Mastodawn

Chris Trottier Mar 3, 2023

Yesterday, Hasan Minhaj deleted Twitter.

Today, Billie Eilish says she's deleted all her social media apps.

This is becoming a big trend amongst prominent people.

It's clear that social media has become toxic.

Yet I don't think the solution is to get rid of social media. That's because social media is core to peoples' lives. For all its negativity, it still empowers people.

Instead, we should be building less toxic social media.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/03/entertainment/billie-eilish-social-media-intl-scli/index.html

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Chris Trottier Mar 3, 2023

Honestly, I'm torn about social media.

I know full well how harmful and addictive it can be, and how Big Social exploits so many people.

However, I also know that it's given so many marginalized people a new lease on life.

It's helped disabled people socialize. It's assisted people living in remote communities to talk to each other. And yeah, #MeToo was a big moment.

Getting rid of social media isn't the answer.

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Chris Trottier Mar 3, 2023

A thought: what if we built social media to enable true human-to-human connectivity?

Because, right now, that's not happening.

Right now, it's relevancy algorithms and bots and A.I. that's acting as a social media middleman that's inserting itself between you and your friends.

People aren't talking to people.

They are talking to algorithms in the hopes that algorithms will connect them with their friends -- though that's no guarantee.

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Chris Trottier

It's not social media when talking to your friends is a gamble.

If you're saying something for friends to see, and the algorithm hides what you're saying because it assumes that what you say is "not relevant" to your friends' interests, that is *not* social media.

That is anti-social media.

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Chris Trottier Mar 3, 2023

Not everyone wants "social" media that's made for humans.

To them, humans are a barrier to what they really want: to hit the high score.

For many people, the appeal of Big Social is that it's a video game.

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Chris Trottier Mar 3, 2023

If you're building social media for humans, you need to thwart the impulse to treat it like a video game.

That means reducing the gamification aspects that make Big Social so addictive.

Instead, authenticity of social interactions needs to be prized above all else.

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Chris Burgess Mar 3, 2023

@atomicpoet agree. We shouldn't ignore that humans already gamified social interaction long before apps or social media, but I want to resist the escalation / acceleration they offer.

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Nicole Parsons Mar 4, 2023

@xurizaemon @atomicpoet

There's always people who act as if conversations need "winners".

To such, a conversation isn't about sharing ideas or friendship, it's about communicating domination or shoring up a social hierarchy.

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Chris Burgess Mar 4, 2023

@Npars01 @atomicpoet interesting observation yeah

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ch0ccyra1n is leaving fedi soon Mar 3, 2023

@atomicpoet
I'm still concerned that "authenticity" will be reduced to "use real name and face", for example with BeReal. For many trans women and/or privacy/anonymity-conscious people such as myself this makes the social network quite inaccessible.

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Alberto GM Mar 4, 2023

@atomicpoet Seen that way, this very site could be labeled as "anti-social media" in contrast to the mainstream definition of it. Those who view Social as a game of numbers and clout and money and little else have a hard time understanding something as Mastodon. They won't get the "high" they are used to in here. And yet, Big Social is the only "social" most people know, still.

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Boiglenoight Mar 4, 2023

@atomicpoet all I need is a feed that shows things in purely chronological order. No curation, no “top posts,” no “topics that interest you.” That is the only way and now I’ve found that here, I wouldn’t accept it elsewhere. It’s made other services repulsive and anything that comes down the pipe that doesn’t work this way gets a nope right off the bat.

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Justin ⏚Mar 4, 2023

@atomicpoet Even games are getting ruined by gamification these days! https://www.staygrounded.online/p/the-gamification-of-games-a-rant

The Gamification of Video Games: A rant

Collectibles and achievements are unnecessary, immersion-breaking additions to otherwise enriching video game experiences.

Stay Grounded

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Adam Dalliance Mar 3, 2023

@atomicpoet

Yes!

This is what Charlie Brooker reckoned. His history of video games TV show ended with the best video game ever: Twitter.

Link to that last few minutes:

https://youtu.be/32wN4IIDW1o?t=5622

"Why would games systems want to include social networking? Unless social networking already functions like a game."

"Twitter is a massively multiplayer online game in which you choose an interesting avatar and then role-play a persona loosely based on your own attempting to accrue followers by repeated pressing lettered buttons to produce interesting sentences....."