Hi Joel, that’s an apt comparison to restaurant smoking sections, and to public smoking in general. The tobacco industry found a way to target vulnerable populations again, with vaping, but the stigma hasn’t gone fully away.
As you may know I deleted my FB profile, because my wife is a federal employee, who could be subject to Trump’s once-and-future schedule F, and I have been unstinting in my criticism of him on FB. So I deleted it for harm-reduction, so that she isn’t harassed at work solely because of me. I started a new, politics-free, profile, but had a revelation in the process. Before I’d even friended a single person, or clicked anything, my feed was an endless scroll of ads and reels. This made me realize how I’d slowly gotten used to an increasing percentage of garbage content. So I resolved to only look at FB once a day or less, and to only look at friend-generated content. It took a couple of weeks for the dopamine habit to fade. Meanwhile I tried Bluesky, which is much better as far as control of content, but it still activates the dopamine cycle. Now I’m cutting back on that, too. The outcome is that I’m back to needing a book or magazine on hand at all times to fill the tiny moments of stillness. This is exactly how I used to be in my teens, twenties, and thirties. I’ve rediscovered my library card. The enshittificatiin of the New York Times has even caused my news consumption to decline. Quitting FB is driving a reassessment of how I engage with time. I’m trying not to pass time, or kill time, or even use time. Im very good at using it, almost insanely so. I’m trying to experience time. I feel like I’ve lost an enormous amount of it in my life. I can’t get it back, and I don’t need to be paid for all of it, though I think we should all insist that advertisers pay us in cash for the right to use our time by showing stuff to us, rather than us paying to look at it. Rather, I just hope to get better at experiencing time. My head is a fine place to be, and so is the world. I don’t need to avoid being present in either.
Thanks for your cogent and articulate thoughts on the matter!
I love that idea of experiencing time, David. Your description of your recent experience further solidifies that we can and should shift away from Facebook in particular, but also to look askance at the dopamine pumps.
I am an old guy, ranch raised, which perhaps accounts for never getting trapped into the social media thing. Retiring after 3 decades in managing/operating big IT systems it is not that I'm a Luddite.
I have witnessed in my own family the degradation of individuals once they are trapped in the social media morass. I applaud Australia for having the foresight, and courage, to ban social media use to those under 16. If only the US had the courage to do the same. It appears as of now we are even unable to ban Tik Tok when we seem to know it poses a security threat. Listening to users decrying the possible loss on the news makes my stomach turn.
My daughter, an adult with children of her own, constantly tells me of how much more complicated the world is now. That is when she can put her phone down to carry on a conversation. I think the "world" is pretty much the same as it has always been. Spend part of each day in the woods and you can verify that. What has changed is the way human animals are behaving. In no small part due to their immersion in technology in general and social media engineering in particular.
I am on both Mastodon (first choice) and Bluesky (second choice). Still on Facebook simply because I don’t make the rules for everyone else and so many of my friends are still there and only there. If I had my first choice, everyone would move to Mastodon, since it is the most enshittification-resistant (unlike Facebook or Bluesky, no one entity owns it, it is a protocol by which multiple independent servers exchange posts). I suppose I could make a worksheet for showing people what Mastodon is and how to switch to it (though I believe there are plenty of those around already).
P.S. One other thing I really dislike about social media is the almost complete lack of transparency. It just flings posts at you from people and organizations you have never heard of before. You have no idea if they are genuine or just front groups. You have no idea who may or may not behind whatever agendas they are pushing. I grew up as a child listening to shortwave radio in the pre-Internet era. The biggest broadcaster on the shortwave bands was the USSR. You couldn’t swing a dead cat on the shortwave bands without running across a Radio Moscow broadcast or three (often in English, targeting Americans). Yet every half hour, there it was, the station ID: “You are listening to the world service of Radio Moscow.” You knew exactly who and what you were listening to. Facebook is literally less transparent than the state propaganda of the USSR. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
It is interesting to discover there is a large, serious looking consortium looking at the technical aspects of a zeitgeist switch: https://freeourfeeds.com/
I was always disappointed in Facebook for many reasons. I was consistently let down with the lack of engagement with friends and events held days ago. I was always surprised when friends dropped me and I was left wondering why. It felt like a rehash of high school. Don’t miss it at all. Today I rage quit Instagram and Amazon. It felt good. I have new friends and we text. I’m looking forward to having some extra time back and painting the kitchen.
