Back in December I announced my intention to take a sabbatical from Facebook and see what would happen. There were a number of factors in that decision, and I’ll share what I learned and what I’m doing now.
I had a few reasons for wanting to take a break:
- Facebook was a huge time waster, and earlier last year I deleted the app from my phone (it and Messenger and Instagram track your life your life and serve you ads based on what you’ve been doing). As a result, I have spent a lot less time there, although I do spend a lot of time on twitter.
- Facebook in engaged in undermining democracy and articles I was reading in 2018 pointed to their intentional and unintentional aiding and abetting behaviour with respect to undermining elections and eroding democratic engagement. Here is a good Atlantic article on that.
- Facebook creates a deep gravity well for conversation. It tailors your news feed using algorithms to only serve you a very small slice of your friends’ activity. Much of what you see confirms what you know and it is designed to activate your brain in a way that causes you to share information and pass it on, deepening confirmation bias, and spreading rumours and lies.
- People communicate on Facebook in shallow and brief ways, meaning large and important conversations for local communities become pile ons, where people that have never made the effort to introduce themselves to others in real life nevertheless feel free to be mean spirited and even borderline libellous while hiding behind their virtual identities. This has major implications in a small community like mine, where big local issues result in people starting rumours, passing judgements and ostracizing and slandering others in a way they would never do if they had to write to the newspaper, or see these people at the General Store. Discussions of complex ideas have devolved into the equivalent of drive-by shootings, often deeply personal.
These were the reasons I took a break and these are the reasons I am not coming back in a meaningful way.
When I started blogging in 2001, the promise of the Web 2.0 was that it would usher in the era of the creator. Any one could now create work on line. Recording studios, radio stations, television and film productions, newspaper, and magazines and book publishing all used to be inaccessible for the common person or the beginner artist. Now anyone could use whatever form of medium they wanted to say what is important to them. Before social media, Web 2.0 was about content creation media. It took time and effort to do it, but you could build a life, connect with others, find community in far flung corners of the globe, and make a contribution.
When social media came about into widespread use, around 2007 in my case with Facebook, the blogging world almost completely disappeared. People whose blogs I followed moved into facebook where I followed them for a while until their well crafted posts were lost in the endless stream of mindless diarizing, half-baked opinions and, later, the endless copypasta of shared memes and viral content. I had a hard time finding my people, but I was enjoying wishing friends a happy birthday and connecting with people from school, 30 years ago.
Over the past ten or so years what has happened is that my time has disappeared into the suck hole of scrolling through useless content instead of producing some of my own. Yesterday, talking with my friend Julien Thomas, I remembered that somewhere I said that democracy depends on us being active participants and not consumers.
Social media has made us consumers of other people’s content. In the 2001-2007 era of blogging, someone would write a post and if it was meaningful to you, you would quote it with an annotation about why it mattered and what your take was on it. Conversation was more considered and content was savoured and appreciated and hardly ever simply passed on. We were all content creators, hyperlinked to other content creators. When commenting began, discussion started to remain in a limited number of places but it was all open in the public and available to anyone. Comment spam really killed open discussion on blogs and maintaining spam-free comments sections became time-consuming. (Luckily there are better tools now, which is why you need to wait for me to approve comments on my blog).
With the dawn of Facebook however, content creation became highly concentrated in only a relatively and proportionally small number of places. Most people on Facebook simply pass it on other people’s stuff, often without any credit or link back to the original creator, and discussion happens behind closed doors and isn’t archived or very easy to access.
These days we are consumers of other people’s content, and we generally pass on what we like and agree with, amplifying it’s impact without adding to it. A few people have complained that they miss me on facebook, that they miss my voice and the things I say. But what I notice is that they like those things mostly because they can pass them on, or because what I have to say validates their views. It makes me I wonder where THEIR voice is, why they haven’t been thinking about things and sharing original opinions. And I wonder half-heartedly why I never get stuff from in my news feed that challenges my biases and my ideas anymore.
I have recently created a sock puppet twitter account to engage with conservatives in Canada, including those who are nationalist, populist and extreme right-wing. I am curious and concerned about the rise of populism and nationalism in Canada and the global connections between far right leaders who are promoting anti-immigrant, anti-globalist politics and messages. Through my “fake” twitter account, I am meeting conservatives that are also opposed to these far right echo chambers, and I am having my own ideas challenged. I am getting into debates and conversations with people I vehemently disagree with. I am posing on twitter as a real person, but not as “Chris Corrigan.”
I’m not going to reveal the identity of that twitter account. It says something to me about the nature of the social media landscape that I feel deeply uncomfortable showing up as my own self in those conversations. Debating with Nazis is not a safe thing to do, especially when one is debating with people hiding behind anonymous identities. And so I show up as a real person but with a fake name. Interesting.
