I don't claim to be perfect - I find it as hard as anyone to stay out of it - but I also think there's not really any "outside" now. We have these important communication media, and influential people are connected through them, so short of becoming a hermit, there's no real escaping the influence. And I'm locked down in no small part because it helps stop me getting too drawn into engagement.
10 years before, when I wanted to change my behavior on Twitter I would not lock my account but I trained myself to not react to anything cheeply (sheeply) with a passive "fav" or "like" by putting up my account under IFTTT automatic control. One of my rules were - if I wanted to like something the IFTTT automatization would re-post the same tweet under my own username. That was free, allowed and largely influenced my algorithm at the time - I didn't prop bullshit too often as people do, being half aware what they do when they engage on "social media". Some people noticed that I liked and repeated the same tweet without referencing them and got so pissed. I found it very useful and insightful. Also, before I put my 17 years old Twitter account to sleep, this year, I downloaded several gigabytes of history. Twitter was really fun while it was a wild west and much more open to experiments like this. Now, they would have to pay me to join. Also, technology wise, there's nothing new there.
Thanks for this essay, it makes sense of the affect of the phenomenon of social media, so hard to get a grip on even if you remain largely uninvolved in its use.
Reactive media is so right
I confess I got lost 2/3 of the way through.
Managed to recover towards the end (and just as well. I had never heard of that experiment, but it is an eye opener!)
In any case you should flog your (very rare) essays on unHerd or similar platform, for wider distribution.
Anyway, the question is then,1 why are *you* on twitter and why do you have your profile closed?
I don't claim to be perfect - I find it as hard as anyone to stay out of it - but I also think there's not really any "outside" now. We have these important communication media, and influential people are connected through them, so short of becoming a hermit, there's no real escaping the influence. And I'm locked down in no small part because it helps stop me getting too drawn into engagement.
10 years before, when I wanted to change my behavior on Twitter I would not lock my account but I trained myself to not react to anything cheeply (sheeply) with a passive "fav" or "like" by putting up my account under IFTTT automatic control. One of my rules were - if I wanted to like something the IFTTT automatization would re-post the same tweet under my own username. That was free, allowed and largely influenced my algorithm at the time - I didn't prop bullshit too often as people do, being half aware what they do when they engage on "social media". Some people noticed that I liked and repeated the same tweet without referencing them and got so pissed. I found it very useful and insightful. Also, before I put my 17 years old Twitter account to sleep, this year, I downloaded several gigabytes of history. Twitter was really fun while it was a wild west and much more open to experiments like this. Now, they would have to pay me to join. Also, technology wise, there's nothing new there.
But then what is the point of having a locked account to limit engagement, when the whole point of being on Twitter is to maximize engagement?
If you tweet for your friends only, you might as well be in FB :D
It's a "soft" prison, a "soft" prison camp.
Thanks for this essay, it makes sense of the affect of the phenomenon of social media, so hard to get a grip on even if you remain largely uninvolved in its use.