Like many people, I have mixed feelings about social media. I do like it as a way to keep in touch with friends and family. I don’t like how the algorithm serves up the same rotation of people to me. I do like Facebook as a way to be reminded of people’s birthdays. I don’t like feeling pressured to issue everyone a happy birthday when 10 people I know share a birthday. I do like consuming visuals such as beautiful cake design or cute animals. I don’t like how if I hit the like button on one of these posts then my feed is overrun with similar content.
And so forth.
The other issue I have wrestled with is platform-based cognitive confusion. As someone who has 11 additional Facebook pages (aside from my personal one) for current and former businesses and projects, I have lived the slippery slope of how much work to put into my personal. For example, back in the spring of 2017, a lot of work-related successes—that were also connected to my personal life—were popping and I found myself deeply uncomfortable. I was excited about each of these things but did not want to be a self-promotional douchebag.
My friend Jessica Ashley told me to let go of that nonsense and enjoy my passion project wins. Her words were something like, “Dude, celebrate with all of the confidence of a mediocre white man.”
LOL. Not wrong.
Hands down, the most confusing social space for me is Facebook. It is the one platform where I am connected to people from all phases of my life—compared to, say, Instagram, where I feel like the majority of people I follow are friends/colleagues through my various stages of internet life. And because Facebook feels more personal, it also creates a lot of dissonance for me. For example:
Election season is always fucking brutal.
Sometimes I am exhausted by the volume of personal broadcasting of every tiny little moment of, or question in, life (this could be a function of the algorithm serving me the same people).
Sometimes the volume of professional promotion from people feels like a lot.
I feel annoyed by ads that clearly show how Facebook is trolling me.
In the past, I have felt discouraged when I connected with people in real time and the conversation ends up being a ridiculous level of, “Oh yeah, I saw you posted that on Facebook.”
I often find my brain struggling with the constant switching between personal and professional updates. It leaves me feeling scattered.
And so, I found myself staying away from my personal Facebook for a considerable stretch of time, posting infrequently and scrolling even less, though I have found myself crawling back slowly, bearing in mind that I do value the personal updates from people I care about.
Now here’s the surprising thing. The other month I stepped back onto LinkedIn. I was not excited about it, but I figured it would be useful to update my profile now that I am no longer affiliated with an agency for my creative consulting work.
It’s worth noting that I joined LinkedIn in October 2006. Prior to the past month, I can count the cumulative number of hours I have spent on the platform in the past 18 years on one hand. I just didn’t care about LinkedIn at all, and I remember in those early days people mocking LinkedIn for wanting to be Facebook (back in Facebook’s heyday). Also, it is a strange place for a relationships-driven person like me to spend time since it is my one catch-all social profile; it is the place where I will connect with anyone (here’s my profile if you want to connect, btw), which means my connections there are wide and thereby also quite loose.
Aside from updating my profile, I was tagged in a few posts so I decided to pop on and look around. And even though I didn’t know half the people (personally) in my feed, I found the experience calming—the opposite of the dissonance I often feel when I open Facebook. Everyone on LinkedIn is all business. I know exactly what I am going to get.
I decided to experiment and just pop on once a day. I started by scanning and just liking a few things here and there. And then I began to see how much fascinating information I was missing from close connections who don’t post professional updates on their personal Facebook. I also saw posts from loose connections that intrigued me and made me want to get to know their work better. My feed was full of people doing interesting, smart, meaningful things and I was, quite frankly, inspired. And I was reminded of how much I love being a cheerleader for other people doing interesting things.
And so, in the last week, I delighted in cheerleading.
I started by amplifying and adding commentary to a post by Morra Aarons-Mele about workplace toxicity.
I shared about a freelance journalist conference coordinated by Katherine Reynolds Lewis.
I reposted an update by Laura Tomasetti to share about how she has long been a model for how to innovate and do great work in the PR/influencer space
I shared about an amazing new audio project by Julie Shapiro and John DeLore.
I reposted a fascinating Psychology Today article on medical condition blame and stigma written by one of my beloved college professors, Dr. Gail Sahar.
I amplified Jessica Alpert’s incredible new podcast project, Creature Preacher.
I shared about Dr. Scott Hadland’s new research on pediatrician readiness to counsel teens on opioid addiction.
This was pretty considerable activity in the span of a week given that my last post on LinkedIn prior to all of this was one year ago.
I know people have different preferences around social usage and I may come off as finicky but my point is that ultimately we can choose how and when we connect. It may not feel that way but we can, whether you take a social media sabbatical, create specific platform-based boundaries—for example, I refuse to have Facebook Messenger on my phone, nor will I download the LinkedIn app—or go in and out of platforms depending on when they spark good feelings for you.
Who knows how long I will enjoy LinkedIn but at present, I am remaining in a space of delight and discovery. And I’m going to keep on cheerleading because amplifying other people always fills me up.
This was a fascinating read that really made me look at the social media ecosystem from a different perspective. Thanks! I generally ignore LinkedIn, but you've made me curious to head on over there and see what's shakin'. As you experienced, it might be a nice change of pace from the usual FB fare. Also - thanks for the heads up on Creature Preacher! I just watched the teaser video on her website, and subscribed on Spotify. Looking forward to tuning in! :)
"My point is that ultimately we can choose how and when we connect."
I loved reading this detailed reasoning for WHY you're choosing one platform over another right now...emphasis on the "right now". It's so easy to go into all-or-nothing mode, or to feel like "Well, everyone else is leaving Instagram so I guess I should too" or even "That person is criticizing Substack so should I feel weird about being here?"
Looking back over the last 15-16 years, I have flowed in and out of platforms as they've worked for me. I was all-in on Twitter, then started to get bored by it. Moved to Facebook, eventually got bored with that and moved on. Was active on LinkedIn for a bit but as my professional goals shifted it started to feel less relevant and I wandered away. Got really into Instagram for a while, but...well, see above. And by the way, does anyone else remember Google+?
What's striking to me is that I used to make these decisions without a lot of angst...they weren't even "decisions" so much; they just happened. I think something has shifted over the past few years, where time and effort put into a platform feels like a reason in and of itself to stay, like an investment; we second-guess stepping away from certain platforms, at the same time reading about other people finding "freedom" by leaving those same platforms. "Deciding" whether to stay on IG or invest time here on Substack was starting to feel so fraught, and for what reason? At the end of the day, these are just tech platforms. They aren't our spouses or children or religions or our entire professional and personal pasts and futures. Whether we are, or aren't, on them doesn't define us.
I have been mostly off Insta for the past month and a half or so, and I'm treating my absence very lightly this time around. I got kinda bored and I wandered away. It happens. I'm not interested in investing much emotional energy in my "decision" or what it might mean in the future - I'll either go back, or I won't; and THAT feels like freedom to me.