Conversations

Routine is extremely important. With routine the question is not “whether you can be bothered” but “I will do this.” You go from asking “if” to automatically assuming that on Wednesday morning you will ride, and sunday morning you will ride. If a ride is cancelled for A or B then you’re asking “if”, but you’re also making other plans.

This weekend, for example, I saw that it would rain today. I assumed that the ride would be cancelled so psychologically I shifted my plans. I went for a group raclette and when the meal was over I stayed for a digestif, and then another, and then we went out. In the end I got home at 3:56 or so, and I went to sleep at 5 in the morning. That’s both really late, and really early. If I had got up for the bike ride I would have had two hours of sleep.

A few days ago someone wrote something about chocolate croissants. I then wrote something about Chocolate easter bunnies. A third person then said “please don’t have conversations, there are hundreds of people reading this exchange”. This is on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is, or at least was, an IM client. For those of a certain age an IM client is a conversation app. It’s the type of app that includes AIM, ICQ, Messenger, Skype and many, many more apps. Its raison d’être is to encourage conversations.

Yesterday it happened again on Whatsapp. Someone said ‘avoid having too much chatter on this group, there are hundreds of people. When I see such messages it frustrates me because at its core Whatsapp is designed for people to have conversations. The idea that we would join Whatsapp chats, to speak very little, to me is absurd. Whatsapp is designed for instant messaging. This is not a cloister where we have taken a vow of silence. This is a social network.

People on FB have pigeon holed me as negative, and don’t understand why I am this way. The reality is that I believe the algorithms highlight when I am negative, rather than positive. I also think that there is a certain amount of bias against me. I post plenty of positive things but I think algorithms hide them or the subconscious does.

A Temporary Shift to Threads

Since women, who are mothers, and may never be alone for the rest of their lives think that I am too negative on FB I will take a network from that anti-social network, to experiment with threads.

Recently I was added into a Whatsapp group where people discuss things to do in Geneva as well as more interesting activities a drive from Geneva. I was given admin privilieges on Whatsapp to organise events. In connection to this I shared activity ideas, interesting videos and more related to the topic. Yesterday someone objected to how much I posted so I started a private chat to converse, and when that was done I deleted the post that had triggered him.

Recently I have been thinking more about trolling. I have been thinking about why, I, and others, appear so negative or toxic on social media. I believe that one reason for this is that algorithms drive conversations and popularity, rather than time devoted to social media, and conversationalism.

Return on Investment Then and Now

By this I mean that if I spent 20 hours on social media in 2006 or 2007 I would have spent 20 hours watching conversations between friends, and friends of friends. Today if I spend twenty hours on social media I may see three or four posts by friends, and hundreds from groups, and that are chosen by algorithms. The result is that the social circle that I built in 2006-2007 was a tight knit community of friends.

A few days ago I was asked once again why I wore two watches and I gave the usual answer of “this is my GPS watch and that is my Smartwatch”. People still fail to understand so I elaborate and that’s where I saw that blogging is useful.

When you write blog posts daily, for weeks, months, or even years in a row you get into the habit of elaborating on thoughts. Many years ago I thought that using Twitter made me short winded, maybe even succinct. With blogging I feel that the opposite is true. I don’t mean that it makes me long winded. I mean that it gets me to elaborate on ideas.

There is a case for reverting to web forums. Web forums are small communities of like minded people that form around topics, ideas, or ideals. They want to have conversations where you look at topics and sub topics, rather than following people. By having conversations on a smaller scale there is more waiting around for answers, but the connections should be more worthwhile.

Recently the ActivityPub plugin for Wordpress jumped to version 1.0.0 from version 0.0.something. In so doing I expected to find that two way conversations would be possible from wordpress to the Fediverse, and back from the Fediverse to WordPress and ClassicPRess.

