It’s been around a month now since I uninstalled all the social media apps from my phone.

Instagram, Reddit, and X (Twitter) that I used to use heavily I just deleted those apps.

So I think this topic or experiment is not something new over the Internet. I myself have read lots of blog posts and reports on this topic, but for me, I wanted to experiment myself and see what difference it really makes.

A backstory

I think it all started way back in 2020–21 when Covid hit and everyone was locked into their houses. At that time, I was in my second year of engineering, and like everyone else, I had a lot of time and was mindlessly spending a lot of time on the Internet just watching things and wasting time. Until I watched this documentary called “The Social Dilemma.” After watching this documentary, it was an “Ahhhh” moment for me. After that time, I deleted Instagram, and it did help me as that mindless scrolling stopped. And I did focus on the things that I really needed to.

How it started

But for the last 3 years, it feels like I have been using all these social media platforms heavily and had tried quitting them or deleting them but was never able to do it. Last month (Dec 2025), I just deleted those apps. I think deleting Instagram and Reddit was not an issue for me, as I felt that using this two apps I was just wasting my time (here I’m talking about doom scrolling and not reading anything informative on Reddit, though I believe Reddit is a very good platform if you want to hear opinions on specific topics; whenever I need something, I add Reddit at the end of the search. I even read somewhere that major information we get from ChatGPT is scraped from Reddit itself) .

But for X (Twitter), I felt it was more of a platform where I used to get the latest updates about tech and, in general, what is happening, so I felt like I should not delete this app as I was just reading things and getting information. I decided I should delete X (Twitter) as well.

Within days after deleting those apps, I felt something different. As I WFH, whenever I felt like taking a break, I used to pick up my phone and start scrolling on X to see what’s happening around, and I used to spend more time than I intended to. Now, as I deleted those apps, sometimes I used to pick up my phone and search for X, and suddenly I realized wait, I have deleted those apps. (After retrospect, I started to see a pattern whenever I used to feel frustrated and not doing anything, I just used to open this app and start scrolling.)

Was it helpful?

Short answer: Yes. But I would like to explain in detail what difference I feel and whether I would like to continue not using social media.

As I mentioned, Instagram and Reddit were worst for me because I used to spend endless time on these platforms, and as people call it “brain rot.” But X was something that I missed, though for me, Hacker News was something I used to open first thing in the morning and glance through all the topics on the first page. Here, I was getting most of the information happening around tech and in general, but something was still missing.

Then I thought should I start reading newspapers? Because this was something that I wanted to do for quite a while, but I used to just say to myself, why do you need newspapers? You already have the Internet, and all the information is readily available online, and you can go and read whatever you want.

Suddenly, I realized the whole point of me deleting Twitter was that if I committed some time to scroll X, I used to go into a loophole on some random topics or controversies that were happening. And I felt NO, I was not preferring online news. I took a newspaper subscription, and till now, I think it was a good decision that I took. I WFH, so whenever I feel like taking a break, I just get up from my chair and read some articles and then get back to work (though in the morning, I used to spend around 30 minutes reading the sections that I found interesting). From a larger perspective, if I see, I got to know a lot about Indian government policies and what all things are happening around me. (Some will say you do get news from other platforms it’s true, we do get news on other platforms.) But while reading a physical newspaper, I will not get distracted and go off-topic and just doom scrolling things.

Another topic that I would like to talk a bit about is spirituality. As someone born in a Hindu family, growing up, I have been taught to pray to God and believe in Him. I have always been curious to learn more about it but never spent time (or should I say I was busy doom scrolling and feeding my brain with unwanted things). Srimad Bhagavad Gita is a Hindu scripture which I already wanted to read because I have heard a lot about it from movies like Oppenheimer, where he quotes a verse from the Gita, and also Sam Altman talking about conciseness. Finally, I have bought the book and started reading it (I would like to share more on this topic in later blogs).

Sleep cycle, As someone who is very much into the gym and calisthenics, I was already conscious about my sleep. But there used to be days when I went to bed and felt like I would just take a peek and sleep, but it used to be hours long. And when I used to get up in the morning, I could feel the difference in my eyes.

One important thing that I have observed is that even if some day I sleep late due to any reason, if the next day I try getting up early, I feel sleepy but anyway I get up. But on the nights where I used to spend time scrolling before sleeping, in the morning I used to feel that irritation in my eyes and no will to get up. Now, once I go to bed, I just keep my phone aside and sleep.

Final thoughts

I think overall, as a person, I’m getting more time to do things that I wanted to do for a while now, earlier my brain used to choose the easy path of doom scrolling rather than doing something which had been on my TODO list for years. All the benefits I have discussed above are something I think a normal person also follows in day-to-day life. For me, this was more of an experiment where I wanted to see how exactly it feels to totally get rid of this thing. I’m planning to continue this “social media dieting” and see what all things I can achieve once I aspire and start taking baby steps.

