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After watching a documentary pointing out the dangers of how social media is weaponized to capture and hold our attention and we need to mindfully fight back, I feel like sharing some thoughts on this. On social media. Yes I know... Anyway, a thread /1
I got overloaded on notifications early on from YouTube and Twitter and I must say turning off phone notifications for almost everything made a HUGE difference. Yes, I still fidget going to twitter and checking notifications in-app but it is better than having my phone call me /2
At the same time I'm torn. I still have great love for YouTube as a wonderful tool I can use, and Twitter as a source of information. I'd rank Feedly higher than Twitter in the same regard. Point is though, to make it a tool, you need to really work at making it so yourself /3
I curate RSS feeds on Feedly. I only browse Twitter via my own curated lists - a feature I love but is somewhat buried in the app. Ditto YouTube, I try to avoid recommendations and home feed and stick to subscriptions. I try to make it work for me, but it is hard work /4
Btw, as you know, this is exactly the idea behind my app http://myChan.tv - it is intended to let me catch up on content I CHOOSE to follow more easily to avoid getting sucked down the recommended videos rabbitholes that the algorithm wants you to go down /5
In the end of the day though, of course my app is also intended to help people stay on YouTube longer, except by finding content we choose rather than content designed to grab our attention. That's a fine line. And I've noticed YouTube get smarter at recommending content to me /6
I'm not against the basic ideas of designing apps to hold your attention or advertising. But #thesocialdilemma points out that the power of apps to move beyond appealing to you and toward manipulating you has jumped frighteningly /7
Btw, note I haven't mentioned Facebook here. Because honestly I don't see much purpose for it. You have NO control over your feed. It is not good for information. And it has no real purpose as a tool unless you are buying ads. I only use it to plug my livestreams /8
Anyway, I don't mind using social media if it helps me do something I want to do. And I don't mind ads if they are useful for me. But yes #thesocialdilemma was a reminder that I am perhaps naive here. My view is people need to be very self aware and mindful around social media /9
Incidentally this whole COVID thing is a bonanza for social media. It certainly tilts the field competing for "real world activity time" when we are forced to be indoors. Lad has stopped wanting to play soccer. Just Switch and iPad. I admit I'm the same other than running /10
Here is last week. A loooot of YouTube.... mostly documentaries. Tennis Clash is a fidget game and I’m going to get rid of that. But yeah, still waaaay too much time on the phone.... /11
