Social Media

At some point in the last ten years - call it 2017 or 2018 - I reduced all of my social media use.  Mostly Twitter, but arguably that's where I did most of my posting.  I learned a ton from the folks on Twitter in the early 2010s, but at some point I noticed that Twitter wasn't what it once was.  Thousands of cuts seemed to have taken it from an information-dense firehose of select people's thoughts, to an information-sparse firehose of thoughts deemed most pertinent to me.  Deemed pertinent by whom, though?

If you used Twitter in this era, you may think I'm blaming one of the following:

• Chronological Feed is no longer default
• Ads
• Verified Status
• Engagement farming gains prevalence
• Chronological feed no longer even exists
• Users that are not logged in can no longer view tweets
• I'm sure I'll think of more and add them later

Well, you're right (at least, to some degree.  there's a whole ton of reasons to get off these platforms these days).  I don't love Twitter's new owner & what he's done with the place, but I also checked out long before he took it over. Admittedly, I did not delete my account until well after, but that's neither here nor there.  Some of this is Twitter-specific, but a lot of it is actually internet-specific.  

Consider:

• Instagram
  • was a handy way to keep a public & shareable photo gallery
  • Ephemeral "Reels" or "Stories" or "TV" are now clearly the primary focus
  • People who are not logged in can not access a users page any more
  • The quality of images seems to be reduced past a certain date
  • Users can not link out from a post - only from their profile
• Google
  • used to be a great way to search for knowledge
  • Top billing now goes to an AI blurb that can not guarantee truthiness
  • Next best billing goes towards whichever ad is deemed most relevant/profitable
  • After the AI slop & ads you might find a result (that hasn't been paid for) from another website, but that site's war to stay relevant in Google's indexing of the web means:
    • They started writing lists instead of articles (easier to digest for humans and machines)
    • They've pivoted to video to appease what seemed like a more promising monetization avenue (*harder* to digest for machines, but more time consuming for humans = more advertisment surface)
    • They're using AI to write articles to keep up with the brutal cadence needed to be considered "actively updated" by the algorithm

You can tell I'm getting emotional when I'm indenting my lists 3 layers deep.

I could keep going (Facebook, the IOS App Store), but why bother?  If you're reading this post and it's mildly relevant, you lived through the same enshittification I have.
I'm not old enough to remember the dawn of computing.  But I did have dial-up!  I was a teenager at the exact right time to be a wiz at typing out text messages on a numpad - and being blown away by T9 when it became usable!  As a nerdy, tech loving kiddo that grew up exploring Encarta, the internet represented endless opportunity to connect with & learn from others.  We got to grow up in a very singular time:  during the explosion of the internet.

I believe we are living through another singular time: the collapse of the internet.  This is not a new or novel concept, but I believe this - subconsiously - is what caused me to pull back from social media back in 2017.  These services were controlled by entities that wanted me to engage with them in a way that was counter to how the services originally presented themselves.  I really did just want to keep a little photo album on the web, not create short-form content to drive engagement so I could sell products via paid promotion.  I really did want to know the passing thoughts of people that interested me,  reaching out to chat about ideas that sparked.  Instead, Twitter was optimised for engagement farming, maximizing the impact users had on the internet as a whole rather than just chatting with the 8 other people who cared about generating mazes

*NOTE: there are way more than 8 people who think about mazes on the internet, trust me*

Anyways, I used to tell people I was "just busy with stuff" - and I was - but now I know I was trying to merely exist on these services.  While these platforms allow for mere existence, the tiny adjustments they make to funnel users into desired behaviours makes it difficult to even be visible on them. And if merely existing on these platforms is inconvenient, why would I even bother?

Ultimately, I'm slowly moving to federated platforms. Mastodon replaced Twitter long  ago for me, I'll shift to Pixelfed shortly and nuke my Instagram.  My Facebook is already out of use - I see no reason to replace it.  This year I'll deactivate it, although the amount of people using Messenger gives me pause.  Facebook is the prime example of The Network Effect for me.  The only thing keeping me there is everyone else.

Gradually I'll get this site out from under the Microsoft umbrella (hosted on GitHub right now.  I'll likely spin up a Hetzner instance.), and I'll reach a position where even if I rely on (mostly corporate) entities to host the platforms I use, I'll at least have the flexibility to simply leave when they eventually let me down.

Thanks for taking the time to read.