In Brattleboro, Vermont, the community bulletin board outside the food co-op is five feet tall and perpetually full. Flyers for yoga classes overlap with hand-drawn posters for town meetings. A printed newsletter called "The Commons" circulates to 4,000 households — in a town of 12,000.
Brattleboro is not unique in having a bulletin board. What makes it notable is the reason people give for using it: they deleted their social media accounts, and they needed somewhere else to go.
The Opt-Out Movement
The narrative around social media deletion typically focuses on individuals — a person who deactivated Instagram for their mental health, a family that went "screen-free." But in a growing number of communities, the decision to leave social media has become collective.
In interviews with residents across six towns in Vermont, Oregon, and North Carolina, a pattern emerged: one person leaves, talks about it, and creates permission for others to follow. Within a year or two, a critical mass forms — enough people offline that offline alternatives become viable.
The Infrastructure of Connection
What replaces the feed? The answer varies by community, but common patterns emerge:
Physical bulletin boards serve as the analog equivalent of a town's Facebook group. They require maintenance — someone has to remove expired flyers, manage space — but that maintenance creates a form of community stewardship that algorithms eliminated.
Phone trees have made a quiet comeback. In Ashland, Oregon, a network of 200 households uses a structured phone tree for emergency communication, event planning, and mutual aid coordination.
Printed newsletters fill the information gap. Several communities have launched or revived local print publications, funded by subscriptions and local advertising.
What's Lost, What's Gained
The people I spoke with were honest about what they miss. "I don't know what my college friends are up to anymore," said one Brattleboro resident. "But I know what my neighbors are up to, and that feels more important right now."
Originally published in MIT Technology Review, January 2024.