Social Media and the Human Return on Investment, because contrary to popular belief we use social networks to socialise, not to shop. As we grow older and more mature our close network of friends changes and evolves. We go from school friends to university friends and then to professional friends. In the process we move from a village to another village, from a town to another town and eventually from one city to another. In the process the links we have with some friends strengthen and others degrade over time. This is modern life. I find it hard to discern whether the return on time invested on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others is decreasing because people’s understanding of these social networks is shifting or whether it is related to growing up. As the people I know get married and have children their priorities change and privacy becomes more important. We have to keep the children safe. Facebook, as a social network is less engaging than it used to be. The people I have as friends post less frequently, the events we can participate in together is shifting and the content shown in timelines is evolving. To compensate for the decline in friends engaging in social networks like twitter and Facebook people are following publications, brands and news sources. This flow of information is tailored to the lowest common denominator. The sensationalist writing style discourages me from following these sources of information. I have a concern that what were social networks until two or three years ago have become advertising networks on which people occasionally socialise and interact with other individuals. I feel that a bigger and bigger portion of the time that people spend on advertising networks is looking at mainstream content and comments. On Facebook as I scroll down the timeline I notice an increasing number of adverts. Personal posts are less and less frequent. Has the community left this “social” network? I have spent years thinking about online communities and how they interact. During this time I have seen the ebb and flow from one type of community to another across multiple platforms and applications. Within the next two to five years social networks will be virtual reality environments such as we saw with World of Warcraft, Everquest and Second Life. The question is whether people will want to socialise in virtual reality or whether it will be populated by gamers. Every online social network is stigmatised. This stigmatisation prevents people from fully exploiting the potential of social networks. We see this stigma through the use of dating apps rather than Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social networks. Dating apps are stigmatised but at least you swipe left or right and you’re done. ;-). You’re only “active” for a few seconds at a time. On Facebook and twitter you need to be active for hours, days, weeks or even months… You have to be careful. You may be stigmatised. ;-) Now that most people see social networks as a waste of time it gives us more time to do other things. It gives us time to read, to do research, to watch television and even to go two or three hours without looking at a mobile or computer screen. Imagine that. ;-) I believe that on the one hand the stigmatisation of Social networks as a waste of time has discouraged people from using them to their full potential. As a result of this people feel comfortable spending ten to fifteen minutes a day on these networks. On the other hand I see marketers, public relations specialists and advertisers push for their campaign to be seen. As peer to peer communication goes down and human return on investment (ROI) decreases, and as marketing campaigns take over the timelines they are effectively closing the door on people’s motivation to spend time reading through their timeline.

[caption id=“attachment_2438” align=“aligncenter” width=“554”] As an extrovert of course you’d believe this. As a mid to late adopter you’d also believe this.[/caption] Introverts who are not going to compete with extroverts, through social media, have an opportunity to have friendships and interactions that would otherwise not occur. To say that Social media makes is unsociable is a fallacy. When I was a uni student the second time around I was socialising with fellow students all throughout the day and I was also active in social media. In 2007-2009 facebook was my university friend network. Twitter was strangers. Facebook was an extension of my physical social life. Twitter was an opportunity to meet new people. It helped me meet people from tuttle. It introduced me to Seesmic when it was in Alpha. I conversed with some of the big names of the time and went to podcamps. I was invited to Leweb in Paris in 2009 and we met had seesmic meetups a number of times More recently playing Ingress by Niantic Labs has helped me meet people in Paris, lausanne, Fribourg, Geneva, Nyon and other places. To say that social media makes people less social is to ignore that people use social media for conversations, not for brands. The fallacy of most “social media professionals”, “Social media experts” and other “social media” snake oil practitioners is that they go home to a spouse or better half. They have no need to create a relationship with the people they are interacting with. As they do not create relationships with those who use social media they are kicking dust in the Atacama desert in the hope to raise enough dust to create a nucleus to which water will collect and fall as rain water. There is a shift in social media today. It is a shift away from conversations especially on websites such as twitter and facebook towards brand brainwashing. As a result of this facebook and twitter have lost engagement. That is not to say that other niche social networks are not benefiting from the ground broken by Facebook and twitter. In particular I am thinking of websites for slow ups and other group activities. I’m thinking of OVS (on vas sortir), Glocals (Geneva Locals) and many other social networks. I notice that the expatriated and international community benefit strongly from websites that encourage groups of people to do communal activities. Thanks to Glocals I scuba dived every single weekend for more than a year, I learned about Via Ferrata and loved the sport, I finally got to rock climb, I enjoyed canyoning and more. The idea that luddites can constantly bash social interactions via computers and electronic devices fatigues me. You know what the most amusing thing is about the people who say that social media reduces conversations is? Their one word answer. :-D. Don’t you just love the irony?