My viewpoint on social media (and how I use it)
‘I mean, did it even happen if I don’t post it on Instagram…?’ – my take on the popular mantra for Instagram and the social media culture.
I don’t think I made a conscious decision to stop sharing so much of my life on social media.
It kind of just slowly happened over the course of a year or so, and then suddenly, there it was. Far fewer images of me being posted online, far fewer comments being made across social media. I had unconsciously stepped back and stopped sharing my life so widely.
Today, I’m grateful that I took this unconscious decision. What with everything in the media around Cambridge Analytica and Facebook sharing our personal data, the potential associated mental health effects from using social media too much and the ever evolving, hard to follow, impossible to work out changes in algorithms, it’s all got a bit much. I actually just scroll and browse social media far more now than actively participating and do you know what? That’s fine by me!
What social media do I currently use?
The big three, obviously. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And… That’s about it. I never got into Snapchat. I don’t know how to use Pinterest. I have a LinkedIn profile that I use purely for work connections. I have Whatsapp obviously, but don’t consider that to be a public social media platform. I know that there are many more social media platforms out there that I could use but… I literally don’t want to.
I use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for different reasons, and for varying amounts of time each day. Instagram is by far my favourite platform, Twitter has its virtues but I’d actually probably get rid of Facebook if I didn’t have a blog I wanted to share.
I like Twitter. I know there are people who take issue with the site and some of its ethics, and that’s fair enough. However, I find it the best platform if I want to get an insight on other people’s opinions. On Twitter, I can step outside my perfect little bubble and see that people across the world have different viewpoints to me.
It’s a great place to follow politicians, media outlets and celebrities. People post bite-sized chunks of information there often, and it’s easy to follow people you wouldn’t normally listen to in the real world. The list of people that I follow on Twitter is varied and potentially controversial.
I’m happy to admit that in real life, I edge more into the centre-left, Labour supporting category. But on Twitter, I follow people from all walks of life, with an wide range of political viewpoints. I don’t necessarily agree with what these people are tweeting, but it does me good to remember that my opinion isn’t the only opinion in the world.
Twitter is the social media platform where I feel anonymous.
As such, I feel most comfortable posting stuff there that I would avoid putting up on Instagram or Facebook. Follow me on Twitter and you’re likely to quickly realise that I enjoy Love Island, I’m a sucker for a feel-good story and I occasionally get angry with Thameslink for running such an awful service! I also share a lot of media stories, retweet companies doing good things and I will occasionally share my own content – photos or a link through to my latest blog post. A lot of the stuff I post would never, ever make it onto Facebook or my more carefully curated Instagram account.
I rarely feel pressure to post on Twitter and my following is atrocious. Aside from the potentially elevated heart rate if I do see or read something particularly controversial or out of my usual comfort zone, I find it to be the easiest social media platform out there. If I don’t want to engage, I don’t. I just scroll and read and learn more about other people’s opinions. If I do want to engage, I tap out a few words, drop in an appropriate hashtag and hit send. Done, easy.
My favourite of the three social media platforms I engage with, and also the most carefully curated and thought out. Scroll through my feed and you’ll be met with shots from my travels, usually landscapes or cityscapes, the occasional sunset or sunrise and posts that sit alongside the most recent blog post I’ve shared.
Whilst the photos I post are a good representation of the life I’m leading at the time, you’d have to scroll right down to June 2016 to get your first glimpse of me in any of the photos, and even further back to May 2016 to see me properly. Before that, the last picture of me was posted in December 2015. If and when I post pictures of other people on Instagram, it’s usually their backs, and they’re sitting facing a beautiful scene, or walking ahead of me. And I don’t do this for effect, I do this to protect their privacy.
Instagram Stories kind of came along and stole Snapchat’s thunder. I didn’t engage with Stories for ages, refusing to submit to the pressure of producing even more content. However, I do use them a bit now. Not often, but from time to time I’ll pop up a picture or share some ‘real-time’ videos or content from my life.
