issue 40|elsewhere is here

Our obsession with impact exhausts me.

Everything must be measured, analysed, optimized—our choices now data-driven. As if it weren’t enough that arts and culture got caught in this trap, imprisoning imagination inside charts and PowerPoint presentations, we’ve also adopted the vocabulary of capitalism to define our friendships and love stories: we invest emotions, calculate risks before opening our hearts, swipe, like, and treat one another like commodities. The space for genuine discourse has been swallowed by the clickability of headlines and reels.

We’re being drained daily in the name of profit, and shamelessly asked for constant evaluation at every step of this disheartening path, while self-care has been reduced to self-absorption, detaching it from the deeper necessity of tending to our hearts, minds, and bodies. We deserve more than to be served to the isolation machine built by capitalism.

Of course, technology has always unsettled societies. Each new invention brings fresh fears about the loss of connection, truth, and authenticity. But digital advances have also enabled new ways to communicate across borders, to access knowledge, to reclaim space and tell our stories. I embraced change very easily in my twenties and thirties, always an early adopter.

But in recent years, my desire to keep up has waned. I’ve never opened TikTok. Never joined BeReal. I think Snapchat still exists—does it? I left Twitter/X without regret, though I had built many friendships and meaningful connections there since 2007. I can't recall exactly when I stopped engaging—maybe long before it became X—but somewhere along the way, I lost interest. My Facebook lay dormant for months, maybe years. Today, I finally deleted it.

I’m not saying anything new by blaming social media for a fraying attention span. Still, stepping back slowly feels right. Instagram is the one platform I’ve kept using, but even that has begun to leave me more drained than inspired. Recently, I took a small step: I deleted the app from my phone. It was only accessible on my iPad, and I haven’t opened it in a few days. The existence of my account has still bothered me on some level. Which has pushed me to take yet another step: stating in my bio that “this account’s asleep 😴” and deleting the app from my iPad too. I am not completely deleting my account so that people can find me, access the links to this newsletter, and browse the posts that act like my portfolio. It remains live, only I’m not there.

I won’t get into LinkedIn—I access it only on my desktop, and only for work. It remains a useful tool I am not emotionally connected to. BlueSky is installed, but I rarely open it. It hasn't yet started draining my energy or dulling my sense of beauty. Instagram, unfortunately, has.

Last night, I rewatched The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher (with the insanely good score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). Over a decade since I first saw it. This time, it hit harder.

Knowing what we now know about Zuckerberg, about platforms, about the values that have shaped our digital worlds — it left me thinking. Grieving.

For a long time, I stayed on Instagram because I believed it could still be a space for beauty. A place to share photographs, little fragments of writing, moments of light and presence. And for a while, it was. I met people there. I found inspiration. I used it like a visual diary — slow, reflective, sincere.

But lately, it feels different. The pressure to perform, the algorithmic noise, the sense that everything must compete for attention — it’s stifling. I don’t feel the same freedom I once did. Instagram no longer feels like the right place for my photography, or my voice.

But I want to stay with the possibility of beauty. I want to keep seeking it — in my work, my art, every essay, every translation, every gesture. That desire is what gradually led me back to photography in a more grounded way.

I let go of the weight — literally. I sold my Canon 5D Mark III and all its beautiful but bulky lenses. My Sony failed me on my last day in Bali, which felt like a sign. So when I returned to Amsterdam, I traded in the unused gear for something that fits my hands, my eyes, and my pace. I kept the Sony for its sentimental value (and for video), but the rest is gone.

My new companion is the FUJI X100VI — light, beautiful, and always with me. I even found the perfect camera bag from an Australian brand called Urth. I love it because it doesn’t scream camera bag (and no, this isn’t sponsored — I just really love it).

All of this has made me rethink my online presence.

Why do I need to be on Instagram?

The answer is simple: I don’t.
And more importantly: I don’t want to be.

I don’t want to scroll through algorithm-fed content instead of reading the essays and books waiting patiently on my shelf. I don’t want to trade my creative energy for empty digital engagement. I’d rather listen to a podcast, take photographs, write something meaningful — or do nothing at all.

I’m not here to be read by millions. I want to be read with care.

Your presence here matters to me. I’m grateful for it. I want to nurture this community with intention. And if it grows, I hope it grows organically.

