2 ms·

One giant learning experience. We're adapting. It's kinda gross, but hopefully we'll all come out the better for it.

at-fates-hands 7y ago
There was a tipping point for me when I decided that all the negative things that come from social media far outweighed the good it does. I have a Twitter account. I log in about once every couple of months. Nothing changes. The cancel culture hasn't died off, it's just gotten stronger, more pervasive and more corrosive than ever before. This has lead me to believe we are on a downward spiral with no bottom in site.
- RandallBrown 7y ago
  Social media is very much what you make it. I use facebook to keep in touch with hundreds of people that I would never normally keep in touch with. I use it to plan events like birthdays, bachelor parties, and vacations. I fully believe it enriches my life.
asdf21 7y ago
I learned that I reject that shit pretty quickly... I haven't been on facebook since sometime around 2010 or 2011 maybe. It's mind-boggling to me that it's even still a point of discussion in 2019. It was always a pretty poor way to communicate, imo. At last for my use case, which was wanting friends to hear about interesting / exciting things going on in my life. I had like 300 friends on there -- a good mix of family, old coworkers, old school friends, people from a local sports league, etc. -- and I happened to have a fairly successful startup at the time, so I'd post about that... and got back crickets. For whatever reason, at least back then, the algorithm would only show my post to a few people at first, and if none of them liked or commented, it wouldn't show it to anyone else. At least that's my assumption. So I was like 26, pulling in $1k / day in AdSense revenue, and trying to tell my family and friends how exciting it was, and every post I'd submit would just get totally ignored. Out of ten posts that actually had a bit of depth, nothing super dense or overly intellectual, just describing some of the challenges and successes, (like a $12k hosting bill from Rackspace), I probably got around 2-3 comments total. The vast majority of things I posted were ignored completely. Then I'd see the most banal and superficial crap get put on my feed with tons of comments, so eventually one week I posted, "TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Out of my last 10 posts that actually mattered to me, that one immediately got tons of traction and something like 60 replies, etc. I quit right after that. Facebook forced me to confront how boring my passion for startups really is to normal people... so why waste my time sharing it? Or their algorithm was just really poor and my posts weren't being displayed to my friends, either way, what's the point?

There was a tipping point for me when I decided that all the negative things that come from social media far outweighed the good it does. I have a Twitter account. I log in about once every couple of months. Nothing changes. The cancel culture hasn't died off, it's just gotten stronger, more pervasive and more corrosive than ever before. This has lead me to believe we are on a downward spiral with no bottom in site.

RandallBrown 7y ago
Social media is very much what you make it. I use facebook to keep in touch with hundreds of people that I would never normally keep in touch with. I use it to plan events like birthdays, bachelor parties, and vacations. I fully believe it enriches my life.

asdf21 7y ago

I learned that I reject that shit pretty quickly... I haven't been on facebook since sometime around 2010 or 2011 maybe. It's mind-boggling to me that it's even still a point of discussion in 2019. It was always a pretty poor way to communicate, imo. At last for my use case, which was wanting friends to hear about interesting / exciting things going on in my life. I had like 300 friends on there -- a good mix of family, old coworkers, old school friends, people from a local sports league, etc. -- and I happened to have a fairly successful startup at the time, so I'd post about that... and got back crickets. For whatever reason, at least back then, the algorithm would only show my post to a few people at first, and if none of them liked or commented, it wouldn't show it to anyone else. At least that's my assumption. So I was like 26, pulling in $1k / day in AdSense revenue, and trying to tell my family and friends how exciting it was, and every post I'd submit would just get totally ignored. Out of ten posts that actually had a bit of depth, nothing super dense or overly intellectual, just describing some of the challenges and successes, (like a $12k hosting bill from Rackspace), I probably got around 2-3 comments total. The vast majority of things I posted were ignored completely. Then I'd see the most banal and superficial crap get put on my feed with tons of comments, so eventually one week I posted, "TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Out of my last 10 posts that actually mattered to me, that one immediately got tons of traction and something like 60 replies, etc. I quit right after that. Facebook forced me to confront how boring my passion for startups really is to normal people... so why waste my time sharing it? Or their algorithm was just really poor and my posts weren't being displayed to my friends, either way, what's the point?