I am worried for you if you think you need social media.
Just a story about a story.
It’s been over two years since I logged into my last social media. It was BlueSky, and I ran across a batch of mean folks. I wasn’t talking to them. I didn’t have them in mind when I said what I said about a personal memory. They inserted themselves underneath my post to berate me and call me a fat white guy. I was like, “I am just telling a story that actually happened. What if there was an opinion in here?”
Do you need to hate so many people?
I find a lot of irony in folks feeling like they need social media to stay connected, yet they use social media to write off huge swathes of the population. Many folks feel like they need social media. I have felt that way before in my life. But nothing could be further from the truth. I promise.
Let’s mention brainwashing.
They wouldn’t call it brainwashing if you knew it was happening. Brainwashing doesn’t mean ‘I willingly take on a different mindset.’ So if you’re on social media, you don’t know what you don’t know. You may not know that sometimes folks really into their social media stuff can come off ridiculous and concerning. You may not know that your world is divided up into grid lines of good and bad, right and wrong, what’s cool and what isn’t. You may not realize you have whole populations on this planet that you would like to see dead. All the MAGAs, all the Muslims, all the Jews, all the Mexicans, all the liberals, all the Android users, the pesky Playstation fans. You may not realize your lack of control of your worldview. You may not realize the words on the screen appear because the screen knows your preferences. You may not realize it has cost you money and friends you can touch. You don’t “need” this shit.
What if I was a big corporation and I wanted to implant a commercial in your brain? I wanted you thinking about me 24/7. Without a moment to yourself? What if I wanted you on my software for hours on end so I could gather data about your environment and your preferences? What if I wanted people to become addicted to whatever I was making? I don’t think that would make me a good guy. Yet…
Maybe if you “need” social media, you simply “need” a hand.
I honestly think if you feel like you need social media, what you really need is help. You need the kind of help that isn’t on social media. You need the kind of help that hugs, that joins you for a meal, that talks to you about a movie you saw together, that likes your kind of music, that says things that are unexpected. A real-life connection, not online sycophancy.
I have a lot of memories of being on social media and feeling wired. People would buzz around my brain. It would keep me awake, rolling words in my brain much like a slot machine in Vegas, and they were just words I saw on my feeds. They were words I wouldn’t have seen if not for algorithms and folks selling things. Me seeing them had nothing to do with who was writing them. It had to do with the computer thinking I wanted to see them. This changed the way I saw the world, eventually. I thought it was here for me. The truth is I’m here for it. So I put it down. Social media. Glad for it. Better too.
I am worried.
I talk about social media with people still using it. I’m concerned. They think we all need it. It connects us. It gives us presence. I’ve even been told I’m doing it wrong, and I’m the one who should get a social media. But I’ve been down that road. It’s not happening again.
I was not in control. Multiply that times billions. No thanks.
Kelly Kintner