Assorted musings on social media

While reading Mike Rockwell’s very good blog Initial Charge, I bookmarked a couple of link-posts he recently wrote, both about social media.

The first is from 9 September. The title is Reconsidering Your Relationship to Social Media ➝, and the post links to Scott Banwart’s The Inevitable Decline of Social Media. Mike quotes Scott’s introduction:

I have become disillusioned with the state of social media. At one time it was a fun way to connect with people I would otherwise not a have a chance to meet and talk about topics of mutual interest. Now it is largely a breeding ground for tribalism, intolerance, and general meanness. This is making me question why I would want to continue participating in this ecosystem.

And at the end of his commentary, Mike writes:

Mastodon feels like the early days of Twitter to me — it feels new, fresh, and exciting. There’s no algorithmic timeline, boneheaded features designed to increase engagement, or “influencers” that are willing to say literally anything to get attention. It’s nice.

I’m not exactly a Twitter early adopter — I joined in March 2008 — but I’d say those were early-enough days that I know what Mike means. Those were the times where Twitter felt like leisure, not work. Like a public space where everybody hanging around was being personal and informal in a casual, fun way. It was ’social-good’. You followed people because you wanted to know what they were up to, what project they were working on, how their day was going. You didn’t want them to be a surrogate of the daily news, or to remind you how shitty this world can be, retweet after retweet.

Over the years, Twitter expanded dramatically, and went from a peaceful town where most people know one another and exchange understanding nods, to the urban equivalent of a chaotic, cynical, divided, post-industrial megalopolis. I’ve always been good at filtering out the most unpleasant aspects of Twitter, but I nevertheless felt a bit overwhelmed and saturated just when App.net (also called ADN, for ‘App Dot Net’) came around in late 2012. I knew people who saw ADN’s great potential and jumped ship leaving Twitter behind altogether. I took a more moderate approach, and for as long as ADN lasted (until March 2017), I gave both Twitter and ADN the same priority. But ADN felt better, and in my experience stayed better until the very end. The social environment didn’t really deteriorate over time.

When ADN shut down, many of its hardcore users were naturally upset, and this diaspora gave birth (or renewed impulse) to other smaller social networks/microblogging sites which, as far as I know, have successfully maintained ADN’s positive social atmosphere and environment. Wanting to stay in touch with as many ‘ADN expats’ as possible, I opened accounts on all of them — pnut, 10Centuries, then Mastodon and Micro.blog — but it soon became apparent that keeping up with Twitter and all these other networks was not feasible. Today, Twitter is still my main social place online. I check on pnut fairly regularly, and occasionally post on Mastodon.

But why has Twitter remained my №1, when it’s possibly the worst among the social networks I mentioned above? The most succinct and perhaps catchy answer I can think of is, Because while Twitter has changed over the years, I have remained the same. Meaning that I have essentially been using Twitter in more or less the same way as I was using it back in 2008.

To continue with the urban metaphor, as far as I’m concerned, the small town Twitter was at the beginning has become my reference neighbourhood within the chaotic and often toxic mega-city Twitter is today.

In a more recent link-post, Some thoughts on social media ➝, Mike links to Chris Hannah’s post with the same title. Chris writes:

We can all see the distinction between what happens in real life and what appears on social media.

I think that is where Micro.blog has felt different to platforms like Twitter for me. In a sense, it feels slower, but at the same time, it feels like you are connecting with real people. Whereas when I use Twitter, most of the time it feels like I’m interacting with an online account rather than the person behind it.

I’ve definitely fallen into the trap before, where I’ve used Twitter as a place to share perfect photos, links to my blog posts, and anything else that can bring external validation. But I think I’m going to try and just use it like a normal person for a while, and see how it goes.

And Mike comments:

This matches my experiences perfectly and is part of the reason I mostly left Twitter. Everyone’s vying for attention and thinking too much about metrics rather than having genuine interactions with real people. That’s why everyone has the same opinion — if you don’t agree, you’re not part of the club, and therefore will lose followers. […]

Although I fall into the trap of sharing almost exclusively the best photos on Instagram and Pixelfed, I try to be a bit more real on Mastodon. That’s the place where I can just share my thoughts — whether it’s complaining about software updates, posting links to music I’m listening to, or anything in between.

Over the years, I’ve heard and read similar arguments from people who were ‘fed up with Twitter’ and wanted to either take a break from it or leave it for good. Note that I’m putting ‘fed up with Twitter’ in quotes not because I’m belittling a sentiment — I’m simply reporting the words they’ve used over and over again. Of all the people I know who wanted to leave Twitter for good, only two have truly acted on their words and intentions. Twitter’s gravitational pull is strong, especially for those who joined many years ago and have formed a subnetwork of meaningful bonds with like-minded people and friends.

