We’re now in the final countdown until my Year Of Experimenting With Online Exposure finally ends. I can count the days without using up all my toes. There’s light at the top of those stairs, and it’s freedom.
Come January, unless you put my Facebook profile or author page on “see first,” I’ll likely drop off your news feed. I won’t be liking or commenting much, I’m dropping out of groups, and Facebook responds to lower activity levels by making people invisible.
I doubt the majority of my friends list will care or notice I’ve gone dark. And that’s okay. I could list all the reasons why I’m restricting my presence to author page shares, a post a day, and blog links, but they all boil down to this: it throws my life out of balance.
To see anyone on social media, I have to see everyone. The constant exposure to posts from people who rarely (or never) connect with me amplifies feelings of insignificance and alienation. I don’t claim superiority. I’m sure my lack of response must hurt someone else. No idea who, but it’s the nature of the system.
Facebook games us all into posting, scrolling, clicking like, making comments, anything to garner attention. Algorithms give popular posts and posts by certain friends a wider reach than others, notification weighting affects whose words we’re alerted to seeing, more interaction between people results in more posts shared–these tactics are effective and insidious. They seduce people into the impossible task of keeping up.
Some are more resistant to this effect than others, but the need to spend time online networking guaranteed my infection. My lack of self-confidence formed an alliance with my overdeveloped sense of self-importance to sabotage my peace of mind and suck hours down the drain.
In real life, the revelation that in general, people don’t care was a freeing one. I could confine my concerns about offending or being interesting to a few, specific copacetic folk and ignore the rest of the world. This is a step towards achieving that happy state in my virtual life.
Unprofessional? Possibly. I could argue that the usefulness of Facebook as a networking platform is far outweighed by its flaws, but it still works for many people. I simply don’t have the right stuff to master it.
Satisfying? Oh, yes, it will be that. Nineteen days and counting.
Want to be sure we don’t lose touch? Some options:
- choose “see first” under the Following tab on my FB profile
- Search up dawnrigger on Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest even.
- subscribe to this blog by email
Don’t care? Been ignoring me on Facebook for ages already? Never responded to friend requests? That’s okay too. I’ll miss you even if you won’t miss me. But I’ll get over it. This is a happier space.
8 responses to “Happy reminder”
*marks you to See FIrst*
I love Facebook for some many reasons. And hate it for so many reasons.
That sums it up, for sure.
What worries me is this: right now, the “See First” thing is working to see all my friends stuff. How long til that stops working, too?
Yes! I love it and keep adding people to it because it basically brings back the real version of “see newest first.” Since FB eliminates everything I like, I’ve been waiting for it to go away. But then I firmly drop that worry into the “things I can’t change” bucket and move on.
Eff Facebook. I swear, if it weren’t practically REQUIRED for an author to do the social media thing, I wouldn’t bother. But… it is my primary contact with several people, you included. So I hope you’ll still be around a little, at least.
I’m not deactivating; FB is a contact point, as you say. I’m irked that it’s no longer a good place to *maintain* communication wit kindred spirits I’ve found there, but it isn’t. It’s grown unwieldy, and I’m not sociable enough to cope with the distorted interaction dynamics.
I’m basically going to treat it like a blog extension and putting damned little effort into hunting down material from others. If I see something, I’ll engage –but my chances of seeing things will plummet as my time online drops. I miss things now even when I use the search feature to see posts from custom friends lists. That will only get worse. Oh, well. More time for baking. And writing.
I have also shared my brilliance and perspicuity with the others. And the general lack of the genuflection is troublesome. At times i found myself reaching out to them. just to get a reaction. As if my sageness should not be in itself reason to interact. (btw way not making fun)