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Twitter and Facebook have ruined us
Apr. 18th, 2018 10:55 amI really don't like what twitter and facebook have done to online discourse and writing. Back in my livejournal days, what I loved was writing about my life. Sharing stories of events happening to me, personal contemplations, etc. But since LJ died and I started using Facebook more, my posts got really limited.
I tried, for a while, to make longer contemplative posts on Facebook under filters and whatnot... But the tools to review things that had been posted int he past were not well built. Both Facebook and Twitter are designed to enable you to produce content in the moment, and then to leave it behind. On Facebook, the goal is to get as many likes as you can! On twitter, it's all about the follower count and retweets. These elements subtly encourage us to create a performance. A presentation for others to consume, rather than being our most genuine selves.
In some ways, that's great! For an artist or performer, twitter is a perfect platform on which to create jokes, bits of music, art, etc. It is perfectly designed for this sort of engagement. It's also great for talking about politics! Soundbytes and bits of outrage and terror and fear and activism and justice. I think fondly of the Arab Spring and other movements that have sprung forth from twitter and similar social media.
But there's the dark side to that, too. I've seen people destroyed by angry mobs that create their own narrative of what someone is doing. I've seen mobs of people descend on feminists and others that are just creating simple content to explain things. I've seen conspiracy theories about flat earths, vaccinations causing autism, pizza parlors, false flag operations, and more grow increasingly unchecked. In small ways, I've seen people struggling with mental illness or disability get dismissed and ignored.
On the personal level, I find my ability to even write things that are personal, vulnerable, and long hampered, even in this medium. I am so trained by twitter to condense my thoughts into quick tweets, and by facebook to santize my content for public consumption by others.
I think my title to this is hyperbolic. I don't think twitter and facebook are entirely bad. But they are a different thing than stuff like LJ was, like dreamwidth is, like usenet used to be... They are not open forums, but advertising platforms masquerading as such. And for all the good people get from them, this fact steers it to places I don't like.
I want to start posting here more. Being vulnerable again. Talking about my own life. Recording an online journal that is open for sharing with others.
I tried, for a while, to make longer contemplative posts on Facebook under filters and whatnot... But the tools to review things that had been posted int he past were not well built. Both Facebook and Twitter are designed to enable you to produce content in the moment, and then to leave it behind. On Facebook, the goal is to get as many likes as you can! On twitter, it's all about the follower count and retweets. These elements subtly encourage us to create a performance. A presentation for others to consume, rather than being our most genuine selves.
In some ways, that's great! For an artist or performer, twitter is a perfect platform on which to create jokes, bits of music, art, etc. It is perfectly designed for this sort of engagement. It's also great for talking about politics! Soundbytes and bits of outrage and terror and fear and activism and justice. I think fondly of the Arab Spring and other movements that have sprung forth from twitter and similar social media.
But there's the dark side to that, too. I've seen people destroyed by angry mobs that create their own narrative of what someone is doing. I've seen mobs of people descend on feminists and others that are just creating simple content to explain things. I've seen conspiracy theories about flat earths, vaccinations causing autism, pizza parlors, false flag operations, and more grow increasingly unchecked. In small ways, I've seen people struggling with mental illness or disability get dismissed and ignored.
On the personal level, I find my ability to even write things that are personal, vulnerable, and long hampered, even in this medium. I am so trained by twitter to condense my thoughts into quick tweets, and by facebook to santize my content for public consumption by others.
I think my title to this is hyperbolic. I don't think twitter and facebook are entirely bad. But they are a different thing than stuff like LJ was, like dreamwidth is, like usenet used to be... They are not open forums, but advertising platforms masquerading as such. And for all the good people get from them, this fact steers it to places I don't like.
I want to start posting here more. Being vulnerable again. Talking about my own life. Recording an online journal that is open for sharing with others.