I feel lucky I grew up in a world without the internet, before the rise of digital tools. I spent years shooting with analogue cameras, and lately, I’ve reconnected with that slower way of seeing. I've been using my late grandmother’s camera — a Samsung Fino 700xi — and it means more than a gesture of digital detox.

There’s something powerful about walking through the world with that camera in my hands, archiving moments, colours, and light onto a roll of film. A camera my grandmother touched. It keeps me tethered to her memory, to her stories. In a way, I’m building my own legacy after hers.

Recently, thanks to a gift from my father, I received another treasure: my late grandfather’s Super8 Canon from the 1960s. A true gem. I haven’t used it yet — it will be a costly endeavour, both in time and money — but I’m committed to exploring it. I want to honour it. To create something that bridges memory, heritage, and movement. 

And all of this — this attention, this presence — is something no social media platform can offer me. 

I am hungry for patience. For nuance.
I think we’re all hungry for this — but not all of us can choose it. Because it does have a cost.

There are things I will lose by stepping away from social media platforms like Instagram, BlueSky, and Facebook:

• I’ll miss access to grassroots voices that don’t always have other platforms to express themselves.

• I’ll miss funny videos, cute animals, stunning photography, spontaneous cultural discoveries.

• I’ll miss the ease of sharing something beautiful or urgent with friends in a single tap.

• I’ll miss visibility — to potential collaborators, clients, or curious wanderers (although my account is still accessible, but without being active, I am not building connections)

• I’ll miss sharing my vision of the world, and curating information I believe is worth passing on.

But I’m willing to let go of accessing those things through these specific platforms (there are other ways of sharing and gaining knowledge, and building connections). Because what I gain feels more aligned with the life I want to lead and the work I wish to create and share.

This newsletter is part of that rhythm. It’s not for nothing that I called it the attention span. From the beginning, I’ve sought to create a space to connect with care — and for that, I need to be attentive.

I’ve also made a deliberate choice not to use Substack, even as more writers migrate there. I know it offers reach, growth, possibility for financial gain and community. But I’m choosing not to chase likes or paid subscriptions. I don’t want loud buttons shouting “subscribe now” at the end of every paragraph. I don’t want to sacrifice beautiful design or thoughtful pacing for another growth model. (If you’d like to support my work, there’s always a quiet link to PayPal at the bottom of every newsletter issue. Some of you already have, and I’m deeply grateful.)

Self-publishing is part of my artistic practice. And social media platforms — Instagram, Facebook, BlueSky — no longer fit my vision for how I want to create and share. That’s okay. They’re just not for me. Not for now.

I may regret it later (I did build a nice following), and I may return differently. I am extremely lucky that I can afford not to be on a social media platform right now. I have made another choice to generate a living — and that work already takes a tremendous amount of my energy and headspace.

Every choice comes with its own cost. That’s just what life is. 

We make choices taking into account a variety of factors. I have tried to share some of my reasoning. This is not an invitation for you to quit social media. I would never presume to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do. I just know for myself that every Instagram post I won’t create, every BlueSky share I won’t participate in, every Facebook like I won’t see — will bring me closer to what is essential to me. 

Stepping away from one space does not mean disappearing. It’s recognizing that, for now, elsewhere is here.

A FEW THINGS THAT MAKE ME THINK AND FEEL…

• I have been catching up with every episode of The Photo Ethics Podcast, ever since I have listened to the episode with Aida Muluneh: On authenticity This isn’t only relevant for photographers, but for anyone working with people’s stories and images, especially if you are generating visibility and financial gain from their stories.

• Talking about different ways of publishing, I came across a book at my favourite local bookstore Fort van Sjakoo, titled .expub: Exploring Expaned Publishing Edited by Tommaso Campagna, Marta Ceccarelli, Carolina Valente Pinto and available for free on the Institute of Network Cultures website. The book is the final publication of a two-year collaborative project exploring the infrastructures, politics, and networks of contemporary publishing.

• In this 30 min documentary on ARTE TV’s Twist programme, Digital Detox: A Passion for Analogue we meet artists who choose analogue over digital, like Andreas Mühle who shoots exclusively on film, and Joséphine Vallé Franceschi who walks the streets of Paris with a Lomo camera. 

ABOUT + SUPPORT

Canan Marasligil (she/they) is a writer, literary translator and artist based in Amsterdam. She established the attention span website and its newsletter to publish their work independently: making the time to reflect, analyse and imagine.

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