Social media has become a place where relationships have become commercialized transactions and where democratic engagement has devolved into a fact free festival of insulting the other and patting your friends and allies on the back while being served highly specific advertising messages from corporations and political influencers. All the while, someone other than you is getting rich every time you connect to a friend. While it is nice to “stay in touch” I have to say that most of what passes across my screens on facebook is of very little value to me.
I would encourage people to go back to, or start blogging, and I’d encourage you to do it in the spirit of 2001 blogging, not in the spirit of “blog as PR tool” that we see today: share things, speculate, use it as a platform for what I call “Open Source Learning.” Use it as a gift exchange, not as a digital business card. Embed links to other people and add to the gifts of knowledge you receive before passing them on. You can start with WordPress as a powerful, free and easy-to-get-started-with tool.
For me I’ll be using facebook in these ways going forward:
- I’ll be continuing to promote workshops and events there, and for limited times, participating in facebook groups where that is chosen by the group as a way of keeping in touch.
- I will occasionally scan my feed and if I see that you have a birthday, or have experienced a death in the family, and you are a person with whom I have a personal relationship, you may well get an email or a phone call from me.
- I will share blog posts on facebook, but encourage discussion to happen here on the blog, where the world can see it and anyone can participate.
I’ll be going off Instagram and What’s App entirely (both owned by Facebook) and continuing to use twitter (@chriscorrigan) as a place for spontaneous conversation and meeting new voices. You can find my photos on Flickr, which has recently become revitalized and awesome again. If you have a blog, let me know and I’ll add you to my RSS feed (I use Inoreader for that)
Bravo Chris. I did the same in August 2017 and have never regretted it. I no longer look at my feed, because personal things like birthdays and family deaths I know about by other means and don’t need to be broadcast. I have also stopped cross-posting from my blog to FB because it just dilutes the conversation by having it in two (or more) places. Every six months I post a reminder on FB that I’m no longer ‘on’ FB that says how people can subscribe to my blog. I also quit twitter because I found it an equal time-waster and huge ego trap, and I never posted to instagram. Email sucks as a medium for connection but the so-called replacements are all demonstrably worse. I refuse to use FB Messenger because they selfishly won’t integrate it with (ie forward messages to) non-proprietary email platforms.
I scan (and sometimes post) local events on FB, no more than once a week, but now that BIEE has turned into a place for shaming, blaming and rumour (Phorum on steroids) where important stuff gets quickly buried, I’m giving up on BIEE too, or at least just scanning it quickly and ‘responding’ only by phone or email.
After almost 18 months off FB I’ve realized how little it provided for the enormous time investment it required. The people I have ‘lost touch’ with (ie where FB was our only contact) were, I realize, not really ‘friends’ at all, which is a little hard on the ego but actually kind of a relief. I’m retired as you know so I don’t need to use social media to maintain potential client connections, but even for them I think there are better channels.
What my blog gave me — love, my last 2 jobs, enduring friendships, my new home (thanks to ‘meeting’ you), collaborators, publishers for my book and articles, honed writing skills, leads to books and articles etc that helped make me a thought leader of sorts, and completely changed my worldview — is now, thanks to the dilution of ‘social media’, longer available to us anywhere.
Maybe blogs will make a comeback, or some other new medium will arise that can offer even a portion of what my blog has. Until then, congratulations for walking away from what no longer works, if it ever really did.
Thanks Dave. I sometimes find myself as a second wave early adopter on these things. It’s possible that a big wave away from Facebook and back to platforms we own and control is coming; we’ll see.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and the reasoning behind your choices. I am in a similar, yet opposite, boat for similar reasons. I am moderately active on facebook, but keep it to a purposefully small amount of friends and family. I share my own photos, events I am going to be at, etc – and enjoy looking at those of my friends and family – but tend to ignore articles, political propaganda, debates, etc. I purposefully made the choice to ignore them, as well as stepped away from facebook groups (except for a photo sharing, and a recipe sharing one, lol) due to the way Facebook uses propaganda, particularly political. I use facebook almost as a scrapbook – by choice and consciously practiced habits.
Twitter, however, I completely stepped away from for quite a time. So many interactions I was seeing (and having) were so toxic, and were really causing anxiety. Not because of them challenging of my ideas or opinions, but simply just attacking, and cruel. Not to mention those I followed often held the same opinions as myself, so I wasnt really seeing much new or different ideas. I had far more propagandacoming my way, and more of an echo chamber, on Twitter.
Sort of a similar type of situation, but on opposite platforms. And as such I removed/reduced the opposite platform.
Though Instagram I do enjoy – but I am a very visual person, and love photography and design, so that’s a little different 😉
But I also do not like their algorithms, and wish they would change that.
