Tag: social media
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Boy Sober and Algorithms
Reading Time: 3 minutesToday I spotted another clear sign that modern social media are toxic and unhealthy. I see this through the [boy sober movement](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/10/no-dating-apps-no-dates-no-exes-no-hookups-whats-driving-the-boy-sober-trend). > A new trend is sweeping TikTok: #boysober. Its rules? No dating apps, no dates, no exes, no hookups. Thousands of women are uploading videos describing why they have gone boy…
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The Never Ending Troll and Flame Wars
Reading Time: 3 minutesAlmost every day, whether on Facebook open groups, or Fediverse instances I post something, and someone feels the urge to say “You’re wrong” and if I answe a stream of trolls and flamers will pile in. Yesterday someone asked “How do I do A on site B” and I gave two links to…
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Anti Social Media, Youth, And Feature Phones
Reading Time: 6 minutesA year or two I read about how young people were switching to feature phones from smart phones and I thought it was about nostalgia and fashion. As a person who grew up with “feature phones” as they improved and evolved, and as a person who was either trapped at a laptop…
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Who Killed Twitter – My Opinion
Reading Time: 2 minutesTwo authors wrote books. In these books they speak about whether Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk killed twitter. The answer is neither. If Twitter was alive and healthy it would never have been sold to an individual for four times its value, because its growth potential would have made this absurd. Twitter…
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Dormant Social Media Life While Sorting Through Drives
Reading Time: 4 minutesRecently my Social Media Life has become dormant. I do visit Facebook every so often but I ignore Instagram, barely touch Mastodon or the fediverse, and in general have stopped looking at social media for a social life. It’s not that my life offline has become vibrant. It’s that online is empty…
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The Solitude of Social Media
Reading Time: 3 minutesOne of the unique things about Twitter in 2006 and 2007, especially during the first tweetups was that it was a network of strangers who became friends without meeting in person. The people I became friends with in 2006-2007 are still friends now, to some degree. I met them every week at…
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The Dystopia of Child Influencers
Reading Time: 5 minutesToday I saw the headline “Content creator camps help kids become online influencers” and to me, this represents a nightmare, rather than a dream. It represents a nightmare rather than a dream because the notion of creating content to sell, to influence, and to market, rather than to amuse, inform, educate and…
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On Using Facebook Again
Reading Time: 3 minutesRecently I reverted to Facebook due to the death of Twitter, but also because of the political bias I see on Mastodon instances. That political bias has encouraged me to take a break from that social network until the conflict is over. Critical Mass Yesterday I saw that two people on Facebook…
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The Absurdity of Social Media and the Fediverse
Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s Ten Fourty Eight on a Monday and i have barely touched social media. I have barely touched social media for two reasons. People don’t see it as socialising anymore. They take a utilitarian approach to social media, which makes it absurd. The second reason is that we see how ignorant the…
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Social Media Glossy Magazines via Facebook and Twitter
Reading Time: 3 minutesRecently I spent time on Twitter and Facebook and I was reminded of that horrible feeling you get when you’re looking for posts and tweets by friends, to interact with, and see crappy adverts instead. Imagine if you walked into a pub or conference and instead of having personal conversations you were…