I’ve decided to go through with a week-long social media blackout. (By “social media” I mean “Twitter and Facebook”, just to clarify; I’m not breaking my own rules by posting here.)
I was originally intending to start it off on Monday, but then yet more nonsense in the whole Zoe Quinn thing kicked off this morning and I just didn’t want anything to do with it whatsoever — either the inevitable abuse she would receive for the things she was posting, or the unbearable smugness of her supporters.
So I started it today, cold turkey. And I’m serious about it. I deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone. I logged out of the sites on all my browsers. I removed the bookmarks from Chrome, the browser I use most frequently. And I haven’t looked at either all day.
While I won’t pretend I haven’t felt a few urges to pop my head in and have a look, I haven’t acted on these urges at all. I haven’t felt the need to. I know that, going by what I saw this morning, something would just irritate and annoy me. And I don’t need that.
I’m not going to cut myself off completely, though. For the week, my online socialisation will be through email, instant messaging (Google Hangouts), comments on this site and the Squadron of Shame forums. All of these are environments where I have much greater control over my socialisation, and which are populated by far smaller groups of people. And they are all people with whom I know I get on and can enjoy conversation with.
One may argue that there’s a danger of creating an echo chamber when you simply surround yourself with people that you’re 100% comfortable with, but in reality it’s actually rather desirable to have a friendship group that understands you. It’s an admirable goal to attempt to understand and ingratiate yourself with groups that you don’t know a lot about, or whom you probably wouldn’t hang out with in “real life”, but eventually it just all starts to feel a bit high school, what with all the cliques, cool kids and groups that end up being the butt of everyone’s jokes — often without justification.
Ponder how your friendships work in real life. Chances are that over your lifespan, you’ve met a significant number of people. Some of these became friends because you had things in common or enjoyed spending time together. As time passes, the number of true friends you likely have has probably dwindled as everyone’s lives start to move in different directions. That’s a bit sad when it means you lose touch with people with whom you used to spend a lot of time, but it’s also part of the natural “filtering process” our real-life social lives go through over time.
With social media, this filtering doesn’t happen automatically, so unless you take the time to actually go through and prune your friend and follower lists every so often, over time the noise just builds and builds and builds, often with disparate groups ending up butting heads with one another in your timeline or news feed. If you stand on the periphery of a few groups that, for whatever reason, end up at each other’s throats, it can put you in a very awkward and undesirable situation, as we’ve seen with the whole “Gamergate” thing over the last week or so. To use my own personal situation, I identify with the games journalists who are undoubtedly frustrated at the constant accusations of “corruption” being levelled at them, but at the same time I also identify with the gamers who are sick of journalists talking down to them as if they’re some sort of superior moral arbiters. Both sides say and do some regrettable things, and even if you’re not directly involved — as I’ve taken care not to be — it can be anxiety-inducing to see what’s going on.
That’s not what the original promise of social media was. I recall signing up for Facebook for the first time and being amazed by the prospect of being able to easily stay in touch with people. Twitter, meanwhile helped me make a ton of new friends and discover people with common interests all over the world. Since I first signed up for both of them, though, their place in society has changed; Facebook has become little more than a link repository for endless “You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!” clickbait bullshit, while Twitter has become a place where they who shout the loudest get to be “right”, and whoever is right gets to declare anyone who disagrees with them as some sort of awful deviant.
As such, then, we come to my blackout. I feel positive that it will have a good effect on my mental health. And when it comes to next weekend, I’ll make some more permanent decisions about my online existence.
I may have already made up my mind. But we’ll see.
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I totally agree. On facebook, it’s got that I can barely find the posts from my family and friends without trolling through streams of stuff about friends of their freinds and things they’ve Liked. I wish I could work out how to remove them from my facebook without removing the family and friends as well. It’s such a chore to plow through that I can’t be bothered.
And you are spot on about Paragraph 7 “Ponder how . . . .” That is exactly what happens throughout your life. You make new friends, you move location, some of the friends drift off in their own directions, and suddenly you realise that you haven’t been in touch for ages. And now I don’t send Xmas cards any more many links have broken. But we were sending Xmas letters to each other and talking about people who meant nothing to them, who they didn’t know and have never met, and things we were doing ditto. But facebook is certainly not the answer. I am becoming more and more relieved that I didn’t yield to pressure to join Twitter.
