Winespeak: Social Media

We’re going to try something new this week, maybe even something that will become a regular occurrence in The Stick. I and my wife Penelope will drink wine and talk about various topics and you will get to read the results, God save you.

The text of this conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity, but heavily edited toward the end because wine. Results are not guaranteed. 

Frank: A little context for everyone. You, Penelope, have been staunchly against joining social media for a lot of reasons, so you have not had any presence at all up until one month ago. Like, you were probably the last person in western civilization over the age of three with no presence. Finally, you joined for the first time ever on any platform, and it was on Mastodon. Why did you decide to do it?

Penelope: Well, first, I didn't join social media because there was a void I needed to fill. I didn't feel any pressure to join because I didn't think I needed it. 

The kick in the pants I got was when [our daughter] Indigo got rejected immediately for violating community standards when trying to join Facebook for a college course. So apparently something in their algorithmic judge and jury permanently banned them forever, even though they had no social media presence at all and never did anything with it. And I thought, wow, these are the gatekeepers. 

More people, more businesses, more institutions are demanding we contact them only through social media. I thought, my God, what if you’re banned for no reason and have no presence at all, and no way to get in touch with people to work out any issues?

I was aware of Mastodon, thanks to books and podcasts by Cory Doctorow, and I knew that one day if I ever joined social media, it would only be on a Mastodon server, or somewhere else in the Fediverse. Definitely not one of the social media giants. So here I am. 

Just to make sure I understand, it was this event where, if the gatekeepers can prevent people from getting online, and we are now required to be online because our society has devolved to that level, then we’re screwed and have no recourse. 

Devolved is an excellent word. Thank you. 

You’re welcome. 

Tough crowd

So, what was your experience with the first personalities you found online, the first people you chose to follow? And why did you stop following some of them? 

The first people I followed made me feel a little less gaslit with everything going on. I found voices that were saying what I was thinking. 

But when I tried to engage, I found out that some are not interested in that. They’re just using the platform as their personal megaphone. It is not social at all. And don’t you dare present some slight alternative opinion because they and all their followers will pounce. Just don't bother. 

It will not change anything. It won't do anything meaningful. It was just shitposting. 

Did I use that word right? 

I think we all understand what shitposting is, even if we don't have an Oxford definition for it.

Social media in general, it reminds me of the cuckoo bird. The hatchling, constantly demanding attention. It's a lot of noise and you have to keep feeding it. I think, for some people, they have enough discipline or distance, and they use it casually, and that's good. For me, I could still feel it changing both how I thought and how I behaved, and it scared me. 

So, the cuckoo bird is the one where it lays its egg in another bird's nest, like not just another cuckoo bird's nest, but another species, right? And then when it hatches, it grows faster than the other birds. It becomes the biggest and it edges out the baby birds that belong in that nest. And the bird parents work so hard to keep the thing fed that it basically kills them. 

Sounds like a pretty accurate description of social media and the internet in general.

Ouch, my brains

Since you so recently started using social media, you have very recent memory of what it was like to have a pre-social-media brain. What have you discovered in the last month? 

I found new needs were created once I was on it. I felt a need to prove how smart I was. I felt a need to respond. I felt a need … to simply use it. 

I changed my behavior. I checked my phone more often. I began to care if people responded. And I spent more time on social media and less time listening to a podcast, less time doing the work I needed to do. Less time reading books. I was hoping for that little boost of happiness from someone liking or responding to something I posted. I could feel its pull, and I could feel it change me within days. And Mastodon is one of the good guys! 

We were talking before and you mentioned something about how other things have changed. Like when you go for a walk, things have changed. 

My intentions changed.

How so?

When something funny happens, or even if I say something clever, it used to just be in the moment. Now I see something or say something and I think, maybe I should post it. And the need to publish, to put something out there instead of just being in the moment, began to alarm me. There was the old Penelope who just behaved, just experienced and responded, and then there's the new one that was trying to figure out how to put everything out there to gain attention. 

Also, I felt my attention span was a little strange – shorter – and I have to be aware of it now and compulsively check less. Sometimes it makes me think I’m failing. 

The same reason people keep pulling the lever on the slot machine, right? 

Yeah. Like those experiments they did on rats where they would have it push a button and give it a treat, then they suddenly stop giving the treats? The first week when this was all new, tapping the app to me was like compulsively hitting the button, wondering if I was going to get a treat. Sometimes there were treats, sometimes not. It really fucked up my brain. There were no treats. 

And so, I just thought, I don't like this. But I enrolled myself into this social experiment, knowing all of the pros and cons.

Mental restlessness

I think you're one of the lucky ones. You said you liked old Penelope better. You remember old Penelope. But if you were to ask me about old Frank? I don't remember. It's been so long. What I do know, though, is that I can't pay attention anymore. 

At work there are always pings and dings going off. I've got multiple different projects I'm working on. There's always something pulling my attention away and I can't focus. I haven't read a book in months, and part of the reason for that is whenever I sit down and I start to read, I want to rush through it. I just want to get it done because I know there's something else I'm not doing because I'm reading a book, which is ridiculous. Like, it's Sunday morning. Why the hell am I rushing?

Mental restlessness. If I had to categorize it, it creates a mental restlessness, even on the good sites like Mastodon. Maybe it's not so much it's evil, but it will create these feelings. 

Yeah. We talked about “monkey mind” before. You know, how the Buddhists say we all have monkey mind. In modern life it’s become like a spider monkey, and modern technology and the way social media is, it’s like crack for the spider monkey. And then they multiply and then you have three cracked-out spider monkeys running around in your mind. Good luck trying to concentrate then. 

Oh, God. That's a really scary image. 

Sorry about that. 

It’s not all bad

There are good things on social media. And… I had another point, but again, the attention span. And the wine. 

You can be forgiven for that. 

Oh! So, what I found is there's a lot of lovely artists, photographers, and writers out there that are telling us about their work. And so that's the good part of it – being exposed to new things I could learn about, or just taking joy in someone else's beautiful photograph of a robin, which I couldn't get because they're all uncooperative here. Someone today got a lovely picture of a European robin; the American ones are not cooperating. 

That is not surprising. 

So, it's not all bad. There are really, really good things on there, like creative people and there are spaces for marginalized people. I learned to follow the people that are just simply trying to have fun, but a lot of it isn't just for fun. I think the dark side of it is, it's an illusion and it's very demanding, or it's a contest about who's the smartest in the room. Which gets very exhausting. 

I think there's some good, but are we better off? I think maybe we would have been better off without this app on our phone. I think people still would create and get their creations out there. Books would still be written. Journalists would still be able to do their jobs. And social media might be a tool, but I think at this point it just creates a lot of noise.

And if it becomes a necessity like you said, you have to get really good about filtering out the noise. 

Yes. So, in the end, I really like Mastodon. If you're going to be on social media, I would choose a Mastodon server and you can find your little niche there. But social media as a whole? I'm on the fence whether it's really been a gift to people. And if you’ll excuse me, I have to go check my app to see if anyone bothered to notice my post. 

I noticed your post. Isn't that enough? It used to be enough. 

Top off those glasses.

Afterword: After an additional month, Penelope and I now have a much better relationship with social media. Turns out that healthy boundaries are important. Like leaving your phone at home when you go for a walk.

If you know someone who may be interested, please pass this along!

And thank you!

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