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Social media: nothing has changed. But we must.

Posted: December 19, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Matters that Matter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |Leave a comment

About a year ago (when would have been a good time to share publish this blog) – there was a great deal made of ‘X’ (then, and forever really, ‘Twitter’) becoming a platform permitting right-wing content, bullying and dangerous topics.

I myself didn’t notice any difference, the only real impact being that WordPress would no-longer be so easily shareable to the X site.

Perhaps, it depends on where on the X site you’re looking. I wasn’t really looking at right-wing, bullying or dangerous things, so that might be why. I just desperately scrawling through it to see who was sharing blogs about what they had for breakfast.

But there was no change I could tell.

I did notice, however, that there was something still a major factor of social media. As I spent hours scrolling and scrolling through the content on X, Instagram, and Facebook, it eventually dawned on me that social media is a profound waste of time.

And I’ve only got so much time, and I need it to write about my breakfast (today, toast. Tomorrow, the world!).

Hasn’t it always been a waste of time? Perhaps a cool waste of time? Especially X?

In my life, Facebook was the original place to waste time: posting pointless updates featuring the latest and most hip abbreviations, sharing photos of people literally just sitting around with a variety of hand gestures, and ‘liking’ pages ranging from an esoteric movie (Ergo: “Hey, I’m esoteric, like this movie.“) to (and I don’t know what to call this): a page titled “Hey it’s snowing! Brilliant!“.

Photos continued to be shared on Facebook through my 20s, and now I can’t delete the damn thing because it is the sole location of my kid’s baby photos. Mine too, probably.

Twitter was meant to be the means by which my extraordinary blog would be shared with soon-to-be adoring fans, as well as a foundation for further research into the absurdly interesting concepts that I could soon write about.

But then, I was ‘followed’ by a local carpet shop in my home town and I realised its proclivity for wasted time was confirmed. They still follow-me, and they too don’t seem any more right-wing than usual (likely due to going out-of-business several years ago).

Instagram is brilliant, the best way to share images and video. A great place for a blog, surely.

Otherwise, every other social media seems to be the same.

TikTok only seems to differ from Instagram as it is a means of People’s Republic of China’s subversion of Western stability, whilst Instagram is less-so. Instagram is best at short videos, YouTube long ones, TikTok pro-sedition ones.

Rest assured, what we had for breakfast can be duly shared on each of these.

My point is that the whilst there’s focus of each social media, the fact is they’re all broadly a waste of time.

Yes, I’m sure you too have heard of people who met their one-true love on Facebook, or are making money from Instagram, or even using the platform to share truly inspiring content. But you’re not, you didn’t and you likely won’t.

You did, however, waste your time. And not in the right way.

Remember that time on Facebook when there was a specific scenario benefiting you with brilliant life-experience a great tale to tell? No, of course not. Exactly the same as when you were on Twitter and nothing proceeded to happen there either.

It’s better to have a bad day in bad weather than to waste time on social media.

That way, you can either make good use of time or waste it too, but it’ll be real-life. Which is useful either way. More social media – less you.

Social media is not an experience.

We’re programmed to find ways to use and waste time as humans. Look at me writing this blog – a far more productive way to waste time.

Ultimately, social media hasn’t changed. It didn’t need to. Neither did we, but we do now.

Waste time in real life, not online.

Sam

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