I've mostly been off the socials the last week or two, and I gotta say, I don't mind it. I’ve tried to spend as little time as possible on Facebook the last couple of years anyway because it is a toxic suck hole. But I had a pretty bad Twitter habit which got really out of hand earlier this year thanks to the Ukraine situation.
I didn't pull the plug on the bird site completely. I just made a rule that if I wanted to check Twitter or post something to it, I had to do it on my iPad, which has the app. And then I left my iPad upstairs when I went down to my office. I signed out of the site on all my other devices.
It's amazing how introducing just that small amount of friction can pull you out of the slack-jawed, drooling doom loop of posting and reading, posting and reading, day after day.
If feels weird when I do dip my toe back in, usually at the end of the day, or late at night. Everyone is still going on with the same old shit they go on with all the time, the same old shit I’ve gone on with for more than 10 years, I suppose. It never ends. But when you’re out of it for a couple of days it looks profoundly weird when you go back.
I used to love it as a service. Think I'm just a dopamine slave to it now. Better that I stay away while I get my deadlines sorted out.
Blogging is good, but. I managed a solid eight hours of book writing before I wrote this.
You at least have a reason to hang on to these things - you actually have a brand you need to sell. (i don't mean that in a bad way). I did the same thing with the bird site. Then found i had to remember to log back in before the mandatory 32.7 days or whatever it was and then one day i realised i forgot and the account was gone and i was like "meh". I still posted pics on IG but that account is going down the toilet and i think will be gone soon - all the photographers are starting to move over to vero - its a much better photo sharing place. No ads and an almost complete absence of bots. It was a breath of fresh air. . . . . saying all that though, i found a gang gang at my place the other day chomping down on a ball of spitfires (sawfly larva) and as i was taking pics of it amazed at what was going on thought "the guys over on the wildoz hashtag will love this" then remembered i'd closed down the account and it was long gone. That is probably the one thing i miss - that access to great scientific minds professional and amateur especially when it came to the odd little things i found on my place or my wanderings.
Social media moguls are little more than brokers of hate. It’s the worst invention of mankind since nucs. It’s tearing countries and families apart. Whenever I see Zuckerberg and the rest the Oppenheimer quote comes to mind” I am become death. The destroyer of worlds.”
I've always found Twitter to be a playground for toxic wankery and FB to be a quiet and/or sedate place. I guess it depends on who you friend/follow. I started on FB years before I did Twitter, though, and even then I didn't much check it.
That said, I avoid social media when I'm working; kicking back and reading a book is a better look when someone comes into my bookshop, anyway.
You at least have a reason to hang on to these things - you actually have a brand you need to sell. (i don't mean that in a bad way). I did the same thing with the bird site. Then found i had to remember to log back in before the mandatory 32.7 days or whatever it was and then one day i realised i forgot and the account was gone and i was like "meh". I still posted pics on IG but that account is going down the toilet and i think will be gone soon - all the photographers are starting to move over to vero - its a much better photo sharing place. No ads and an almost complete absence of bots. It was a breath of fresh air. . . . . saying all that though, i found a gang gang at my place the other day chomping down on a ball of spitfires (sawfly larva) and as i was taking pics of it amazed at what was going on thought "the guys over on the wildoz hashtag will love this" then remembered i'd closed down the account and it was long gone. That is probably the one thing i miss - that access to great scientific minds professional and amateur especially when it came to the odd little things i found on my place or my wanderings.
Sounds like a sensible rational approach. I'll never catch on.
Social media moguls are little more than brokers of hate. It’s the worst invention of mankind since nucs. It’s tearing countries and families apart. Whenever I see Zuckerberg and the rest the Oppenheimer quote comes to mind” I am become death. The destroyer of worlds.”
I've always found Twitter to be a playground for toxic wankery and FB to be a quiet and/or sedate place. I guess it depends on who you friend/follow. I started on FB years before I did Twitter, though, and even then I didn't much check it.
That said, I avoid social media when I'm working; kicking back and reading a book is a better look when someone comes into my bookshop, anyway.