My current relationship with social media

5 Thoughts I'm Having

Photo by Kev Costello on Unsplash

Dear friend,

Today I want to discuss my relationships with social media and the internet. I wrote the majority of this article weeks ago, and at that time, I didn’t include any sort of opinion on the recent Supreme Court ruling to uphold the law that is to ban TikTok (because it hadn’t happened yet), but I will give you my thought on that matter in the “5 Thoughts I’m Having” below.

The more I considered my own post from a few weeks ago about the thoughts I was having about my step backwards from writing in the public sphere, the more I realized that most of my fear stemmed from my distrust and increasing lack of interest for social media.

I pretty much gave up posting on Facebook and Twitter a couple of years ago, except for some random posts from my travels that were shared directly from Instagram to Facebook. You can read my thoughts about social media around that time. Here’s a quote from that article:

It’s not that I think all social media is bad, but I do believe that there is a lot of bad on social media.

Over time, after reading many articles on the subject, and listening to others who felt similarly to me, I began to realize that scrolling through social media for entertainment was not enriching my life in any way. And being “social” on social media was becoming harder and harder with how the algorithms were constantly changing whose posts we got to see. It became too much work and took too much time!

And as Emma Gannon of the Hyphen put it in a recent article, Goodbye, Instagram:

It makes people lazy with each other.

I truly believe that. People I don’t know or who I can’t remember ever meeting in person stop by my Facebook page each year to wish me a happy birthday. I’m just going to say this: If my closest friends and family think that wishing me a Happy Birthday on Facebook is how to wish me well, then those people don’t know me at all. This is also why I’m trying really hard to put the people’s birthdays who matter the most to me in my calendar. I’m not perfect at this, but I try to wish people a Happy Birthday via text, or even better, a phone call. (If you’re reading this, have my phone number, and you didn’t receive a Happy Birthday text or phone call from me the past year, please send me a text immediately with your birthday! Yes, I’m serious!)

My Dream Social Media

If there was a social media forum that guaranteed that there would never be an algorithm that pushed posts they wanted me to see and squashed posts they didn’t find worthy… In other words, if there was a forum where I would see the posts of people I chose to follow, and no advertising was allowed, I would gladly participate. And I would probably be willing to pay for it. Maybe. But that would mean my friends would also have to get on board, or it would be a lonely place. I realize that this is a dream that will not be realized.

Our collective views of social media are extremely complicated, and everyone’s experience with social media is different. Some people absolutely love social media. It’s where they get their news, sadly. It’s where they keep in touch with friends they don’t see very often. And for some, it’s where they do business; it’s how they market what they do for a living. I get that our views of the many platforms vary. We are not meant to agree on this subject. And that’s totally okay.

Why I Don’t Use Social Media for Social

Since the 2024 U.S. election (and before, really), I know a growing number of people who have left Twitter (or X), and they’ve gone on to join Threads and/or Bluesky. And many are even leaving Facebook, Threads, and Instagram due to Zuckerberg’s decision to eliminate fact checkers. (To which I say: Facebook had fact checkers?)

I’m on Threads, Instagram, and BlueSky, technically speaking. And I haven’t shut down my Facebook because I have some groups that I pull information from at times. However, because I don’t have a habit of checking those sites, I am completely unreliable at posting on either, and I’m even worse at responding to others.

As a matter of fact, I made the mistake of posting something about a recent travel experience on Threads, and hundreds of strangers came at me in the comments because they had a different opinion than what I had expressed. All of those strangers did me a huge favor, though. They reminded me of why I don’t trust social media, and how you can find yourself in toxic relationships with complete strangers on the internet.

Another example was when Threads first started. I, like others, joined to see what all the excitement was about. During those early days, some people ventured onto Threads and began following everyone they followed on Instagram. Logical, right?

Other people I know joined this new social media site with more strategy in mind for their “branding.” (I follow a lot of writers, artists, and other creators.)

A very popular nonfiction author and I followed each other on Instagram at the time Threads was launched, and when we each joined Threads, we were quick to follow each other and interact and discuss how Threads just might be the Twitter of long ago—where writers had fun conversations about creating. I was excited.