One most important thing that I’m really happy about is this blog post itself. I have been thinking of writing for quite a while, but it’s just that I felt like this topic was vague and too simple, and why would someone read my blog post? Until I realized it’s not about someone reading your blog it’s more about you penning down your thoughts for more clarity and for your future self. And in the way, if someone reads this blog and benefits from it, then it’s the cherry on the cake.

See you until next time.

Om Tat Sat

Hi, It’s been a while since my last blog post, and during this time, I’ve contemplated sharing many insights and experiences. However, procrastination got the better of me, and those topics remained on the back burner. But today, I’m excited to dive into some technical insights I’ve learned the hard way

So I have been working with Go for quite a while now. And recently I learned something interesting about Go that I wanted to share.

Defer in Go

If you know about Go you already know what defer is in Go. Let’s get some basics clear, defer is something in Go that executes at the end of the function. Below is the simple Hello World program.

// Playground link : https://go.dev/play/p/PLLlz_4evLp 

package main

import "fmt"

func helloWorld() {
	fmt.Println("Hello world")
}

func main() {

	fmt.Println("Inside the main")
	defer helloWorld()

	fmt.Println("main exit")
}

Output of the program is

Inside the main
main exit 
Hello world 

Some of the common use cases of the defer it is used for Closing. It can be a file close or an HTTP call close.

f , err := os.Open("test.txt")
if err != nil{
	 log.Fatalf("Not able to open the file %v\n",err)
}
defer f.Close()
..... 
....

Using multiple defer in a single function

// Playground link : https://go.dev/play/p/NeD_6xN2WgT
package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	defer fmt.Println(1)
	defer fmt.Println(2)
	defer fmt.Println(3)
	fmt.Println("The count is")
}

This Prints “The count is 3,2,1”. We will go into an explanation in some time. These are some of the ways we can use defer.

:money_with_wings: Now comes a question that cost me 100 bucks. :money_with_wings:

// Playground link : https://go.dev/play/p/-ZWpgjraTxc

package main

import "fmt"

func helloWorld() func() {
	fmt.Println("Inside the hello World")

	return func() {
		fmt.Println("Exit from Hello World")
	}
}

func main() {

	fmt.Println("Inside main")
	defer helloWorld()()
	fmt.Println("Exit")
}

Before seeing the answer can you guess what the output will be?

If you are naive like me you will say the below output.

Inside main
Exit
Inside the hello World
Exit from Hello World

But the correct output is

Inside main
Inside the hello World
Exit
Exit from Hello World

Now let’s dig deeper into how defer works internally.

The above example that we saw was we were printing three ints using defer. Internally when the defer is registered it gets stored in the stack. Once the function returns the defer calls get executed in a LIFO(Last In First Out) manner just like stack.

Now that you have a basic understanding of how defer works. Let’s dig deeper into the code which cost me 100 bucks. Inside the main we are deferring the helloworld function if you read the helloworld function carefully we can see the return types of the helloworld is function itself and when we are calling the helloworld function using defer we have two parenthesis where we are saying to call the return function as well. When the defer statement is evaluated it stores the return function of helloworld to stack and executes the helloworld function which causes the Inside the hello World to print then finally before the main function exits the defer statement is executed which prints the Exit from Hello World .

Do the defer statements execute after the return or before the return of the function?

I had this query and after going through lots of blog posts I was just getting more and more confused. Some of them mentioned that defer is executed just before the return statement of the function and some mentioned after the return function

Let’s refer to one of the examples from Defer, Panic, and Recover blog post at the start of the post there is a statement that got me confused.

A defer statement pushes a function call onto a list. The list of saved calls is executed after the surrounding function returns.

Here it mentions that the list of saved calls is executed after the surrounding function returns . In the third example of the blog post we see a function c() which is returning 1 for variable i and if we print it will give 2 which is expected as the defer function is executed after the return of the function c() and inside the defer execution we are incrementing the value of variable i.

func c() (i int) {
    defer func() { i++ }()
    return 1
}

func main(){
   fmt.Println(c())
}

Now let’s consider the below example

// Playground link : https://go.dev/play/p/999swx0tgNi\

package main

import "fmt"

func Tell(txt string) {
	fmt.Println(txt)
}

func hello() string {
	defer Tell("inside method")
	return "inside"
}

func main() {
	fmt.Println(hello())
	Tell("outside")
}

Here I was expecting the output to be

inside 
inside method
outside

I was thinking of the hello return’s inside so it should be printed first and then the defer function print should have happened. But this is not what we get when we run the program. I stumbled upon this defer statement spec (https://go.dev/ref/spec#Defer_statements) and after reading it twice it started making sense. If you read this line carefully

That is, if the surrounding function returns through an explicit return statement, deferred functions are executed after any result parameters are set by that return statement but before the function returns to its caller.

It mentions that defer functions are executed after any result parameters are set by that return statement but before the function returns to its caller. The last 8 words where it all started making sense to me.

So we can conclude that defer functions are executed after the return statement of the executing function but before the returns to its caller that was the reason in the above example the first print was inside method and not inside because here before return to the caller it also executed the defer statement which printed the inside method.

