Barnes TechWell… social media is a mess. It has been a mess for a while, but it sure seems like it’s at a near-breaking point.
I have enjoyed social media for a long time. I was an early user of MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, and later Twitter, along with several that didn’t really ever take off.
I really loved connecting with people that I knew but probably didn’t call or see regularly, and it was just an enjoyable space for me early on. When all of them started dropping the timeline in favor of algorithmic content, it slowly started getting worse. I know these companies obsessively measured “engagement,” and I was probably no different. I’m sure it began hooking my curiosity and attention more than before, but it unmistakably became less enjoyable for me. Still, it’s hard to throw that away. There were (and are) still good things about them.
But it kept getting worse. Over time it pushed more and more content designed to enrage people. Politics began to poison social media, and “engagement” metrics rewarded incendiary content, and then scandals like Cambridge Analytica showed that these platforms were easily manipulated by foreign powers to influence people at a frightening scale. Our attention and personal information were essentially for sale to the highest bidder. We were not the customer, our attention and our information were the product to be sold.
Around 2016, I decided I was done supporting this wherever possible. Even if I wasn’t directly supporting companies like Facebook, I was making them money by using the platform, and I felt gross about it. With Twitter, I had a similar feeling if I used the main Twitter app, but luckily Twitter still supported 3rd party apps, which is what I used. 3rd party apps just hit the API and would only show me things I chose to follow in the order they happened. No algorithmic bullshit and it was much easier for me to maintain using the platform the way I want to, so I justified staying on it to myself.
I was surprised by a couple of things. First, I missed using Facebook more than I thought I would. To me though, this in a way, validated leaving to myself. It felt like an addiction I had quit in many ways. The second thing that surprised me was that some people were almost mad at me about it and thought I was being self-righteous. I honestly tried not to bring up what I was doing or why I was doing it, but if people asked, I would explain my thoughts. I’ve also never really asked anyone else to do the same unless they repeatedly complained about using it themselves, then I would point out that you can leave if you want to.
Still, who knows? I may have come off as self-righteous in my decision from time to time. It wasn’t my intention, but it may be the case. It was likely part of trying to continue justifying it to myself internally.
Regardless, the main point of me writing anything today is because I am not sure how to feel about it anymore. For a while, right or wrong, I was comfortable in my justifications. 3rd party apps for Twitter and Reddit (which I barely even use, to be honest), and not using Facebook or Instagram. It filled enough of my online “social” needs, but I felt better not supporting how awful I think Facebook is as a company.
Now Elon is running Twitter, and it’s off to a rocky start. I don’t really want to get into the details, partially because I’m sure they will be different even by the time I finish writing this, but however, it turns out, Twitter as we knew it would be burned to the ground one way or another, and if I were betting money, the 3rd party API would likely be on the chopping block at some point. Or it will just break, and no one will be around to fix it. At that point, my usage will significantly decrease, or I will stop altogether. I don’t like the Twitter app, and as Elon needs to make more money, I’m confident it will get worse.
All of this has me thinking about what I should do. Is Twitter that big of a deal to me? Not really, but it’s the only existing social network I have left. I signed up for Mastodon, and it’s neat, but the chances are low that it will take off in a major way. So I’ve been rethinking Facebook again. I do miss the casual social connections with people I have known over the years. I still don’t like the company or Mark, but am I making too big of a deal out of this? I feel somewhat hypocritical for even thinking about this after all the effort I have put in over the last several years, but I do miss the casual connections. It feels like extortion to have those social benefits only available behind an ad-driven attention surveillance machine, but that’s how it is right now. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is that way.
So should I try to ignore the FOMO and keep what I’m doing? Should I try to calm down and just be on social networks? Does this kind of stuff bother anyone else, and if so, how do you think about it?
I would love to know people’s thoughts on this kind of thing.