> How do I have an identity when I consistently invite other people - often strangers - to affirm my experiences? This sums it up so perfectly. It precisely ex

> How do I have an identity when I consistently invite other people - often strangers - to affirm my experiences? This sums it up so perfectly. It precisely explains what I've always failed to when people ask, "why didn't you take pictures of that? or share them on Facebook?" I was just overseas for several weeks and I was able to fully absorb the entire experience because I wasn't worried about what anyone else in the world thought of what I was experiencing at the moment. I do think there can be a middle-ground with social media if it's designed thoughtfully, with this perspective in mind. I wrote a little about it recently [0], specifically on how Mastodon shouldn't have ported over the favorite/like functionality from Twitter, because functions like that do hijack our brains to use these tools for the subconscious reward, rather than to truly improve our lives in some way. With prevalent awareness of the issue, thoughtful design, and a change in financial incentives for platform makers I think we can come away from this crazy time of intrusive, subconscious-altering social media with just the good parts. [0] https://write.as/matt/mastodon-social-favorites https://write.as/matt/mastodon-social-favorites