Discovering new blogs
I need ways to discover new blogs. So I can't really imagine jettisoning social media in favour of blogs alone. I'm not sure I would be able to discover new valuable blogs without the likes, boosts, or similar that indicate a blog post might be worth a read. Perhaps I'm therefore stuck with the lower signal to noise ratio of social media.
A select few of the blogs in my feedreader I found through Mastodon. Most of them, however, I discovered simply by following links from other blogs. Whenever the mood strikes, and I have a bit of extra time, I like to explore the webrings and directories in my footer to hunt for new and interesting additions to my feedreader.
It's taken quite a bit of time to shake the impulse of reaching for social media when I want to discover something new. But these I go most weeks without visiting any social media platform. Forums notwithstanding.