I spend too much time on social media. At one point last January I even stepped away completely from it for a month. At the end of that break, I told myself I wouldn't put the apps back on my phone so they wouldn't be so easy to access even if I did start logging in again. That didn't last.
I'm not saying it's all bad. My Instagram accounts are really positive spaces. I have curated one account to be just nature photography and the other account to be just travel posts. IG has helped me find an online community to share my hobbies.
Facebook I have kept locked down. I joined really late (during the pandemic) and only accept friend requests from people I know in person. Although my feed still gets filled with other stuff, most of it is just entertainment.
It's Threads where I have more mixed feelings and where I have been able to watch the algorithm shift in real time in ways that I don't think are positive. That's not to say some great conversations don't take place on Threads - they absolutely do. But users only get to see a fraction of what exists and it is narrowly tailored to what Meta thinks that individual wants to read (and thus will keep them on the app longer).
If you want to confirm all your biases, this (or any social media really) is the place to go. And the worst part is that most people don't even realize it. Every day there are posts from people wondering why "everyone" thinks X or does Y. The reality is that the algorithm just thinks they only want to see X or Y and nothing else, so those are the only posts that person sees. That leaves us all in silos, divided from one another, which in my opinion is really detrimental to our society and relationships.
When I am conscious this is happening, I will sometimes seek out posts of opposite views and start interacting with them which will then start to steer the algorithm to show me something different. But it takes conscious effort to do that and my own biases likely still get in the way of manipulating the algorithm enough to find a real balance.
So why is all this relevant to this blog? Because I spend too much time on social media. In turn, my thought process, maybe even my emotions are influenced by the algorithm. Here I thought I just had to get my ex-husband out of my head to find myself but in reality, I also have to battle the algorithm.
It's also really concerning to watch how easily people get stuck in uninformed perspectives to such a degree that they not only don't see the other side but even when they come across something contrary, they can't find a way to fit it into their worldview. I've written before about how our mind can be quick to reject that which doesn't fit our worldview.
This division that only gets deeper based on so many uninformed or incomplete perspectives is really scary and unsettling. It makes me fear for the future. It leaves me feeling alone. And I feel really angry that my ex-husband abandoned me at such a time in such a way that I not only have to now face an uncertain world alone but I also have to at the same time process and heal from the pain he caused. Sometimes one becomes a distraction for the other and other times they both hit me at the same time and overwhelm me or like today, numb me.
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