Conclusion

You must be still thinking was this some production bug that cost me 100 bucks? No, it wasn’t we had a small quiz kind of thing organised by one of the leads at my workspace where we have this exercise about Golang defer whoever loses has to pay 100 bucks and if you win you get 100 bucks. You can guess from the title I lost. But it sparks the curiosity in me to learn how exactly defer works internally and learn about all the gotchas.

I learned a lot’s of things about defer during this whole process.I hope you found this blog helpfull. If you have any queries or concerns do reach out to me on my socials.

Reference

https://go.dev/blog/defer-panic-and-recover

https://blog.learngoprogramming.com/gotchas-of-defer-in-go-1-8d070894cb01 (I highly recommend reading 3 part series on defer Gotchas by Inanc Gumus)

Well, it’s been 4 Months since I came back from KubeCon EU 2023 and this blog post has been on my TODO list since then but the more I thought of writing about it there were some more priority things to do and I had to deprioritize this Blog post. But now after spending some weekends on it, I have just pinned down the experience I had attending my first KubeCon.

I think this blog post will be a letter to me that will remind me of the things that I might forget in the long run.

Overview

As the title says this blog post will be my experience of attending my first KubeCon and maybe will be my thought of going on my first international flight or should I say my life’s first flight. Yes, it’s true this was my first time sitting on the flight.

Just a heads-up through this blog post you will not find me attending many talks as my motivation was to interact with as many people as possible.

First Day

18 April: The first day of the KubeCon was co-localted and sponsored co-located events. As this was the first time CiliumCon was happening I was very excited to attend that event.

I attended the talk The Cilium Story - Why We Created Cilium - Thomas Graf .It’s been a while since I have been following the Cilium project and Thomas as well I had already watched some of his old videos talking about cilium but attending it in person was a different kind of experience from me.His talk was mostly about Cilium and other projects that he and his company built like Hubble, Tetragon etc. and I like his Slide specifically where he mentioned eBPF superpower and showed eleven from Stranger Things. After this talk, I wanted to attend sponsor co-located events the main confusion was which one should I go to because there were lots of them happening at the same time.

As the event took place in a different venue this was a good opportunity for us to explore the beautiful city as well. We decided to go for the Azure Day Hosted by Microsoft which was quite a distance from the main venue but we went there anyway and we good chance to interact with some folks where we discussed DevOps, interviews and how living and working from Amsterdam feels like because the folks with whom we interacting with one of them was India and she shared how she is living in Amsterdam from last 2 years and what it feels like.

Second Day and Third Day

19,20 April: Officially the event started and it was sad that I was a bit late and due to which I didn’t get the opportunity to sit in the main Hall where the Keynote was happening(and the reason was it was already full) and we where ask to sit in a different room where the live stream was played.

Once the keynote finished all the booths were open and the swag hunt started. 🫣

My main plan for the next 2 days was to go to most of the booths interact with them and learn about the different projects. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed as there were a lot of them. The whole day was spent interacting with lots of people and learning about different projects.

Some of the projects that I liked the most

1. Akuity : As I already have some experience working with Argocd. This was something that caught my interest and the people behind the company was the creator of Argocd Itself. It was Cool to see how they were offering some of the awesome features on top of Argocd.
2. Isovalent : Well I think I should say this(If you ask me was there any booth where you spend the most of your time . It will surely be Isovalent). Here I got an opportunity to meet Liz rice. It was a fanboy moment for me and well I was also able to get the signed copy of the ebpf book from Lize Rice after spending hours in the queue but it was worth it.
3. Cerbos: Though I didn’t get an opportunity to take a deeper look at their product after the brief overview it seems that Cerbos helps users separate their authorization process from their core application code.
4. Groundcover: This is the project that is used to monitor your whole k8s cluster what I liked most about it is they were using eBPF Instrumentation. And they offer a Cool dashboard for that.

Fourth Day

21 April: I was the Scholarship recipient to attend this conference. They also organized a Mentoring session where we got a chance to interact with Industry leaders from some Big Companies. The best part about this session was how it was organized it was for 60 min and they divided the time into 3 sections for 20 min each where we could go on different tables based on our preference to discuss about the things we wanted like career, technical, community, anything.

Here when I want to the technical table there I got and the opportunity to interact with people from different countries sharing their life experience the fun part was here we didn’t swap our tables as we spent 40 minutes talking about different technology, freelancing, community, managers and whatnot. And I think this was best spend 60 min for me.After that I attended my last talk of the Day i.e. Keeping It Simple: Cilium Networking for Multicloud Kubernetes - Liz Rice

Can you spot me? 😄

Conclusion

For me attending this event was a whole different experience in many terms as travelling to a whole new country, meeting people from different walks of life, talking with them and getting a different view on how things are and from me It has just started.

Namaste 🙏 , It’s been a while I have been thinking about creating a new website for me but procrastination was always been in my way. Finally, I’m here with the new website I always used to think of what does it feels like to have your portfolio and sharing your life experience with other people.

I will post all the content that I’m learning let it be technical or non-technical and also will like to know your comment on it.