I was on one of the well known social media platforms for some eight years.
I need not name the platform.
I left it forever, having it not suspended but deleted, a permament and irreversible operation, some two weeks ago
Why do i call such anti social media rather than social?
I found they are corrosive of true friendships and offer nothing but the empty "friends" who may "like" a post of mine and ask to be my "friend."
I realized that such friendships are totally worthless some years ago when one "friend" of mine who "liked" a post of mine about a book on some literary site became my "friend" but then, being a Right Wing Republican, a Patriot who believed in the US Military, discovered I was in fact a pacifist who regards patriotism as the sin of idolatry and so unfriended me, presumably in disgust.
So for the last two or three years i have only had real life friends in my friends list, and that list was therefore necesariuly sall, about 40 people including family members.
But this solved little,. In fact it made the wounds from being abused all the worse for they were real life friends not faceless strangers
The thing is when typing into a keyboard people are far freer in saying what they would not dare to say to a real life friend face to face.
I did this and nearly lost a best friend of nearly thirty years standing.
And another real life friend of mine lost her temper over my posts about political correctness.
Others, real life friendes, mark you, got vicious over the election of Trump. As I was less than enthusiastic over either candidate this meant I got anger form both sides
In the end of was self censoring in fear of raising the ire of my real life friends.
And of course I must admit I did my share of strident anger. I am not so saintly as to have been able to ride above this cesspool. I dumped my own foul loads in it myself
This position of aforementioned self censoring I found intolerable so I deleted the utility two weeks ago.
The platform was an antisocial platform. and I strongly suspect that all the others are as well,
Whoever thought that mass and instant commnications would "bring people together" was a naive dreamer. I see firestorms of self righteous rage which are only informing this culture of outrage; and this in outrage over absolute trivia. Just this morning ny news utility told me of a firestorm of such rage over a joke made by someone about a baby's name.
And of course political discourse has gone to the dogs. It is reduced to a short tweet or a longer rant. The instant expression of emotion is all that matters and considered opinion is not sought and is usually not given.
Then of course there is cyber bullying. Just this last week my work mates and I were talking about someone who killed herself over cyberbullying a couple of years ago. It was it seems the anniversary of this piece of despair inducing vicousness and must have been mentioned somewhere.
Then of course some poor fools are so addicted to their social media that they will be gazing into their cell phones to check for the latest "like" or tweet or whatever even in the presence of spouses and partners, who are understandably irritated by such rejection of them. This is further justification as to why I flatly refuse to have a cell phone
They are all antisocial media for the quarrelsome, the arrogant nd the bullies to get their daily fix of gratuitous virtue signalling threougth outrage, or some piece of nastiness
And yet the owners and operaors of these platforms will disingenuously tell us that they are not encouraging the descent into the mindlessness of instant graitification, replacing the expressed idea with an emoticon.
This is cynical in the extreme and I hold it to be manifestly untrue. Thought not causing such things the trash that fills cyber space shows that they certainly encourage it. And of course they make fortunes out of it so it will not be goiung way any time soon
But people, all too few, have been leaving the socal media platforms.
Finally having done so myself I warmly recomend it.
There is a real world out there with real people. We have forgotten this.
I will admit that social media have some uses. I could easily set up a party at my house by contacting my friends in a matter of seconds.
But when I was a sprightly young lad in my thirties we had none of these, and our social lives did not feel the lack ofwhat we had never at that point known .
The disadvantages far outweigh the benefits and I am glad to be shut of my own antisocial media platform
I need not name the platform.
I left it forever, having it not suspended but deleted, a permament and irreversible operation, some two weeks ago
Why do i call such anti social media rather than social?
I found they are corrosive of true friendships and offer nothing but the empty "friends" who may "like" a post of mine and ask to be my "friend."
I realized that such friendships are totally worthless some years ago when one "friend" of mine who "liked" a post of mine about a book on some literary site became my "friend" but then, being a Right Wing Republican, a Patriot who believed in the US Military, discovered I was in fact a pacifist who regards patriotism as the sin of idolatry and so unfriended me, presumably in disgust.
So for the last two or three years i have only had real life friends in my friends list, and that list was therefore necesariuly sall, about 40 people including family members.
But this solved little,. In fact it made the wounds from being abused all the worse for they were real life friends not faceless strangers
The thing is when typing into a keyboard people are far freer in saying what they would not dare to say to a real life friend face to face.
I did this and nearly lost a best friend of nearly thirty years standing.
And another real life friend of mine lost her temper over my posts about political correctness.
Others, real life friendes, mark you, got vicious over the election of Trump. As I was less than enthusiastic over either candidate this meant I got anger form both sides
In the end of was self censoring in fear of raising the ire of my real life friends.
And of course I must admit I did my share of strident anger. I am not so saintly as to have been able to ride above this cesspool. I dumped my own foul loads in it myself
This position of aforementioned self censoring I found intolerable so I deleted the utility two weeks ago.
The platform was an antisocial platform. and I strongly suspect that all the others are as well,
Whoever thought that mass and instant commnications would "bring people together" was a naive dreamer. I see firestorms of self righteous rage which are only informing this culture of outrage; and this in outrage over absolute trivia. Just this morning ny news utility told me of a firestorm of such rage over a joke made by someone about a baby's name.
And of course political discourse has gone to the dogs. It is reduced to a short tweet or a longer rant. The instant expression of emotion is all that matters and considered opinion is not sought and is usually not given.
Then of course there is cyber bullying. Just this last week my work mates and I were talking about someone who killed herself over cyberbullying a couple of years ago. It was it seems the anniversary of this piece of despair inducing vicousness and must have been mentioned somewhere.
Then of course some poor fools are so addicted to their social media that they will be gazing into their cell phones to check for the latest "like" or tweet or whatever even in the presence of spouses and partners, who are understandably irritated by such rejection of them. This is further justification as to why I flatly refuse to have a cell phone
They are all antisocial media for the quarrelsome, the arrogant nd the bullies to get their daily fix of gratuitous virtue signalling threougth outrage, or some piece of nastiness
And yet the owners and operaors of these platforms will disingenuously tell us that they are not encouraging the descent into the mindlessness of instant graitification, replacing the expressed idea with an emoticon.
This is cynical in the extreme and I hold it to be manifestly untrue. Thought not causing such things the trash that fills cyber space shows that they certainly encourage it. And of course they make fortunes out of it so it will not be goiung way any time soon
But people, all too few, have been leaving the socal media platforms.
Finally having done so myself I warmly recomend it.
There is a real world out there with real people. We have forgotten this.
I will admit that social media have some uses. I could easily set up a party at my house by contacting my friends in a matter of seconds.
But when I was a sprightly young lad in my thirties we had none of these, and our social lives did not feel the lack ofwhat we had never at that point known .
The disadvantages far outweigh the benefits and I am glad to be shut of my own antisocial media platform
