I saw a video the other day that explained it perfectly, that photos were being composed, produced, edited and posted to get responses from other people. Chasing the algorithm.

“Photography isn’t about validation, it’s about observation.”

I’m not sure I had distilled it down so clearly on my own, but I know I had stress over the responses I received or didn’t receive. The entire point of taking pictures is for me to express my own creativity rather than impressing others, but I had fallen into a trap of posting for recognition instead of taking a picture because I saw something that made me stop and notice. Thus my removal of all of my social media presence some time ago. And quite honestly, I haven’t missed it a bit.