I would love it if blogs, and blogging, took two steps back to how it was previously. Where it was not just sharing ideas and opinions and knowledge for likes/shares, it was for helping start conversations, and receiving educated and differing responses. It was for learning, sharing, conversing, and growing 🙂
I wonder if I could find my old livejournal and/or wordpress account from the early 2000’s… I wonder how much I have grown from then 🙂
Thank you for your blogging, and for sharing your ideas and thoughts and learning 🙂
Cheers Gail. We’re all finding our way here eh?
Oh yes yes yes. Chris, I so often find in your blog musings that you are speaking my mind/heart (but more eloquently 🙂 ) and thanks for that.
I remember being one of those who encouraged you to come spend more time on facebook in 2009 and so now I apologize. Ugh! I became half-hearted about the shallowness of facebook about 5 years ago, and the backstage algorithms – but didn’t, and haven’t, closed my account. Then last January I participated in a “digital declutter” per the invitation at author Cal Newport’s blog, and so much treasured the spaciousness I regained. With all that’s become obvious about how social media messes with us personally and culturally, there isn’t much appeal or purpose there (other than to tell my contacts that I have a website?)
I have had ambitions for a long time of reviving a blogging practice, and even have a long list of ideas to write about (but…I haven’t yet, and have no good reason why). I notice many people whose blogs I used to or still read have either been feeling wistful about blogging and/or rededicating themselves to the practice, so I think maybe as you and Dave Pollard suggest, there is a new wave coming…I tend to be a right-in-the-middle adopter, if that’s indicative of anything, and I will let you know if/when I manage to get myself back in the sphere.
Don’t apologize Christy! Who knew Facebook would become complicit in undermining democracy! I look forward to seeing you in my RSS feed again.
Excellent thoughts, Chris.
Thank you for writing this, Chris. I am sitting on the fence with this one for a very long time – I hardly post anything meanigful on my own FB, but contribute to group discussions and those do matter for building connections and getting somewhere with conversations. Blogging – and knowing that it is not read or seen there – is difficult. Also because I do not know how to do so in all three languages that I use on FB and to all those communities that I can reach via FB. But may be it’s time to look at it again and try to get out a bit harder.
I still have a subscription to Mathamagenic!
Thank you for outlining all this reasoning, Chris. It’s tricky when I’m also trying to evangelize and feel drawn to go where the people are. But I’m also looking for ways to be in authentic conversation around topics that matter.
I’m happy to continuing receiving your musings. Here’s my new blog: https://michelleholliday.com/blog/
There’s a SUBSCRIBE button along the right side of any of the posts, or you can go directly to the form here: https://bit.ly/2rZNZ21
That “go where the people are”’is the reason I’m still posting my blog posts on Facebook. But I’m not going to be one of the people there anymore. I’m weighing how much to participate in discussions there vs here. But I’m leaning towards “not at all in the Blue Walled Garden” because I want the discussion to be out here in public where we can find it.
Hi Chris,
My motivations to reduce my FB usage run in parallel to yours. I stepped away from FB towards the end of 2017, and saw an immediate uptick in my blogging. I do still maintain a FB profile (but it’s a new one, I deleted the original to get rid of 11 yrs of history on it). Mostly because tom some I work with in Central Asia FB is ‘internet’ and the only way to reach them.
As you’re running WP, you may want to look at the IndieWeb Plugins, especially Webmention. It brings back trackbacks, and allows following conversations across blogs.
Thanks for this!
A more disquieting concern is the waning misuse of awesome.
Awesome comment!
Hi Chris
When I read your piece a great deal resonated. Your rationale is compelling.
Having reflected a little more I do wonder if we are giving Facebook a level of agency it doesn’t deserve. It’s just a social media platform.
People use it for all sorts of reasons, some to connect, some to subvert, some to show off and some to share. I’m wondering if it’s our choice of how we respond to that?
Having said that, the algorithms diminish our choice and I fear there is an extent to which the platform serves some darker sides of human nature, especially the tendency for laziness. At least I know it does for me!
I’m grateful to you for two reasons. First you have reminded me to be more conscious in the way I use Facebook. Second you have been a pebble in my shoe to explore ways of blogging to promote discourse.
Many thanks.
Thanks Stephen. It’s always up to us to make choices about how to consume news and ideas. I use Inoreader to curate news feeds and get an extremely high quality of thinking in my daily ideas diet. With Facebook I have spent hours trying to tweak my feeds and settings to get useful information and it always gets retweaked. It’s easier just to stop trying.
In taking my face away from Facebook I’m not missing anything. If you have been producing and sharing content on Facebook, I have no way to know. It is very difficult to archive and search it. But if you publish a blog I have access to your archive and can follow you in real time as well. If you are producing especially relevant content for me I can move your blog to a key ideas folder and I get to choose what shows up in my feed.
Nowadays I get to spend time with truly engaging ideas and less so with forwarded memes and holiday pics, which, lovely as they are, nevertheless add very little to my life.