Conflicted about Social Media

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This is a part of it for sure. My particular “expertise” is the church. I also speak out in other ways for music education as it is my other speciality. These issues are something I feel like I can speak into, and I’m willing to do so, and others will have their own hobbies, callings, etc. (On a side note, I came from the reformed side to the Wesleyan, evangelical side, it’s a weird world to exist in sometimes lol)

I also agree with @MitchWagner that even though I’m active on social media, I see no other reason for others to be active if they don’t want to.

@kennonb The way I view it isn’t that I will always be changing people’s minds, in fact I admit to myself that I probably will not. I post so others can see that there are people like them. When it is light hearted or positive, we can all share a laugh together, and hopefully bring some joy. When it is more serious, it is to give hope that someone may not think the way that they do. I’ll give an example, and I apologize in advance that this is a hot topic, but it highlights why it is important to me:

In the evangelical world in America, there is an overwhelming majority that has given into certain political ideologies, and this can often lead to hateful things being said, sometimes intentionally and others times unintentionally. That stuff gets circulated over and over again by the vocal group, which leads to people who have a difficult time reconciling the love preached on Sundays with the hate displayed Monday-Saturday. It can be hard to see anything but “red” coming from the church. Part of my responsibility (as assigned by myself lol), is to share stuff that casual observers can say “there is someone else who thinks like me, I’m not alone,” and at the same time, provide pushback to the spiraling echo chambers of hate that social media can be. I have had multiple people come up to me in church on Sunday and say “I saw what you posted on facebook and I agree,” or “I had never thought of that before.” My work has opened the doors for personal relationships and discussing difficult topics like systematic racism or sexism.

Again, the reason I engage is my own personal reason, and I don’t expect others to feel obligated to do the same.

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Catholics have the same problem in the US. I often find myself having to contend with their tendency (clergy too) to identify with their political ideologies first over and against Church teaching. Social media helps me both combat that in the public forum and also helps me hone the argument for when I bring it to he pulpit or a class.

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Great quote and question! In my view social media is largely built on exploiting social anxiety (strictly in the sense that it reinforces FOMO and trains people to interact indirectly and loosely in the sense that it engenders a constant sense of unease around one’s online “status” and appeal). In this sense it makes little sense to use it regularly as it’s a net negative influence - while there are some few posts or interactions that are positive, the vast majority of things I encounter on these platforms is either anxiety-provoking or anger-inducing. This is why the methods that Newport and others have recommended resonate so much with me - I’ve realized that even though I used these platforms heavily earlier in my life (Facebook came out when I was in late middle school) I never actually got value from them at any point. The interpersonal interactions I have with people over their chat platforms could easily happen over SMS or phone (preferably!) and the bulk of the content posted is of little actual consequence to my life.

All of that is to say, I think unless your job involves social media (what a glorious catch-22!), social media is a distraction which is neutral at best and malignant at worst. Almost all of the positive factors that come from it can be obtained elsewhere with less psychic damage.

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What are your goals, and how would social media help you achieve them?

Why did you leave social media? What’s different now?

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I find social media helps me stay in touch with faraway friends and family. Even some nearby friends. It’s like a neighborhood pub.

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Social media is groupthink. Groupthink is bad. It leads to Hive minds…

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My experience is that the “tendency of too many evangelicals to have biblical theology co-opted by politics and politicians” is not at all limited to evangelicals. It is exactly what happens in many “progressive” or left-wing leaning religious groups as well.

Years ago I went searching for a religious group that did not do so, and couldn’t find one. Even going to churches that espoused “ambiguity and diversity” as their keynote, it was evident that they too had their own political issues that members were expected to conform to.

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If you take a good hard look at religious groups aligned with “liberal” or “progressive” thinking, you’ll find the exact same phenomenon: “often lead to hateful things being said, sometimes intentionally and others times unintentionally. That stuff gets circulated over and over again by the vocal group, which leads to people who have a difficult time reconciling the love preached on Sundays with the hate displayed Monday-Saturday.”

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I would hope this is said in jest. :confused:

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The part about message boards, yes.

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I don’t want to imply I know best for others, but I have decided to stay on social media for many reasons, one of which is being where my people are (to an extent).

I lead an 80-person organization with ages ranging from 19 through late 30s, all with varying levels of life experiences, education, interests, and levels of responsibility.

I am not on every platform but I’m on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, all to varying degrees of participation (TikTok is consume-only, for instance). I don’t have the idea this makes me “cool” to any of my folks. But on Facebook, it allows me to share information to by organization, and stay up on any “drama” or news that might be coming our way.

I do accept friend requests from people who work for me, but I do not friend request “down”. This is a risk because it can blur the lines a bit, but I have been able to balance it reasonably well I think.

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I would assess if you gain any real benefit from social media.
Examine your motives when using it.
Oftentimes, people are using it in a voyeuristic way, like slowing down at car crashes.
Other times, people are itching to scrap with someone, safe in the anonymity behind their screens.

I have been off (anti) social media for years, less so due to privacy and more so due to the noise and bitter taste it usually leaves.

There are still better venues for information and the info you get is usually ephemeral; the message will often change to something different very quickly.