It’s what you make of it

I ultimately think that social media, social networks, and Twitter in particular, are really what you make of them. And what I want to make of my Twitter experience is for it to be something that is constantly positive, where I can share my views and have exchanges with followers and mutual acquaintances that remain non-escalating even when we disagree about something. I want my Twitter experience to be a place where I can share the occasional rant or bad joke, and know that my followers are listening to my rant or eyerolling at my joke. And I make sure to reciprocate, listen to them when they rant, help them if they’re stuck and voice their issue, and so on.

This, of course, takes some work on my part. My Twitter experience isn’t something I’m exclusively, passively exposed to. It’s something I actively contribute to. This is something I fortunately understood at the beginning, after a few false steps where I just ‘didn’t get’ Twitter and thought about leaving myself.

This attitude of mine has been rather transparent from my early days on Twitter in 2008 onward. And I have without doubt reaped what I have sown, because I evidently attracted a lot of like-minded people and kindred spirits. And that’s why I don’t share Chris Hannah’s feelings when he writes that …when I use Twitter, most of the time it feels like I’m interacting with an online account rather than the person behind it.

The unspoken contract I’ve developed with anyone who interacts with me on Twitter is that what you see of me on Twitter is as real as if you met me in person. I’m honest, truthful, respectful of other people, and I ask for the same treatment. And a lot of people I’ve interacted with over the years seem to get this immediately, and our exchanges and social relationship have stayed healthy over time. And if a misunderstanding would arise, I’ve always tried to clarify things without letting a relationship go south or sour.

It takes work if you care about your experience

After thirteen or so years using social media and Twitter, I’ll reiterate, I feel you need to be willing to do some work if you want Twitter (or your social network of choice) to be a pleasant, beneficial experience. You can’t expect the network to enjoy and entertain you without giving something back. I’ve often heard people complain about their timeline being toxic, but apart from sponsored tweets, Twitter doesn’t really push anything extraneous on you that you don’t want. If your timeline is toxic is because you follow people who either post toxic content or are serial retweeters who routinely disseminate unbelievable amounts of crap. Or maybe your timeline is toxic because toxic people start following you for some reason and tweet abusive things at you all the time. Or maybe your whole experience is toxic because you spend literal hours doomscrolling and pay attention to every single stupid tweet you see.

Twitter can deploy some tools to mitigate toxicity and, for example, reduce exposure to misinformation and fake news, but filtering toxicity is hard because the whole matter can be incredibly subjective and fine-grained. You are the best filter. Stop following people who flood your timeline with crap. Block people who tend to be abusive and gratuitous towards you. But also try to develop a way to approach and use Twitter that can prevent you from ending up having a miserable experience.

I’m sharing this advice and observations thinking in normal terms for the average Twitter user. I am sadly aware of many cases of abuse and bullying and doxxing where the targeted person is simply too overwhelmed to do anything except maybe leave the platform, which is the goal of the harassers. These are extreme cases and no amount of personal work or personal filtering is enough to stop the hæmorrhage.

But back to more normal situations, I keep hearing people complain about their timeline as if it was some kind of demonic TV set that cannot be turned off and forces them to watch its programmes. Once again, my personal experience is that on Twitter, maybe more than anywhere else, you reap what you sow. Note that I’m not advising to put up appearances or behave in ways that may make you likeable, or always be politically correct to avoid debates or conflicts.

I’m advising to be yourself, to be genuine, but also to behave wisely. Be personal if you want, but don’t put yourself in situations that make you vulnerable. You can definitely participate, even generate a heated debate if you trust your followers and interlocutors to engage in something constructive. Don’t pick fights with people you barely know just because they said something you don’t like. There is often the urge to ‘right the wrong’ on Twitter, but even when you’re objectively right (because facts back you up) and the other person is clearly wrong or believes in horrible things or spreads misguided notions, act wisely. Think before typing. Pick that fight, if you like, but prepare for any consequence and ask yourself if the fleeting pleasure of calling a moron for what they are is worth the potential subsequent grief.

If you want to virtue-signal at all costs, I prefer the subtler, more intelligent approach of “show, don’t tell”. If your followers are well-adjusted, thoughtful, perceptive people, they’ll know that black lives matter to you even if you never use #BLM in your tweets. They’ll know if you are pro-LGBT and pro-Trans rights even if you don’t put rainbow flags in every tweet. What you post, what you retweet, what you reply and react to, all these things in the end define you socially online.

