I have a love-hate relationship with Social Media. I go back to the Myspace days when Tom was a solid friend just sitting in front of a whiteboard smiling at you. I remember the days you could get a little HTML lesson if you wanted to customize your page. It was an interesting time. If I had a free moment at work, I would decorate my page with some bling and have the latest horrid pop song playing when you entered my page. Alas, Myspace stepped aside and made way for Facebook. As Facebook started to open its doors to the outside world, the Myspace ship listed and everyone jumped over to Facebook. I used to love Facebook. How else could you get your voice heard by so many people? I left Facebook for quite some time only to return because I felt it to be a good marketing tool. Now I use Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. I hate them all. Sadly, they are a necessary evil.
My Facebook usage consists of staying connected with a few friends and family. I use a lot of security features and share it with certain people. I also use the snooze feed button a lot and unfollow people that utilize the platform to stand on some sort of milk carton. All of this being said, it is the easiest way for me to get content out to a large group of people. I use it a lot for the messenger app also. Facebook Marketplace is the platform’s last saving grace. I now use Facebook as a yard sale and a second hand purchasing place. Outside of this, I am not a fan. My issues with Facebook comes down to lack of policing of information, and the access people have to false information. I also feel that Facebook creates echo-chambers and builds groupthink. Instead of challenging opinions, Facebook utilizes algorithms to create confirmation bias. This whole system has created an incredibly polarized population. Facebook is designed to keep you scrolling and pays attention to your engagement with certain things. This builds their algorithm and pushes that content to your feed. I had a business page on FB for some time, but I couldn’t reach people organically, I then switched over to Instagram.
Instagram is my favorite Social Media platform. As I am a visual artist, this platform helps me to get content out to the public and get organic followers by utilizing hashtags. It also allows me to follow other visual artists and interact with them easily. Instagram has provided me with sales of prints, collaboration on projects, and I even made some great connections and eventually friends. This does not mean it escapes my anger towards social media. You would think that as much as I enjoy the platform, I would have nothing but nice things to say, Well, buckle in folks. Put your seat in its upright position and tray up. As a visual artist, I always thought IG would be an amazing platform for other visual artists. And it is in ways, but Instagram and its algorithms do not help those that live in this environment. Instead, it leans towards building and developing influencers outside of the art realm and into the celebrity and products to create social media influencers. They also push products on you every third post in your feed or every third story. As a visual artist also, I enjoy sharing my work on the platform, but their TOA is pretty sketchy when it comes to intellectual property, so I tread lightly sometimes on what I post. What I don’t like about Instagram is how people whitewash their lives to provide only the best of the best times. This has created some sort of hate machine in comments. I won’t call it as big of a cesspool as Twitter, but it could be close. Instagram dictates false ways of life that spur mental health issues. I enjoy what I follow, but I avoid staged posts that are supposed to make me feel guilty.
I use Pinterest mostly for architectural ideas but have recently started to use Houzz. Pinterest is great, but almost everything I see is an ad or sponsored content. Clicking on content can be a game of roulette also as who knows where the link will lead.
So as you can see, my relationship with social media is hot and cold. As a visual person I enjoy Instagram, but I avoid a lot of content and keep my viewed content in my wheelhouse.