels, it helps with social interaction and it helps with getting breaks at work… but it causes cancer.

Looks at social media as you do any other substance. If you are able to dabble, once a week or twice a month. Go ahead keep it. If you are on there every day… get it gone. It is a addiction that has been allowed by society. Yet, it is far more destructive than cannabis, and less fun than cocaine or MDMA (I do not promote the use of illegal drugs, its a joke).

Remember it is love that must triumph over evil… Hatred opens only doors filled with corridors of confusion and anger.