shallow social substance
I've spent the last couple of days wondering if I should sign up to Mastodon. Not sure why I spend so much time deliberating, it's as simple as signing up on the sever they recommend. Something always stops me though.
I've removed the majority of social media now, I deactivated my LinkedIn a couple of weeks back and I tried signing up to Bluesky (again) and managed a whole week before I deleted it.
It's a frustrating loop.
The more I think about it, the more I think it's the 'social' side that bothers me, the whole liking, commenting, posting1. I considered it being fatigue or not wanting to share my life with the people who aren't actively in it, but I think it's that I don't much like the 'social' side of people.
I don't mean I actively dislike everyone but I'm just not interested in the majority of what they say on 'social' media. Maybe that's because algorithms have decided what to show me (although my experience with Bluesky suggests that's not it) or maybe it's because I prefer some substance to my social interaction?
The last couple of weeks have been great for me from a blogging perspective, I've had more responses than the previous eight or so months combined from people who've said such nice things2 and added their own context to my posts, which I've found incredible.
I do want a place to be able to post little off-the-cuff thoughts, ideas, reminders or fleeting bits that I don't want to clutter up someone's RSS feed by posting here. Perhaps I could use one of those federated sites like Mastodon in that regard?
I'm worried I don't have the willpower to stop myself getting involved or caught up in the social side of any of those platforms if I'm truly honest though.
An alternative I've been thinking about, I've mentioned on my create page which was to build a TiddlyWiki digital garden. It does sound fun. I'm going to give this some exploration over the weekend rather than get frustrated at myself and the world of social media again.
Here's hoping it goes well.
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