Keep telling it like it is at least here on this Blog site of yours. 😀
Social media scares me 🙁
“As such, then, we come to my blackout. I feel positive that it will have a good effect on my mental health. And when it comes to next weekend, I’ll make some more permanent decisions about my online existence.” Amen. I spend too much time online and when it comes to reality the lines are blurred 🙁
Good blog, have a nice day.
Thanks for your comments. I think quite a few people these days are starting to feel the same way, but with how much Facebook and Twitter have attached themselves to the idea of “society” as a whole, it’s difficult for many people to disconnect.
It’s assumed that it’s the norm for you to be attached to social media; if you’re not, you’re the strange one. It doesn’t have to be that way… I don’t think, anyway. That’s what this whole experiment is about, essentially.
Glad to hear that you’re finally going to experiment with “cutting the cord.” It’s now been 3 weeks since I allowed my Twitter feed to become nothing but a hollow robot that shares links from my Tumblr posts – and I couldn’t be happier. And I don’t really participate in any “community” on Tumblr either. I just use it as a platform for sharing my art.
Folks at my new weekend job still can’t believe that I have no Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Instagram, Flicker, etc. and don’t participate in website comment sections. It’s like I’m something completely alien to them. It’s kinda wonderful. I feel so relaxed and free.
I’ve become so enamored with extracting myself from these artificial, modern, online social ties that it has become hard to stop. I’m now actively looking for additional baggage to toss out. This weekend I took things a step further and began what I’ve dubbed “the great culling.” I started aggressively pruning my friends lists on all of my gaming platforms. Blizzard ID, Steam, PSN, XBL, Nintendo ID. If I don’t regularly talk to or hang out with you these days, or I can’t really imagine wanting to do so in the near future, or you haven’t made an effort to talk to me, then you’re gone. I find that I don’t even want these people seeing what I’m doing – nor do I care what they’re doing. In the immortal words of the Grinch, “NOISE NOISE NOISE.” The silence is euphoric. My Steam friends list now is like you, Alex Connolly, and my little sister. I’m going full-on hermit mode. It’s awesome.
I’ll look forward to hearing how the experiment goes for you. Although, I have a feeling that you’ll be very happy with the results.
I can relate to everything you’re saying. I’m finding myself increasingly hesitant to rely on digital solutions to problems I don’t really have these days — I’m even contemplating starting to carry around a paper diary and notebook with me rather than rely on my phone. I feel I’m more likely to use a physical book for these things than awkwardly attempt to tap things in on a touchscreen keyboard, inevitably making a bunch of mistakes along the way.
My friend lists could do with a good prune too. My PSN one is particularly bad — I have no idea who some of those people are!
I’m a huge proponent of the “solutions to problems I don’t really have” line of thought. You should hear my rant about tablets. As much of a tech-friendly guy as I am, I STILL don’t see the point of them. Of course I need a device that’s less powerful than my computer, but also less convenient to carry around than my cellphone. Part of my aversion with social media in general, and my willingness to jump ship on it, is that I’m not sure I ever had the problem that it’s “solves” in the first place.
Paper notebooks are the best. I carry two little ones with me at all times. A lined one for writing/book ideas, and a blank one for doodles. I love being a grouchy old man.
I still don’t get tablets either. The only real use I’ve got out of ours is for digital board games, and I don’t do that all that much — I’d rather play the real thing in person. I suppose they’re quite nice for watching Netflix in bed, but I don’t do that all that often either.
A few years back, when this whole social media boom started, I jumped on board all sorts of different services because it seemed like fun. I checked in to places on Foursquare; checked in to entertainment on GetGlue; shared everything I did on Facebook and Twitter. I must have been insufferable. Now, I look back on that and think “what on earth was I doing?”
I spent the year post-GamePro working for a site called Inside Mobile Apps, reviewing new games and social apps every day. Every one of them was complete garbage, put together by a Bay Area startup that was doomed to closure within a year. I can’t deny grinning to myself a little every time I get an email from one of these services I forgot to unsubscribe from saying “Oogashitty is closing :(” or whatever. Get a real job, you reprobate.
But yes. I have been at relative peace for the last few days, and with each passing day the urge to return to Twitter is dwindling. We shall see how I feel after a whole week.
We should go back to paper books lol