Wrote about the ~current state~ of social media, and why Mastodon, while far from perfect, is pretty much the only decent app left standing at this point

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-08-07/column-its-the-end-of-social-media-as-we-know-it-we-should-feel-fine

Column: A few sick days made it clear — Twitter is dying, and so is social media as we know it

Social media is dying after the implosion of Twitter. Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon are trying to replace X but are coming up short. Maybe that's OK.

Los Angeles Times
@brianmerchant Mastodon, quiet? 😳
@elduvelle @brianmerchant rings very true for me. I basically duplicated my Twitter account but about half those I followed aren't here and those that are post less. Expanding out in topics and following hashtags did not compensate. It's nice, polite, but much quieter and a bit boring. 🤷‍♂️
@beneuroscience @brianmerchant you’re basically saying that 1) you don’t follow enough people and 2) the ones you follow rarely post… of course it’s going to be boring :)
@elduvelle @brianmerchant well all else being equal, it's less active for me. I don't feel there's tons of other neuro folks out there I want to follow that I'm missing. Twitter (probably it's algorithm) made it effortless to have a bunch of new content. I think you invested far more here than there and so it's active for you. But it took far more effort, I think.

@beneuroscience @brianmerchant yes, agree with all this! So it’s not that Mastodon is empty or boring in itself… it’s about what you make of it. My feed is anything but too serious or too boring. Yes, it requires some effort. But not that much really… and I accepted that small effort when I realized what Twitter was turning into and the possibilities that Mastodon had to offer.

And yes, a lot of the NeuroTwitter people are either not here, or they are but with a ghost account (worse). I miss them… but what can I do 🤷