Social Media

Second thoughts on social media

December 11, 2016
(This guy would fit right in on Twitter these days.)

Two weeks away from Twitter? Yep, I did that recently. It was two of the most enjoyable weeks of my life.

Part of the hiatus was because I was out of the country on vacation with my wife, and even though we had plenty of internet access, family policy is that we don’t advertise when we’re traveling.

But the hiatus was mainly because I’m growing tired of Twitter. When I get on Twitter, I see too much hate, hypocrisy and drama. I see too many people who think they’re funny, trying to crack snarky jokes at someone else’s expense. Too many people who claim to be tolerant, but have no respect for anyone who disagrees with them. Too many people who think they have all the answers and know what’s best for the rest of us. Too much smug self-righteousness.

Yes, I know I’ve been guilty of some of those things in the past. And all of that is why, for now, I’ve had enough.

I see a lot of the same things on Facebook, by the way, but at least there I can click “Hide This Post.” And to Facebook’s credit, it’s starting to understand what I want in my News Feed and what I don’t. I don’t see any of that on Instagram, thankfully, and that’s where I’ve been spending most of my social media time in the past few weeks. I’ve also been blogging more in this space — four posts in November! And one at the end of October!

But as far as Twitter is concerned, I’m not reading as much, not tweeting as much, and when I do tweet, it’s mostly been for work-related content lately. I suspect that’ll continue.

And based on what I described above about the stuff I see on Twitter, not to mention things like fake news, harassment, terrorist recruiting and so forth, I’m just not convinced social media is such a good idea.

1 Comment

  • Reply Phil R December 12, 2016 at 5:32 am

    I will admit that I haven’t joined Twitter, or a multitude of other social media platforms, for a different reason, the tidal wave of updates.

    Because it so easy for someone to open an app, type stuff out, and hit send, there is a bucket ton of material easily thrown out in waves of text. Some of it might be relevant to my life, most will not be. The downside, I need to figure out what is interesting and what is not. Filtering from those I am associated with is the toughest part. With young kids, and no easy access during the work day to social media, there is no point in trying to filter those waves of data.

    Instead, I stick with longer, well thought out material. This could be in various formats, traditional blogs, in depth news, or well produced videos. These are the formats that still take time, still take thought to produce, and lead to new knowledge or interesting content.

    I’m not saying there isn’t good material to be had in Twitter or FB, but I am not concerned about 140 character information bursts, nor re-posts. They just don’t interest me, and I don’t have time to keep up on those snippets.

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