For some, it is a way to sell ads into an addicted audience. But we are trying to get away from that with the #Fediverse. So if it's not that, what is it for, exactly?
And for you personally: if you didn't have social media, what exactly would you miss in your life? Which needs or wants do you have that would be unmet?
@J12t I would sorely miss the sparks of creativity, the celebration of nerdy triumphs and epic fails, the marvel of a knitted cap made for an underwhelmed cat. More than entertainment, it's a connection with others and their unabashed interests.
Outside of the fediverse, it's difficult for that spark to come through, as it gets drowned out by influencers and ads vying for your attention, looking more and more like actual content these days.
@box464 So the desire is to connect with others and experience, with them, their "unabashed interests" (I like that phrase). With a "spark". This is very nicely put, ty!
@J12t 1/ Remembering people (e.g. highschool colleagues); 2/ Getting curated content by people I know personally and trust or kind of trust or I'm just curious about; 3/ Updating content about me so that whoever is interested can keep some track of me; 4/ Showing parts of my personality in the hope I'll get some real life friends;
@J12t 5/ Following groups of people based on interests (same town, some passions etc.); 6/ Finding out about some products (yes, I do follow ads and shop often based on that); 7/ Endorsing some movies, music, art that I like, because I think they deserve to be known, so I post about them when I find out the information; 8/ Helps with family that is more distant otherwise (keep some track of them and them of me).
@J12t I would say that it provides the means to achieve them. Actually achieving them also involves aspects like the user's actions, what the platform prioritises, etc. Some might prioritise adds and not point out relevant content from your connections, unless if you manually check their profiles. It's still better than nothing. The main issue for me is that it leads to addiction. You should control your social media usage and not fall into the urge to spend hours daily on those platforms.
There are two purposes to communication - to inform and/or to entertain.
Any communication which falls into those categories is called signal. Any communication artifacts or appendages falling outside those categories is called noise.
The quality of a communications channel is determined by the signal/noise ratio.
To improve the quality of communications you need to either enhance the signal or reduce the noise. Or both.
It answers the question of why I'm here and what I'm after.
Social networking was created originally to address the noise/signal ratio of email - before it was also co-opted and turned into a noise generator and signal blocking filter.
I'm just trying to fix it and invert the ratios again.
There was a time when communications systems were actually used for communication. I know, I'm an old fart hanging on to outdated concepts. Oh well.
@mikedev@J12t the main method of shaping signal:noise that defines social media is lists of accounts. list of following, followers, mutuals, mutes, blocks. All positive and negative lists. The biggest issue is that managing lists is very hands-on. So if "noise" is unwanted distraction, lists themselves are noise.
@mikedev Ah, I see. I have this concept of a "meddling middle man" -- who gets in the middle between you and me and promotes some content, demotes or hides other content, inserts content that neither of us wanted to be in that exchange, and I postulate that this meddling middle man is the big problem of commercial social media today. Not sure it applies exactly the same to e-mail, but I get your point.
@J12t It's a good question, and well worth asking ourselves. I feel like I addressed some of this last year on the podcast, when we looked at various social media as "meta-topical spaces", as part of the public sphere.
The community answer is a good one too.
But I think it's best answered by seeing how TikTok works, as it really aced the "media" part of social media, above all others.
Social Media is both the content and the community. It's watching a movie together and chatting about it.
@drimplausible "It's watching a movie together and chatting about it"... oh, I like that one. Maybe not just watching a movie together, but some other activities as well, but I get your point.
@J12t I think I use it the same since I was able to have a regular access to the internet (since IRC days): connect with different people, expand my view of the world by finding about new and different things, discuss a bit on topics that I might find relevant, and share stuff/opinions that (some) people might find interesting or amusing. Money, ads, reach, etc was never a thought.
@J12t it strangely works better than I anticipated: even though we might be scattered between different servers the information eventually flows by and I might see stuff that I would not see otherwise. The diversity, attitude, and openness of people here also beats all alternatives I've tested: my small following list is the most diverse I ever had and also the most interesting and kind. Of course I sometimes need to curate the feed but beats trying to escape promoted content and ads.
I enjoy finding my own community , but I also enjoy seeing other people’s communities. I’m a straight cis white guy, from exactly the sort of environment you’d expect of “cozy England”. I have no real world experience of communities outside that bubble. Here? I have my own bubble, but I see queer communities, trans, foreign, art, tech, etc. (2/3)
And what stands out to me about all of them? It’s not “topics” or trends or celebrities. It’s their communities. It’s their shared values. It’s seeing the similarities. It’s finding the differences. It’s spotting things around me I’d never noticed before. And the only real commonality is; the sense of community each share. (3/3)
It’s that which I value. The shared and explored humanity. Which is why I don’t go in for the celebrity / gossip / news stuff that Twitter became. That angle is…wearying, combative, and in the end corrosive. Having been on Twitter actively since the very start… I’ve seen that trend and those outcomes.
One community? Several? Find one? Create? Grow? And then .. community for what purpose? What need / want does the community / communities fill for you, and how does it do that by means of social media?
(Sorry for this barrage, i"m sort of trying to ask "Five Why's" style to get at the heart of the matter ...)
@J12t I no longer have “personal” social media, I found myself too tempted to get into arguments that were probably pointless. I now only have accounts associated with my amateur history project and I restrict myself in what posts I interact with accordingly, it is quite therapeutic.
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