Nice! I wish you well in your addiction. I use IG for inspiration and to refine my writing chops and short rants, and learn of new artists, bands and comedians. Meta makes it easy to post on all their platforms at once, and that the only reason I get on FB for the most part. I stay away from videos on IG except for those I follow and it also allows me to only see those I follow in a chronological way (FB provides this functionality, but it takes a few clicks and will often send you back to their curated feed personalized for you, and only you . Sometimes I get into the algorithm of IG and adjust it and laugh at what they feed me (about once a month). Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em! (I miss smoking and drinking in bars, though).
Hi Joel - I left Facebook some time ago, fed up with all the crap I was seeing from fake people and, unfortunately, from real people in my life too. Instagram has been the harder one to leave. I built a great list of artists I follow and I appreciate seeing their work, reading about their process, etc. That kept a hold on me for quite a while. I also belong to a paid subscription group on the Mighty platform. That’s where I began to see what social media could be - a virtual community of real people, artists talking with one another, sharing information, even getting together in the real world. It was through that experience that I realized Instagram is an illusion. I don’t actually know most of the artists I follow. I’ve never had a conversation with them, virtual or otherwise. And they certainly don’t know me. How much time was I actually looking at their art vs getting sucked into watching cat videos and silly humans? How much shit have I bought in the past few years because Instagram threw an ad at me? I began the migration to Bluesky. I used it as a chance to establish myself as an artist there. I have been methodically searching for artists, especially those I followed on Instagram. I’ve also joined a conversation in our Mighty group, helping others migrate off FB and Instagram. Being off Instagram (and Amazon too) has felt like waking up from a drug induced stupor. The seduction of dopamine hits and “get it tomorrow” shopping is fading and I’m grateful. Reading what you and Leo publish here is another way I’m finding real satisfaction and value in the online world today - thank you both.
Hi Joel, that’s an apt comparison to restaurant smoking sections, and to public smoking in general. The tobacco industry found a way to target vulnerable populations again, with vaping, but the stigma hasn’t gone fully away.
As you may know I deleted my FB profile, because my wife is a federal employee, who could be subject to Trump’s once-and-future schedule F, and I have been unstinting in my criticism of him on FB. So I deleted it for harm-reduction, so that she isn’t harassed at work solely because of me. I started a new, politics-free, profile, but had a revelation in the process. Before I’d even friended a single person, or clicked anything, my feed was an endless scroll of ads and reels. This made me realize how I’d slowly gotten used to an increasing percentage of garbage content. So I resolved to only look at FB once a day or less, and to only look at friend-generated content. It took a couple of weeks for the dopamine habit to fade. Meanwhile I tried Bluesky, which is much better as far as control of content, but it still activates the dopamine cycle. Now I’m cutting back on that, too. The outcome is that I’m back to needing a book or magazine on hand at all times to fill the tiny moments of stillness. This is exactly how I used to be in my teens, twenties, and thirties. I’ve rediscovered my library card. The enshittificatiin of the New York Times has even caused my news consumption to decline. Quitting FB is driving a reassessment of how I engage with time. I’m trying not to pass time, or kill time, or even use time. Im very good at using it, almost insanely so. I’m trying to experience time. I feel like I’ve lost an enormous amount of it in my life. I can’t get it back, and I don’t need to be paid for all of it, though I think we should all insist that advertisers pay us in cash for the right to use our time by showing stuff to us, rather than us paying to look at it. Rather, I just hope to get better at experiencing time. My head is a fine place to be, and so is the world. I don’t need to avoid being present in either.
Thanks for your cogent and articulate thoughts on the matter!
I love that idea of experiencing time, David. Your description of your recent experience further solidifies that we can and should shift away from Facebook in particular, but also to look askance at the dopamine pumps.
Joel
Thank you for your perspective and perception.
I am an old guy, ranch raised, which perhaps accounts for never getting trapped into the social media thing. Retiring after 3 decades in managing/operating big IT systems it is not that I'm a Luddite.
I have witnessed in my own family the degradation of individuals once they are trapped in the social media morass. I applaud Australia for having the foresight, and courage, to ban social media use to those under 16. If only the US had the courage to do the same. It appears as of now we are even unable to ban Tik Tok when we seem to know it poses a security threat. Listening to users decrying the possible loss on the news makes my stomach turn.
