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Social Media
Mar. 22nd, 2022 06:46 pmI told my therapist I feel like I am poorly suited to typical forms of communication used by humans I might like to be in touch with. I recalled a speaker at an anthropology conference who opined that most anthropologists are maladapted to their own culture, and that trying to use Facebook makes me feel that way.
In part, she replied that humans are able to make choices about what kinds of systems of communication they want to use, and are able to learn how to use those systems in ways that work for them.
I feel a lot of loneliness. I have no social contact with other people other than that mediated by the internet. This doesn't seem likely to change in the near term, so I'm trying to figure out how to manage Facebook better.
I have always felt like if I have someone on my "friends" list, I should be reading the things that they post. Yet, thanks to Facebook's algorithms making its own decisions about what to show me when I look at my friends list, I've never been doing that anyway. But I tried, and I think that's the wrong approach.
I've been trying to figure out how to use Facebook's content filtering. I created a custom list of friends, and then realized that you can only use those to *post* content, not to read it. I looked at the "favorites" system, and was aggravated to find that it is limited to 30 accounts. Whether that's a limit I'll come up against is an open question since I'm reducing the number of accounts I'm reading tremendously, but the principle bothers me. There seems to be no way to have a reading list with an arbitrary number of people on it, nor can you have more than one "favorites" list. I won't ask why Facebook has designed an interface like this: the answer is that it makes them money in some way. But it will never make me happy. Ever.
But maybe I can work with it. I'm going to give it a shot.
Another major problem I've had with Facebook, probably the whole time I've been on it, is that it makes me feel alienated. This happens both with content I have actively chosen to view (memes and such posted by friends) and content I am unintentionally exposed to (things that friends share from accounts I am not following). It happens a lot with political content (and really, everything is political) from all sides and perspectives. It's because of the way content for Facebook is typically simplified to fit the space and attention spans.
I can't get away from the aggravation and frustration I feel when something I care about is being over-simplified. And then I feel extra-aggravated and frustrated because many of posts in favor of things I care about are that kind of over-simplification, and then I feel alienated from the people I agree with as much as I do from the people I disagree with. I think I just need to avoid all of that entirely, and that's one chunk of the content filtering I'm going to try to apply.
I don't know if Facebook is the platform for me at all. But I'm going apply a ton of content filtering and then try to interact with people in some kind of regular way, and see if it helps. It's worth a try, I think. If I can find a way to use Facebook that keeps me from feeling more alienated that connected, and more aggravated then happy, that would be cool.
I don't feel like I have a lot of spoons to put into learning how to manage systems in my life, but I also need to find ways to chip away at the anxiety and depression that is taking up most of those spoons. I need to find somewhere to start a bootstrapping process for my mental health.
In part, she replied that humans are able to make choices about what kinds of systems of communication they want to use, and are able to learn how to use those systems in ways that work for them.
I feel a lot of loneliness. I have no social contact with other people other than that mediated by the internet. This doesn't seem likely to change in the near term, so I'm trying to figure out how to manage Facebook better.
I have always felt like if I have someone on my "friends" list, I should be reading the things that they post. Yet, thanks to Facebook's algorithms making its own decisions about what to show me when I look at my friends list, I've never been doing that anyway. But I tried, and I think that's the wrong approach.
I've been trying to figure out how to use Facebook's content filtering. I created a custom list of friends, and then realized that you can only use those to *post* content, not to read it. I looked at the "favorites" system, and was aggravated to find that it is limited to 30 accounts. Whether that's a limit I'll come up against is an open question since I'm reducing the number of accounts I'm reading tremendously, but the principle bothers me. There seems to be no way to have a reading list with an arbitrary number of people on it, nor can you have more than one "favorites" list. I won't ask why Facebook has designed an interface like this: the answer is that it makes them money in some way. But it will never make me happy. Ever.
But maybe I can work with it. I'm going to give it a shot.
Another major problem I've had with Facebook, probably the whole time I've been on it, is that it makes me feel alienated. This happens both with content I have actively chosen to view (memes and such posted by friends) and content I am unintentionally exposed to (things that friends share from accounts I am not following). It happens a lot with political content (and really, everything is political) from all sides and perspectives. It's because of the way content for Facebook is typically simplified to fit the space and attention spans.
I can't get away from the aggravation and frustration I feel when something I care about is being over-simplified. And then I feel extra-aggravated and frustrated because many of posts in favor of things I care about are that kind of over-simplification, and then I feel alienated from the people I agree with as much as I do from the people I disagree with. I think I just need to avoid all of that entirely, and that's one chunk of the content filtering I'm going to try to apply.
I don't know if Facebook is the platform for me at all. But I'm going apply a ton of content filtering and then try to interact with people in some kind of regular way, and see if it helps. It's worth a try, I think. If I can find a way to use Facebook that keeps me from feeling more alienated that connected, and more aggravated then happy, that would be cool.
I don't feel like I have a lot of spoons to put into learning how to manage systems in my life, but I also need to find ways to chip away at the anxiety and depression that is taking up most of those spoons. I need to find somewhere to start a bootstrapping process for my mental health.
