This year has been a reevaluation and purging of unnecessary and distracting online account and interactions, and the latest that I’ve decided to say goodbye to is Goodreads, the social media site focused on sharing books and book reviews. I have deleted my account and it feels great.

I joined Goodreads way back in 2011 when a friend introduced me to it. It seemed like the perfect form of social media for me – book nerds posting about what they were reading, etc. But over time it was clearly more about showing off how many books you supposedly read and reviewers trying to game the system, which only got worse when Amazon purchased it in 2013. Then I started getting contacted by individual authors trying to sell me on their book, again trying to mess with the Amazon sales ranking, while Amazon pushed hard for me to buy books through their site, which I’ll never do.

Beyond that normal internet bullshit, I began to realize it was altering how I read books. I’d be part way through a book and my brain would say, “Okay, what would you rate this on Goodreads as of right now?” It was stupid, a distraction, but I stayed on the site, and put a widget for my current reads on this site, because modern day authors are supposed to do all this bullshit to attract and keep an audience in the attention economy, which has only gotten progressively worse.

Well screw all that.

I downloaded my books-to-read list and turned it into a spreadsheet. Done, simple. I read books to enjoy and learn from them, not to try to hold them over someone else’s head saying, “Here’s how many pages I read last year, I’m so much better than you!” Goodreads may have started out with laudable goals, such as increasing conversations about books, but once Amazon bought it, it was about data mining the crap out of everything, targeting you, and trying to sell more books and crush real bookstores.

I’m out. If you’re on Goodreads, ask yourself why. What are you really getting out of it? I’ll continue to occasionally post on here about what I’m reading or have read, and my thoughts on said books. But only in the hopes of having a conversation, of connecting with other book lovers, and learning more about myself. For me, putting down what I think in words in the best way to clarify my thoughts. With all its far-reaching tentacles, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to totally free myself from Amazon’s clutches, but at least I’ve severed one of the branches, and I’ll better off for it.