Relating with social media
On why social media won't save us and my personal journey to healing from its scars
Relating with social media
I know Instagram has lots of faults. I’m not going to sit here and pretend it’s perfect. But what got lost in the “I’m Leaving Social Media” discourse is that shunning a platform like Instagram does not make the job of growing a following, a business, an email list, a publication any easier.
there’s something larger going on, particularly with those of us who’ve been posting for most of our adult lives: on Tumblr, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Snapchat, on Instagram. We’re exhausted with the labor of self-documentation — especially when it seems that our posts aren’t even surfacing for our close friends. But we’re also tired of being... See more
Anne Helen Petersen • Posting Less
Because self-promotion sucks. It is actually very boring and not that fun to produce TikTok videos or to learn email marketing for this purpose. Hardly anyone wants to “build a platform;” we want to just have one. This is what people sign up for now when they go for the American dream — working for yourself and making money doing what you love. The... See more
Rebecca Jennings for Vox Media
Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding president, said: “The thought process that went into building these applications ... was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’”
How Social Media Shortens Your Life
In a 2017 interview, Facebook’s founding president Sean Parker said:
“The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while. […] It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”
But social media platforms have trained brands to be thirsty for metrics that aren’t always of real value because it’s in their interest to give the impression of continuous growth . You have 500k followers on Instagram! But an awful conversion rate. You have had 1.2 mil views on your video! But struggle to turn one-time customers into anything... See more
Matilda Lucy • Is it possible to grow your business without social media?
I used to work with a client who followed many of these coaches. Her feed was FULL of fantasy marketing and after a while, whether you like it not, that gets to a person.
Not least because of the echo chamber effect of social media. Once you follow one of these grifters individuals, your Explore page is full of them.
And when I say it gets to a... See more
Not least because of the echo chamber effect of social media. Once you follow one of these grifters individuals, your Explore page is full of them.
And when I say it gets to a... See more
some pretty uncomfortable but needed insights into people’s obsession with social media coaches. By Bella Foxwell.
Few, if any, of this moment’s apparently unstoppable tech platforms will survive for long. The people on them will eventually leave—when they’re forced to do so by the continuous degradation of their experience, or because they’re forced to do so because their governments put the hammer down, as Brazil recently demonstrated—or sometimes when they... See more
Erin Kissane • Against the Dark Forest
A lot of social media these days makes me feel like I’m doing it wrong; I’m not going to the right places or wearing the right thing or doing the right workout (or any workout tbh). Sure, it’s kinda an obvious takeaway about a common feeling, but what was less obvious to me is how this week’s contributor Alex Dobrenko characterizes this experience:... See more