You obviously can’t fully control your Twitter experience, and you may end up disappointed or dissatisfied with it no matter how hard you try to make it better, therefore seeking out alternatives that may be more suitable for you. This is good and understandable, and the position Mike, Scott, and Chris seem to have found themselves in. In fact, I’m not criticising them (I used their quotes here as a starting point for my reflections, not to teach them a lesson). I am more critical of those who complain about how bad Twitter is, how dreadful their experience is, just standing with their arms crossed and with a sense of entitlement as if to say, Someone needs to fix this for me; Twitter has to do something, anything. As if they had no part in how things shape socially online. In these cases, leaving the platform is just an empty, theatrical, rage-quit. You’re going to have the same problem in whatever next social network you dive in.

Magnitude is relative

And speaking of alternatives, it’s always fascinating to me how the ‘best’ experience often seems tied to the social network’s actual or perceived scale. Twitter is huge, millions and millions of users, therefore its scale must be one of the causes of its degradation. It can be, of course, but I also feel that the true magnitude (and impact) of Twitter is as big as your actual network of contacts/followers/people you follow within Twitter. After 13 years on Twitter, I still follow a reasonable, manageable amount of people: I don’t feel overwhelmed and I don’t feel as things are getting out of hand. My Twitter still feels like the small town of the early days. That’s also because my focus and priority is still the personal interaction, not the “I’m a channel broadcasting my stuff and I seek constant growth” attitude other people have on Twitter and social media in general. It really boils down to what you want from social. If all your needs are egotistical in nature (you want to attract attention, ‘grow your audience’, be an ‘influencer’, etc.), then you’ll be loud, superficial, and the resulting experience will be chaotic. Maybe in a way that pleases you, maybe in a way that pisses you off, but in either case you asked for it.

I prioritise people. Dialogue. Exchanges. Sharing interesting stuff, facts, links, observations, photos, music suggestions, and so forth. I’m naturally curious, I celebrate differences, I also do my best to listen to what people tell me. I don’t care about metrics, I don’t crave attention, or want to ‘grow my audience’. I’m not a cult leader. It’s the same as with my books or writings: while I would be certainly flattered if my fiction sold well, for the time being I’m more interested in a meaningful diffusion, in knowing that maybe this month I only sold 10 copies of one of my books, but then through feedback I learn that those 10 readers, or 5 readers, appreciated my work. On social I very much prefer having 1,100 followers than 100,000 fans. I hope I’m making sense here.

Instagram, Glass, barriers to entry

By the way, during the years I was active on Instagram (the pre-Facebook era), I was doing exactly the same there. But Facebook did poison the well, and weaponised and commercialised something that was fun, laid back, and casual. It has transformed a quiet place into something that flashes and autoplays and screams and shoves extraneous content down my throat every time I open the app. I still use Instagram to like and comment on other people’s photos and posts, but the experience of finding my contacts and exchanging comments with them feels like trying to find a friend of yours at a huge rave party.

Instagram is pretty much unsalvageable unless someone else acquires it and does a gigantic, radical reboot. In the meantime there’s Glass, a photo community which is doing a lot of core things right, in my book. So far, I’m enjoying the relaxed atmosphere there, and I’m happy there are no ‘likes’ or metrics. Comments are the only way to tell someone you like their photos. And they may be scarce, but (at least in my experience) feel genuine and articulated. This ‘going against the grain’ in Glass’s philosophy is admirable and it’s evident that comes from people who care to create a product that is successful in a quality-over-quantity way.

But one aspect worth mentioning is the barrier to entry, which in my opinion is fundamental in setting the tone from the start when you launch a social product. I’m generalising and there are always exceptions, but typically a free product, a free social space, will inevitably attract terrible people, chaos and toxicity. Spraying graffiti over a building is fun. When the building is yours, even in a very small part, you’re more hesitant to deface it. At launch, ADN wasn’t entirely free to access. If I remember well, it was invitation-based, and the person you invited got a free trial period, but the backbone was made of paid accounts. I remember I kept paying for my account monthly ($5) instead of yearly, even if a yearly subscription was less expensive, because I wanted to support the platform as long as possible. Barriers to entry are a great first filter, they keep the cheapskates away, they keep advertising away, and generally ensure that all participants (or at least the majority) are invested enough in the place to make it pleasant for themselves and everyone else. People who argue, for example, that Glass will never be as successful as Instagram because it lacks this and that, are missing the point. There are many ways to measure success. Glass and Instagram are like apples and oranges.

There is no conclusion

There is no conclusion or moral of the story. These are notes, not a narrative. But since I have to end the article in a way or another, I’ll share a note I jotted down in Notational Velocity a few years back when I wanted to talk about social networks: Your social presence is your own radio show, but make sure you take your listeners’ calls while on the air.

Share critically.