Blogging, Social Media, and Algorithms
Years ago, when we were on web forums with a dozen or more people we knew each other. Over time web forums and chat rooms became bigger, as more people adopted the World Wide Web. In the process we went from being part of several niche web forums to being part of MySpace, Friendster, Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Plurk and plenty of other sites.
As the number of people on these networks grew exponentially, so our social networks grew exponentially. We went from being part of a forum, to having friends, to followers, to more. In that time our friends were our social network, and more talkative individuals were, the more engagement, and intimate our relationships became. Within this context I mean intimacy, in that we knew how we thought, how we felt, how we lived, what we worked on and more.
With algorithms, and hashtags, and more, those close knit communities that we were part of started to disintegrate, to be replaced by influencers, and trolls, and more. We went from a tight knit community to a viral miasma. It’s poetic irony that this reached a peak when lockdown forced people from the physical world, onto social media, without the rules, and conventions, the netiquette, that some of us had built up over decades of web use.
I bring this up now because I still write a blog post every day. I often struggle to find inspiration for two or three hours. It isn’t easy to find something to write about, daily, for weeks, or months in a row.
On a day, such as today, I saw someone write “But that’s not the question though” and I spent minutes thinking of what to answer. Eventually I gave up. The first issue is that the question is hostile, rather than curious. It’s written by someone thinking about something literally, rather than figuratively. The question was “Should cyclists ALWAYS use bike lanes when available?” and I answered with a question of my own.
“Should vehicle drivers always treat other road users with respect, whether they are cycling, horseback riding, running or hiking?” For me, the first question, about whether cyclists should always use bike lanes, is leading, because it encourages people to think of cyclists as being wrong doers for not using bike lanes, with real life consequences. All road cyclists behave the same way when a car overtakes them dangerously.
The question that I saw on FB is encouraging people to see cyclists in a negative light. The person that said that I didn’t understand the question doesn’t understand the problem.
I could easily write “get on a bike and ride 100km per week and you will understand the absurdity of the question” but I don’t know the person. I don’t know if they cycle regularly. I don’t know anything about them. Without context I cannot answer. Without context I could give an answer that causes offense. Without context I don’t know whether I care what the person thinks.
My response is that this person is part of the literal web. If I say that I am being unkind. That is why I do not.
To a large degree, it is the lack of conversation, and especially the lack of pleasant conversation that encouraged me to revert to blogging years ago. I could see that I was wasting my time, whilst Facebook was making money off of that wasting of time. It’s because I found that I was talking into the wind, that blogging became appealing. If I am talking to no one then I might as well practice writing, and add content to my site.
And Finally
It has become almost impossible to connect with people on social media. Without connecting with people social media is a waste of time. In such a situation blogging makes sensse, because although we might be wasting our time, we are practicing our writing skills, and our ability to elaborate ideas. With social media we bicker without purpose.