Conversations

What Threads Could and Should Be

People on FB have pigeon holed me as negative, and don’t understand why I am this way. The reality is that I believe the algorithms highlight when I am negative, rather than positive. I also think that there is a certain amount of bias against me. I post plenty of positive things but I think algorithms hide them or the subconscious does. A Temporary Shift to Threads Since women, who are mothers, and may never be alone for the rest of their lives think that I am too negative on FB I will take a network from that anti-social network, to experiment with threads.

The Anti Whatsapp for Conversation Mentality

Recently I was added into a Whatsapp group where people discuss things to do in Geneva as well as more interesting activities a drive from Geneva. I was given admin privilieges on Whatsapp to organise events. In connection to this I shared activity ideas, interesting videos and more related to the topic. Yesterday someone objected to how much I posted so I started a private chat to converse, and when that was done I deleted the post that had triggered him.

Algorithms and Social Media

Recently I have been thinking more about trolling. I have been thinking about why, I, and others, appear so negative or toxic on social media. I believe that one reason for this is that algorithms drive conversations and popularity, rather than time devoted to social media, and conversationalism. Return on Investment Then and Now By this I mean that if I spent 20 hours on social media in 2006 or 2007 I would have spent 20 hours watching conversations between friends, and friends of friends.

Learning by Blogging

A few days ago I was asked once again why I wore two watches and I gave the usual answer of “this is my GPS watch and that is my Smartwatch”. People still fail to understand so I elaborate and that’s where I saw that blogging is useful. When you write blog posts daily, for weeks, months, or even years in a row you get into the habit of elaborating on thoughts.

The Case for Reverting to Web Forums

There is a case for reverting to web forums. Web forums are small communities of like minded people that form around topics, ideas, or ideals. They want to have conversations where you look at topics and sub topics, rather than following people. By having conversations on a smaller scale there is more waiting around for answers, but the connections should be more worthwhile. Recently the ActivityPub plugin for Wordpress jumped to version 1.

Social Media and The Human Return on Investment

Social Media and the Human Return on Investment, because contrary to popular belief we use social networks to socialise, not to shop. As we grow older and more mature our close network of friends changes and evolves. We go from school friends to university friends and then to professional friends. In the process we move from a village to another village, from a town to another town and eventually from one city to another.

Has Social Media made us less sociable?

[caption id=“attachment_2438” align=“aligncenter” width=“554”] As an extrovert of course you’d believe this. As a mid to late adopter you’d also believe this.[/caption] Introverts who are not going to compete with extroverts, through social media, have an opportunity to have friendships and interactions that would otherwise not occur. To say that Social media makes is unsociable is a fallacy. When I was a uni student the second time around I was socialising with fellow students all throughout the day and I was also active in social media.

Threaded conversations and community

From the 1970s to 2007 we had threaded conversations through bulletin boards, forums, groups and other centralising discussion points. For a brief window of about two years conversations became so captivating that people wanted to meet in person as strong friendships were established. By 2009-2010 the threaded and personal conversations between web users was hijacked by “social media” marketers and so the speed of conversation and quality of interactions collapsed. In it’s place hashtags would replace user engagement with quick metrics.