I’ve had this website for about a year and a half now. During that time, I’ve tried several times to create a subscription button which would allow someone to receive any new posts in their email. The main issue I was having is that most subscription buttons are tied to data collection services and I really don’t care about that. I didn’t need a database of emails from everyone who wanted to get notifications. The few I found which didn’t have data collection tied to it just didn’t seem to work correctly. After being frustrated more than once, I temporarily gave up trying.
In the meantime, I decided to create Pinterest boards associated with this weblet in case anyone wanted to follow along with the photos I found inspiring. I posted about it, but didn’t have any way of linking social media accounts to the website without doing some additional technical digging. It was also on my list of things to learn more about and do when it comes to updating my site.
Then I watched The Social Dilemma and changed my thinking.
First, if you haven’t watched this documentary on Netflix, I cannot stress enough how important it is that you do. I try not to get too preachy on this site, but this is one I’m adamant about. Every single American should watch this documentary, it’s that important to our mental health and the health of our democracy.
In short, some of the creators of various social media platforms, or elements of platforms, are interviewed stating how skewed the platforms can be and how it’s all about generating advertising dollars. At one point there’s a comment that says something close to this…if something is free to people, then people are the product. Basically, Facebook and Twitter are free to use, therefore we are the commodity and they are trading in our data and information. The people interviewed include the former President of Pinterest and the guy who helped create the “like” button on Facebook.
A few weeks before I watched this documentary I had been trying to cut back on my Facebook time. Facebook is a platform I’ve been connected with for a while, but I rarely checked on it. Then last fall I found myself working from home after being laid off from my job (all prior to the pandemic I might add) and pretty much alone at home while my spouse traveled extensively. I was checking Facebook more frequently. Once the pandemic hit, I found I was heading to Facebook about every day. Which is about thirty times more than I used to. It was really starting to bother me, I could feel the dissatisfaction every time I went to the computer and yet still felt compelled to check in.
I realized fairly quickly that checking Facebook wasn’t creating anything meaningful for me. While I have learned about the hobbies of some of my long-distance friends, I also find that in some ways, I generally don’t care. It’s not that I don’t care about them, it’s just that I don’t need to be immersed in the details of their lives when they are friends I’m not around every day or friends I’m not that close to. Let’s face it, we all have those people who would show up at the hospital for us, or to bail us out of jail, but those friends number less than ten for most of us. In my case, likely less than five. Everyone else is a wonderful addition to my life as a person, but I don’t need to know the scores of every hockey game their son plays in.
Being bogged down in that was pulling me away from more meaningful things in my own life, such as completing sewing projects or writing posts. We’ve traded our own goals, thoughts, feeling and ambitions for those of people on our social media feeds. We’ve allowed ourselves to be told that other people have it figured out, they have it better, they are happier than we are. In reality, that’s not true.
Facebook isn’t real. It selectively shows only certain people in your feed (although I understand there’s a way to change that). In addition to that particular embedded computer code, people naturally only post on Facebook a tiny portion of their life, which means it’s highly edited to begin with. Then toss in the fact that Facebook will continue to feed you whatever you clicked on and it compounds the warped sense of society. For example, if you clicked on something about the election conspiracy theory, then it will see that and look for other similar words and send those posts your direction. Eventually, everything that is in a person’s feed can be one-sided. No matter who we are, if we only see one story or one theme, without any balanced or contradicting views, it’s easy to get sucked into that single narrative or viewpoint and start believing things we normally wouldn’t have believed.
I saw CBS Sunday Morning interviews with people prior to the election who stated they got their news via Facebook, not any of the major news networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS). Facebook isn’t news. Facebook is a collection of opinions by those we have let into our world. I was asking myself, how can all these people believe in something that seems so bizarre? But once I watched the documentary and understood the computer coding behind it, added in the understanding that people only get their headlines via Facebook and the fact that many people are only seeing one narrow storyline, it became clear.
This is why balanced journalism is important. This is why reaching out to those who we might disagree with is important. This is why we must learn to listen to others, even if their words may make us angry. This is why education is important.
We the people need to stop trying to find the easy button for our complicated issues. And we need to stop thinking that we’ll get to a place as a society where we can just coast along. People change and therefore societies change and in that process so must our laws. We will always need to meet and discuss the current challenges we face as a community and we must always find a way to get to a solution peacefully.
What does this have to do with deleting my Pinterest boards? Social media isn’t going to disappear and there are some good elements to the general idea of social media. I happen to think there are more bad elements associated with it, but that’s my opinion. I don’t get any notifications on my phone, but I understand that most people do and they are often looking for those beeps to help them feel connected. It’s addicting and unfulfilling. It’s been documented by studies that the rate of suicide and depression have gone up considerably since the advent of social media sites. I decided that I didn’t need to contribute to that system by putting out one more board that someone might “follow”. And in deleting them I did myself a favor by not connecting my personal confidence and worth with the number of people who might follow me.
This is also why I am stopping my search for a working subscription button for anyone who wishes to read my posts. We are bombarded by worthless, narrow-minded bits of information in our world today. I don’t need to be one more piece of fluff that attacks someone’s senses in the middle of the day. Constant small tidbits of information don’t help us feel more knowledgeable or connected, it leaves us frustrated and anxious. A longer, more-thought-out and conclusive story is much more appealing to me and it’s certainly more calming.
I appreciate anyone who stops by and reads my thoughts, but what I’m asking is that you do so of your own free will, not because I’ve managed to find a way to show up intrusively in your inbox. I don’t write these as a way to create new friends or to create networking connections. I hope you aren’t reading them looking for that type of connection either because real human connections exist between real human people who know one another in person. I prefer to think of myself as the sole editor of my own small newspaper and the editor gets to write opinion columns now and then. Yes, I know with an actual newspaper, people are able to write in comments and I’ve deliberately turned off that function on this site – again because I don’t know you and even though I write on here – you don’t know me. These words are only a small portion of who I am, as is the case with anyone who writes on the internet.
I have kept my personal Pinterest boards because I love imagery. In design worlds, there are inspiration boards. I believe this is very much true in the fashion world and I know it pops up in the architectural world as well. That’s what Pinterest does for me. I do find myself going to my curated boards now and then and reminding myself of the great design details and styles that I’ve pulled together and it will propel me to keep going in my own direction.
This website will move forward just as it is, a series of random posts on a variety of topics that intrigue me at that moment. The posts will continue to be text-heavy and photo-light (excluding the photography section) because I prefer to discuss topics more in-depth. Knowing this can be publicly consumed forces me to think about other people in general and that way of thinking helps keep me humble and allows me to continue growing as a person.
When I started this site, I thought I would try to write something once a week. I certainly have opinions about things and felt that was easily doable. Yet with my other interests and hobbies, along with a job and regular life stuff, I am finding I’m posting about once every two to two and a half weeks. With my shifted thought process regarding the internet and social media, I won’t worry any more if that’s the frequency of my posts. That’s probably plenty frequent enough.
Again, please watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix. It’s very important that we all understand the system. If you stop by and read my opinions and thoughts, I thank you for your time and now politely and kindly say…get off the internet and go do something tangible, like hug your spouse, kids or dog. You’ll find it satisfying!