Also, I prefer the small gatherings provided by online forums (which are not on the decline) as well as reliable blogs.

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Frankly, I think we should just accept our social media overlords as a part of digital evolution and move on.

If you wish to.
Definitely not in my plans. :slight_smile:

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I wouldn’t characterize social media as group think. But there are plenty of groups that cover your interests. They don’t typically overlap.

I don’t use it much at all. But you sure can keep up with a lot of friends and acquaintances which is usually a very good thing.

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Here’s what I find good about social media:

That’s pretty much why I use social media.

Also, some subreddits can function like message boards. When I adopted my first dog in 2013, I got a lot of advice on /r/dogs, and when I started getting into fancy coffees and coffee-making, I got a lot of good tips on /r/coffee. OTOH, I find the Apple subreddits aren’t great.

Tumblr and some other subreddits fill my enormous appetite for memes and vintage photos and ads and commercial illustrations.

Twitter is good for keeping up with some of my friends and acquaintances who are not on Facebook. It can also be RSS-like, if you want it to be. It’s another source of memes, vintage photos, and vintage ads and illustrations. And some professional comedians and comedy writers are on Twitter, and they can be hilarious.

Some people use Twitter as a source of breaking news. I used to do that, but found it to be too much work. My primary sources nowadays are Google News and Apple News.

Maybe I’ll be forgiven for dropping links to my own Tumblr and Twitter here:

https://twitter.com/mitchwagner

Facebook too, though I don’t accept friend requests from strangers–y’all aren’t strangers to me but I may not recognize your name if you send me a request (and to my knowledge Facebook, unlike linkedin, doesn’t let you add a note with a friend request–“Hey, we’re both on MPU forums!”). OTOH, I let anybody follow me on Facebook and I keep nearly all my posts public.

I post less and less personal information on the Internet nowadays. Even innocuous stuff, like if my wife and I spend a day at the zoo. I stick with links, photos (my own and found on the Internet), memes, vintage ads, and the occasional mini-essay on some subject or another that’s stuck in my head.

I also use LinkedIn for professional reasons, posting links about cloud computing and my employer.

I’ve been laid off three times and I posted about it on social media and got work offers quickly.

And here’s what I find bad about social media: It can be time-consuming, and it often makes me feel bad.

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Mitch, I’m with you. I think you’re better off not posting personal stuff on the Internet. If I would only practice it. But they already have so much information on me it’s very off-putting. Because I hardly go onto FB anymore – ergo there’s less there. I keep forgetting about Twitter.

Sure is a sure fire way of wasting time though. Some of it is interesting like the info about your critter and your coffee. I joined a couple of Beatles groups which I almost always enjoy. And there are book collectors.

That’s terrific you got job offers!!!

I suppose there is something to it if you don’t take it to the extreme.

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What do you collect? Hobbies are wonderful to have!

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Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses.

I should have included in my OP that I have a professional communications-marketing department that handles all of the organization’s social media so I never deal with it on the job. My post concerned the role I play as a citizen and the role I can play in my spheres of influence outside the organization. I’ve been conflicted about social media for two reasons

  1. I don’t want to be irresponsible by neglecting what has become the modern public square. I’m reminded of what Edmund Burke said, "when bad men combine, the good must associate [emphasis added]; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” –Thoughts on the Causes of this Present Discontents

  2. Yet, I find social media to be an unpalatable shallow space. If the medium is the message as McLuhan suggested, the medium of social media is little more than an echo chamber of people unwilling to be persuaded while seeking to persuade others. Yet, it is a powerful medium that shapes people and society incrementally and almost by osmosis. This summary of part of McLuhan’s theory is poignant:

In Understanding Media, McLuhan describes the “content” of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information, but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. As society’s values, norms, and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium. These range from cultural or religious issues and historical precedents, through interplay with existing conditions, to the secondary or tertiary effects in a cascade of interactions that we are not aware of.

One way of stating this is that the sheer volume and ubiquity of social media comment (you notice I didn’t say conversation) has an effect in shaping opinion and social mores. To disengage from the public square is to turn the square over to the rullians and their worst kin, cultural barbarians.

Alas, I remain conflicted but for now, I think I’ll take a detour around the digital public square and focus on teaching, writing, speaking and leading. Perhaps at some point I’ll venture back into the shallows.

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My primary use for being on Twitter wa that it was the quickest way to get sheep lambing data during our AI experiments to the government researchers. Email meant I had to get back to the house and entere it. With LambTracker and twitter I could send quick updates, like Mererid twin ewes by Scotty AI 57 hours and a pix of the lamb and they got it quickly. I could follow up with the details later of what he insemination depth was or the estrus status or whatever else we were tracking. But since we were labing as papers weere in final review the ability to get the latest data on success or failure of the various treatments forced us into Twitter.

I reaming on twitter to tweet the lambing and a few other key farm things. I have my Facebook account but I never post there. It’s to keep someone else from sing my name. I rarely post on Pinterest or Isntagram although I have account there as well. I do have vdideos out on YouTube but not many although I am considering ressurecting that channel for some stuff I am working on.

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How does that work? Does Facebook put a hold on a name if you ask them?