But then, this nonfiction writer took the “social” out of social media. He unfollowed me. It was not because he suddenly didn’t like me, or anything like that (I don’t think). I did not take it personally (we didn’t even know each other in real life), but I did want to know why. So, out of curiosity, I stalked his profile. And that’s how I learned that smart, savvy authors and creators were immediately looking to use Threads solely as marketing platforms. He was using a strategy to get others to follow him by following thousands of accounts, but then unfollowing those accounts once he had the follow. That way, his profile would show that he had thousands and thousands of followers, and he would only be following 32 people (made up number for illustration) in return. He was SOOOO popular! (Insert eye roll.)

Despite my irritation, his strategy was completely fair! I don’t blame creators for using social media to their advantage. It’s a tough world out there to make a living as a writer/artist. But his strategy didn’t make me want to interact with him, so I unfollowed him. (I still get his newsletter, because I appreciate him as a writer. I just don’t kid myself into believing we are social media “friends”.) In that instance, I found him disingenuous.

However, just by him doing that (and others copying that strategy) made Threads just like Twitter in my mind. And then the algorithm kicked in, and I’m sure you know how the rest of the story goes.

All of this leads me to…

My Five Thoughts on Social Media and the Internet

To wrap up this long-winded letter about my relationship with social media and the internet, here are my 5 thoughts on the subject:

1. It’s not the internet that is the problem. I’m actually extremely grateful for the internet. But social media is not for everyone. And I have found over the past few years of not posting regularly on most platforms, that most of the platforms are not for me. (At the time of this writing, you can find me on Instagram. It’s where I chronicle my travel adventures for the most part.) But in full transparency, I’m not consistent on that platform; I don’t answer DMs; and I could very easily delete all of Meta in the future.

2. You can use the internet for magic. You can learn new skills and hobbies. You can look up videos on how to fix that thing that is broken in your house. You can easily research topics you never knew you wanted to know something about. The internet can save you time and make you smarter and more curious.

3. You can find people on the internet. Sure, you can use social media for this, and that’s a good thing. It’s why I still have Facebook as a research tool, not as a social media platform. I have found people on Facebook that have helped me in my quest to re-establish Italian citizenship for my family. Facebook helped my husband reclaim his wallet after being pickpocketed in Paris, France. (Let me know in the comments if you want to hear this crazy story.) There is some usefulness to social media.

4. The internet and social media has made it easier for writers and artists to make a living with their talents. And for this, I am forever grateful. I made a living with my writing for years, and it still provides for a portion of my income. And that’s thanks to the age of the internet. But it is NOT thanks to social media. I realize that this won’t be the view shared by everyone, but social media is not how I got my books in front of readers.

5. Which brings me to the latest news of a ban of TikTok in the United States. Because I don’t open TikTok unless someone sends me some funny video they want me to watch, I don’t have huge opinions on the matter. But I do realize that there are many people who get their important messages out or share their creativity via TikTok, and that this is a huge blow to their internet presence, and in some cases, their income. For those people, I’m sorry. I also see that the ban has received large bipartisan support from Congress, and now a conservative Supreme Court voted unanimously to uphold the law. While I don’t really trust law makers these days to do anything for the good of the people, as they typically only do things for the good of their politics, I find it a little shocking that both sides of the aisle agreed on this for the most part. And from all my research into homeland security for the In Darkness series and from my homeland security contacts over the years, I can’t help but wonder if Congress and the Supreme Court have top secret knowledge that the average American person is not cleared for knowing. On the other side of the argument, I’m not sure most people of Congress or the Supreme Court even know what TikTok, Facebook, or BlueSky even is. And if they were truly fearful that China or other “bad” people were getting a hold of our deepest, darkest secrets as a threat to National Security, they’d ban Twitter, Meta, and the rest of social media.

So, as I’m actively working through the many reasons of why I haven’t written publicly much over the past couple of years, I’m realizing that it is not the internet that I’ve shied away from, it’s social media.

Many of you will say: but without social media, this writing will never be seen.

I’m willing to take that chance for the sake of finding my voice again. I mean, the recipient of this letter saw it, after all. And I appreciate you more than words can express.

Until next time,

Heather

---

If you enjoyed this, do me a favor and hit the ❤️ button. And don’t forget to subscribe.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a consistently inconsistent publication of my thoughts, though I’ve vowed to be more consistent in 2025. You can find more of my shorter thoughts and links to things I’m reading in my Notes.

If you enjoy my thoughts and want to encourage more writing, you can do one or all of the following: leave a comment and join in the discussion, buy my books or become a paid subscriber (you can also subscribe for free, and I welcome it).