The social media detox
It’s back to forums and BBSes for me
I’ll be weaning off of Facebook, Messenger, and other Meta apps, perhaps gradually over the next few weeks.
When I started out with social networks like Facebook and Twitter, I was one of the early adopters. In fact, I had been blogging since 2003, way before many of today’s “influencers” and “vloggers” gained popularity and notoriety. It was all much simpler back then, although social media, by design, amplifies both good and bad things from people.
As early as 15 years ago, I wrote about how easily democratized media can be gamed, and here we are now, not to mention the now toxic nature of these platforms, particularly.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, leverages data as its main business model. Since all of its consumer-facing products are free, we can surmise that WE are in fact the products.
Everything you do on Facebook, everything you say on Messenger, every photo you view on Instagram (and how long, etc.) — these add up to data points that make up a “digital twin” of yourself on Meta’s platform. This is how the platform intelligently predicts your next moves and thoughts based on historical and intelligence-driven analytics of your preferences, locations visited, proximity with other people, analyzed content of photos you post, etc.
Even before I became active on social networks, I was already active on bulletin boards and forums. In fact, I ran a dialup BBS for a few years in the mid 1990s. I shifted toward Forums when those were all the rage. I met some good people through these forums — some of whom I am still friends with today.
For me, personally, there is a resurgence of these older-type tech, as I have begun to again appreciate the mindfulness that they offer. A lot of today’s apps have a “push” mechanism into our lives. Every message, every social update, every like — you get notified on your device.
While the original intent of the “push” was to save us from having to “pull” or poll for new updates every so often (as with the BlackBerry Messenger or BBM), it has grown so unwieldy that these are now consuming a big part of our lives. This is especially true for Generation Z — the digital natives who never saw a world without the internet.
Platforms like Forums, bulletin boards, and the like, meanwhile, have a pull-type mechanism. They are also built more for sharing knowledge and information rather than user engagement. There is more mindfulness since you need to actively poll for content. You need to make an effort before you can share knowledge.
Notice how a lot of us are sharing tips and advice on Facebook Groups, but a lot of the content is easily buried by the algorithm — it doesn’t help that these social networks have very bad search engines. Social apps want us to keep scrolling, sharing, liking, reacting, ad nauseum. They make it all too easy to incessantly share stuff with your friends with a click of a button. Tiktok doesn’t even have a homepage or users, and it delivers endless streams of content as you swipe.
In the recent months, I have built several platforms that celebrate the slower-paced nature of these forums and bulletin boards.
For example, there is the APRS Net, which lets my fellow packet radio enthusiasts join a daily net of short-message chats. We send message with our VHF radios at 1200bps over-the-air, no internet needed!
Some of my fellow enthusiasts also have BBS-type packet radio systems, which are text-based interfaces for messaging and interacting with other enthusiasts. There is actually a resilient form of email that uses VHF for local communications and HF propagation for emailing across countries, which will work with or without the internet.
I’ve also recently dabbled in forums again. I run some servers that are underutilized, anyway, so I started a forum for my fellow radio club members. While it is mostly private and behind members-only access, I left an area where other radio enthusiasts may also converge as so desired.
And knowing that connectivity is one of the biggest benefits of social platforms and messengers, this doesn’t mean that I’ll be totally off the grid, as I will still be active on apps that keep me connected with family and friends, such as Telegram and Viber. I even started a Discord server for family and for friends.
Sure, there are learning curves, and one often feels like giving in to that itch of one-click sharing. There are a lot of learnings and experiences I would like to share. I now feel it can be better appreciated through platforms that focus on more meaningful interactions and not haphazard engagements.
