Just saw a toot wanting a feature to add subtitles to videos, but read it as wanting a feature to add subtlety to videos, which seems like an even better idea.
Tag: social media
2022-12-17 19:23
Wow. My Mastodon feed got really good just lately. I’ve boosted half a dozen toots just this evening.
2022-11-20 11:53
As I did with Twitter when it was new, on Mastodon I’m pretty much following anyone who follows me, anyone who interacts with one of my posts, and anyone whose interesting post finds its way into my timeline. When that adds up to more posts than I can keep up with, I’ll curate much more strictly.
2022-11-16 06:52
Gradually getting my follows arranged for Mastodon. I’m having less trouble than other people, because I had done my best to make Twitter act like Mastodon: I turned off anything that tried to “feature” posts, and just followed a list of people who tweeted interesting stuff.
2022-11-12 12:56
Ooh! I got on the mastodon server where all the cool f&sf folks are going!
Follow me there: @philipbrewer
2022-11-12 10:55
I guess I don’t really expect that the demise of Twitter will lead to a grand resurgence in websites that offer RSS feeds as the way to follow your favorite writers.
But wouldn’t it be wonderful if it did?
2022-11-12 10:51
As Twitter swirls around the plug hole, I thought I’d mention that I’m philipbrewer@micro.blog. I encourage you to follow me there.
I am also on Mastodon, but my first account there is for my Esperanto stuff, and is all in Esperanto. I’m looking to establish another Mastodon account specifically for my English-language writing-related stuff, but I need to pick a server first. Any suggestions?
2021-01-21 09:16
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I never quit writing link posts, even after they became the backward, less developed countries of the internet.
“The sharing moved to social media and got lost with the ephemera.”
Source: CJ Chilvers: A Love Letter to the Link Post via @numericcitizen.
Minimal doomscrolling
The New York Times offers up a widely-shared article on doomscrolling, which prompts me to realize that I’m actually doing pretty well at staying away from that.
In large measure I credit my decision from right after the election to minimize my exposure to internet content designed to maximize my outrage. Outrage comes with its own little dopamine hit, which makes it a treadmill that’s hard to get off of, but I realized that it was a treadmill that didn’t suit me:
I’m going to follow fewer links—so often they go to articles calculated to produce outrage, and I don’t need more outrage. It’s a fine line, because there has been and will be much that is deserving of outrage. Yet: I do not worry that I will suffer from outrage deficiency.
I did pretty well at that, and I doubled down on it after coming across the ideas of (and then reading several books by) Cal Newport. His book Deep Work reminded me of the satisfaction involved in taking the time and putting in the energy to focus deeply on doing something important and doing it well. (I recommended the book at the time.) His book Digital Minimalism helped me understand the harm that comes from participating in the faux social interactions of social media (things that feel like social interactions, but aren’t—things like hitting “like” on a facebook post).
I don’t want to give an impression of smugness here. I’m certainly not holding myself out as a role model. I’m all-to-well aware that at every moment I’m only a few clicks away from leaping headlong down the rabbit hole of internet outrage. But I’m doing okay. I feel the outrage, but I’m not compelled to feed it. I tend not to share the posts that feed the outrage in others (while still sharing the ones that suggest ways to make things better, both individually, and across society).
Maybe one or another of those ideas would be helpful to you.
2020-03-31 16:41
I’m about one request to “add me to an instagram group” away from deleting the @instagram app from my phone. Geez.