Social-Less Media: An Update

I thought as a public service I might update those of you who do not use Social Media in general on the current state of it - or least my interpretations thereof.

As you may recall, back in May I decided I was going to take a hiatus from Social Media.  It had become rather toxic and instead of bringing a sense of joy into my life, brought nothing but aggravation and sorrow.  I followed through with this plan, only rejoining The Book of Face on a daily basis to track the travels of The Ravishing Mrs. TB and Na Clann  as they took a week off.

As I checked in for exotic pictures of lands states far removed from where I was, I found that I still had people that opined or were combative.  The Book of Face has this interesting feature called "unfollow", wherein one can simply not see an individual's post with fully cutting all ties.  I started to use this function frequently.  My "feed" became less combative.  In theory, my stress level declined.

But I also found that many people that were neither combative nor opined frequently had also stopped using The Book of Face.  They, too, were turned away by the constant war of words that they saw and simply stopped interactions.

Instaphoto,  I thought, would be better - how bad would pictures and memes be?  I was wrong.  I dissolved my account entirely, and then dissolved my Linked Out account as well on the basis that given the current environment, removing all opportunities to inadvertently fail was better than whatever potential benefit just hanging my shingle in Cyberspace might bring.

But The Book of Face remained.  I checked the pictures every day.  The comments dwindled to pictures of cats and rabbits and postings on old role playing games or occasional pictures of people leading their lives instead of warring with words.  It had become a wasteland of sorts, driving through an electronic desert with the occasional advertising sign, slightly faded from the weather and sun as a boredom breaker.

As a result, after this weekend I returned to the occasional viewer status.  Yes, I will continue to post for things like Father's Day and Mother's Day and birthdays because I love my family. If I go somewhere, I may post pictures of that as well (here too, of course).  But the daily checking of The Book of Face has now become a thing of the past.

Bad news for The Book of Face.  If enough people decide they no longer find value there, the platform loses its value as a connecting of peoples and interests and reverts only to a sort of personal news site which, while perhaps interesting to family and friends, is hardly the sort of revenue generating giant you need with a free content base.

In the end, Social Media may end up crushing itself or creating a giant echo chamber which is of no interest to no one.  Which, if one looks back upon the history of it, may serve as the highest form of irony:  That which was meant to connect people drove them apart.