I feel the most internal pressure from Instagram.
Increasing my follower count. Increasing my engagement. Trying to figure out the f***ed up algorithms. Posting content reasonably frequently. Using Stories now and again. Curating my feed so that people can identify that it’s my feed easily. Adding a photo to sit alongside a new blog post.
I know Instagram has its flaws. The algorithms change all the time, and it’s impossible to know which post will get better engagement. I find myself surprised at which photos perform well and which don’t, it’s often not what I expect. The number of accounts that follow me fluctuates daily but (I think) is slowly trending up.
I try to ignore the internal pressure and stick to the unconscious rules I set myself for Instagram. I won’t start posting heaps of photos of myself, even though I know they’re more likely to increase my engagement. I won’t start posting more Stories – I generally prefer to enjoy the present without my phone in front of my face recording all the time. Now and again I take a break entirely and won’t post anything for a week or so. I still scroll through on the daily and engage with others, but my own feed remains untouched.
Facebook started out so well. Circa 2007, my friends and I were posting on it regularly. Not just photos and shared content either, but whole threads of comments, back and forth. I cringe to think what we used to post publicly for everyone to see.
Slowly, things went private. We started communicating through different channels rather than posting on each others walls, and as the platform evolved and became a place where our parents hung out as well, we kind of stopped sharing so much of our personal stuff there. Big life events maybe; the smaller stuff far less so. As Facebook seemed to lose its way somewhat, we became bombarded by fake news, irritating adverts and videos and memes with little relevance to our everyday lives. I disengaged more and more.
When I first went to New Zealand, I’d post albums of photos of myself enjoying my travels. I did it so that my friends and family back home could see I was well and happy and enjoying life. I did it because I wanted people to see how great my life was. Posting photos of my trip were a type of humble brag as much as anything else.
However, even that slowly stopped. Nowadays I barely post a thing on Facebook. If you scroll through my feed, you’ll find links to my blog as new posts are put up, and that’s about it. Rarely, my posts will be interspersed with a tag in someone else’s photo, or I’ll share a link to something someone is doing (most recently, a colleague shaving her head and fundraising for charity).
If I didn’t have a blog, I’d delete my Facebook account.
I keep Facebook because it seems a good place to share my blog and drive engagement to my website. Other than that, I barely use it. My trust in the platform has dropped dramatically since the data sharing scandal with Cambridge Analytica and I generally don’t like to post photos (I save those for Instagram) and I definitely don’t post ‘status updates’ anymore (I save those for Twitter). Facebook simply isn’t somewhere I feel comfortable posting about the majority of my life anymore.
Although Facebook are trying to redeem themselves, and bring their platform back to its glory days, I can’t help feeling it’s too little, too late. My friends seem to use Facebook less and less, with many having already deleted their accounts and apps and refusing to get them back. Truth be told, I can imagine I will delete my account at some point too. Whilst I can see the worth and enjoyment in keeping Twitter and Instagram, I find it harder and harder to justify my continued use of Facebook.
How do I envisage my social media usage evolving in the future?
In short, I don’t think my use of social media is going to change much on the platforms I currently use. I certainly can’t imagine ever increasing the number of photos I post of myself or my friends and family on Instagram, for example. Nor do I think my Facebook usage is going to increase again anytime soon.
I suppose the biggest change will occur if a new social media platform comes to the forefront that I decide I want to use. However, even if this does happen, don’t expect my values around what I do share to change too much. My main focus for social media is always going to remain sharing posts from my blog and photos from my travels, and I’m fine with that decision.
Social media can be wonderful, and it certainly has its uses. However, these days I tend to value my privacy and online security more. And do you know what? I also just don’t want to post so much stuff. It comes down to this – I’m happy with my social media usage as it is now. I’ve found a balance, I share what I’m comfortable with and if I need a break, I take one. It’s as simple as that!