My daughter, an adult with children of her own, constantly tells me of how much more complicated the world is now. That is when she can put her phone down to carry on a conversation. I think the "world" is pretty much the same as it has always been. Spend part of each day in the woods and you can verify that. What has changed is the way human animals are behaving. In no small part due to their immersion in technology in general and social media engineering in particular.
Keep up the great work!
I have a background in IT as well, but I *do* consider myself a Luddite. The original Luddites were not blindly anti-technology; they were opposed to technology being used in socially harmful ways. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/
I am on both Mastodon (first choice) and Bluesky (second choice). Still on Facebook simply because I don’t make the rules for everyone else and so many of my friends are still there and only there. If I had my first choice, everyone would move to Mastodon, since it is the most enshittification-resistant (unlike Facebook or Bluesky, no one entity owns it, it is a protocol by which multiple independent servers exchange posts). I suppose I could make a worksheet for showing people what Mastodon is and how to switch to it (though I believe there are plenty of those around already).
P.S. One other thing I really dislike about social media is the almost complete lack of transparency. It just flings posts at you from people and organizations you have never heard of before. You have no idea if they are genuine or just front groups. You have no idea who may or may not behind whatever agendas they are pushing. I grew up as a child listening to shortwave radio in the pre-Internet era. The biggest broadcaster on the shortwave bands was the USSR. You couldn’t swing a dead cat on the shortwave bands without running across a Radio Moscow broadcast or three (often in English, targeting Americans). Yet every half hour, there it was, the station ID: “You are listening to the world service of Radio Moscow.” You knew exactly who and what you were listening to. Facebook is literally less transparent than the state propaganda of the USSR. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I found this person willing to help people maximize Mastodon (to in my words un-boring it). https://climatejustice.social/@PaulaToThePeople/113850586520315713
It is interesting to discover there is a large, serious looking consortium looking at the technical aspects of a zeitgeist switch: https://freeourfeeds.com/
I was always disappointed in Facebook for many reasons. I was consistently let down with the lack of engagement with friends and events held days ago. I was always surprised when friends dropped me and I was left wondering why. It felt like a rehash of high school. Don’t miss it at all. Today I rage quit Instagram and Amazon. It felt good. I have new friends and we text. I’m looking forward to having some extra time back and painting the kitchen.
Nice! I wish you well in your addiction. I use IG for inspiration and to refine my writing chops and short rants, and learn of new artists, bands and comedians. Meta makes it easy to post on all their platforms at once, and that the only reason I get on FB for the most part. I stay away from videos on IG except for those I follow and it also allows me to only see those I follow in a chronological way (FB provides this functionality, but it takes a few clicks and will often send you back to their curated feed personalized for you, and only you . Sometimes I get into the algorithm of IG and adjust it and laugh at what they feed me (about once a month). Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em! (I miss smoking and drinking in bars, though).
Hi Joel - I left Facebook some time ago, fed up with all the crap I was seeing from fake people and, unfortunately, from real people in my life too. Instagram has been the harder one to leave. I built a great list of artists I follow and I appreciate seeing their work, reading about their process, etc. That kept a hold on me for quite a while. I also belong to a paid subscription group on the Mighty platform. That’s where I began to see what social media could be - a virtual community of real people, artists talking with one another, sharing information, even getting together in the real world. It was through that experience that I realized Instagram is an illusion. I don’t actually know most of the artists I follow. I’ve never had a conversation with them, virtual or otherwise. And they certainly don’t know me. How much time was I actually looking at their art vs getting sucked into watching cat videos and silly humans? How much shit have I bought in the past few years because Instagram threw an ad at me? I began the migration to Bluesky. I used it as a chance to establish myself as an artist there. I have been methodically searching for artists, especially those I followed on Instagram. I’ve also joined a conversation in our Mighty group, helping others migrate off FB and Instagram. Being off Instagram (and Amazon too) has felt like waking up from a drug induced stupor. The seduction of dopamine hits and “get it tomorrow” shopping is fading and I’m grateful. Reading what you and Leo publish here is another way I’m finding real satisfaction and value in the online world today - thank you both.
I am interested in this Mighty platform! Can you tell us more?