Recently I spent time on Twitter and Facebook and I was reminded of that horrible feeling you get when you’re looking for posts and tweets by friends, to interact with, and see crappy adverts instead. Imagine if you walked into a pub or conference and instead of having personal conversations you were harassed by marketers rather than human beings looking for a human connection.
The reason I dumped FaceBook and then Instagram is that I got tired of not only feeling that I wa wasting my time, whilst making myself feel lonelier, but on top of that someone else was making a profit from me being lost in the time wasting corporate social media landscape.
Twitter and People Selling Crap
Most of the stuff that is being sold via Twitter ads is crap now. You look and it’s con men trying to sell cons, from cryptocurrency, to privacy, to other crap. It’s ironic that they would sell this crap in a place where anyone with any decency, would no longer use.
It’s not the Owner, But The Spam
Of course it bother me that Facebook and Twitter are owned anc controlled by immoral people, and I could look beyond that, if I could find pleasant conversations, rather than see ads. What gets to me about social media is that it’s about making money for people that don’t value us as human beings. That’s why I switched to blogging, rather than social media. With blogging I might devote an hour to per day, but rather than make money for people who see me as an addict, I give people a reason to surf to my website. I also get to explore ideas in the process.
A Feeling of Being Used
Several times I have looked through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter timelines but I quickly become demoralised by the ads, the reminders of what my life isn’t and more. It’s not that people are using Facebook and Instagram to converse, they’re using it to broadcast. No one is listening. Everyone is being made invisible by the algorithms, and ignored by those that do see posts. For so little engagement I can write blog posts.
The Apathy of Mastodon
Two days ago noise pollution was making my afternoon hell, and I said so on social media. Rather than empathy though, I found apathy. The beauty of social media is that empathy doesn’t cost anything, whereas apathy can ruin someone’s experience. If we come to social media it’s to find empathy, or at the very least vent, and be ignored.
Networking for Projects
I see people write about using Twitter to make money from the content they create. That’s the wrong attitude. You should be making contacts to work on projects with people, rather than making money from social media. Too many people are utilitarian about social media, which is why it becomes a waste of time for human beings. When everyone is trying to sell, then no one is conversing, and without conversation a blog post would have the same impact, without enriching the wrong people.
A Reminder
I was reminded, while writing this blog post that the reason I became tired with Twitter is that people use it, and the community, rather than participate within it. People are busy promoting themselves and their ideas, without engaging, without investing time in friendships and more. The same people are on Mastodon and the Fediverse.
And Finally
There is a difference between what I want social networks to be, and what others want social networks to be. I will never find social networks that achieve what I want because society labels as social people on the web as addicts, and corporate social media profit from wasting our time in the hope that we will see more ads. I don’t use Facebook for moral reasons. The issue is that it has a monopoly so I am isolated, for not using Facebook.
Today Twitter feels just like Instagram. I know that if I spend too much time on Twitter it will become toxic, so I know I need to moderate how I use it.
Althought the Fediverse is an interesting project I think that the community is still weak. I can go for hours without my timeline refreshing, and when I do engage I am either trolled or ignored.
Some toots did well, but mostly likes and re-shares rather than conversations. What I want to find are conversations.
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