I want to try a different approach to my online interactions.
I’ve played with Facebook for a while, and I’ve decided, for now anyway, that it’s not my thing. Other social media seem to have similar problems.
Fighting
Conversations on Facebook are too often heated.
Maybe it’s that everything is open - all conversations potentially have an audience. Maybe that drives people to feel that they must “win” every argument. Often, the conversation participants are “friends of friends”, writing to people they don’t know, making assumptions about them based on little or no information. Taking up adversarial positions against people with whom, in a different context, they might be friendly and productive.
I wouldn’t say that argument and disagreement are unproductive. When you and I disagree, that’s an important indicator that at least one of us (maybe both!) hasn’t converged on the truth. I want truth-seeking. I don’t want fighting.
Lack of Focus
Social media bombards us with a hundred things at once. A friend’s interesting essay is stuck between shared comic strips, pictures of yesterday’s dinner, and updates about which beers people have consumed. There’s no focus. There’s no quiet space in which to ruminate upon the subject at hand. To log on to Facebook is to put one’s lips to the firehose.
I want focus and order - to make a conscious choice what to spend my time on right now - not to be constantly distracted by internet squirrels.
Towards Humanity
I’d like to try using this blog to interact in a different way. A more human way. A more focused way. Here’s what I have in mind:
I’ll occasionally write stuff here. If you’d like to talk with me about something I’ve written here, please do one of the following:
- Call me
- Talk to me in person
- Send me an email to john@spickes.net
I really do want to talk with you. I’ll probably even turn our discussion into more posts here, if that’s OK with you.
If you’d like, you can create your own blog somewhere. I’ll help you, if you’d like help. Let me know where your blog lives, and I’ll check it when I have reading time, instead of browsing Facebook.