Are You Cut Out for Social Media?

yeah I feel that post a lot. early in my professional life a senior member of my field told me that I was quiet in an irl setting where it would have been better to be vocal, and he was right, because I get shy when there are a medium number of people watching (I'm comfortable talking to small and large groups, by contrast). I had to "get over it" because professional advancement made it necessary and I'm now ok at it. I still wonder if it's just some natural shyness, or something about my ethnic upbringing, as a Latino; and whether my profession reinforces the...forthrightness of other ethnic groups without recognizing other ethnic dispositions. Maybe this is also true of social media.

not "forthrightness", more, "forwardness", I think.

i think there's a lot of space made in philosophy for people who want to hold the floor for various reasons (many notably not good). even the ones who don't want that as speakers are disposed to encourage it by the ways they are receptive to it as listeners and respondents.

yeah it can be rotten. I think I like settings where everyone is encouraged to have their turn, rather than letting the big mouths hog things. I just wonder about the gender & ethnic dimensions of being a big mouth or of being someone who wants to give space to others (I am of the latter kind). Though sometimes I feel like I have something actually worth saying, and I guess the big mouths must feel like that all the time? I just make sure not to sit next to them at dinners.

La lechera otm, hate social media. I used to post on ilx way too much and now it seems comparatively incredibly benign. Also can be sure nothing is going to 'go viral' and so the show off element and careering that exists on Twitter say is not a thing here. There's also the archival element, you can return to theads or use them as resources (I recently read all the threads about the red Crayola while really stuck on 'introduction'

Feeling these posts from jaymc’s on down

I'll be honest: I've had more scraps on ILX than on Facebook, in about the same time-frame. Nothing too major, else I'd be long gone, but there have been more than a few exchanges over the years that upset me, something that hardly ever happens with me on Facebook. I imagine that has to do with the combination of the way I approach the two and the fact your Facebook world is much easier to control.

la lechera post is SO otm

I think I've had two scraps on Facebook in 10 years. One with a former friend I blocked, one with my sister-in-law who blocked me, but has unblocked me since. I haven't got into that many scraps on ILX in the same time period, but it's certainly been more than two!

You can look at the amount of control you have two different ways. As LL says, you can pick which threads you read or post on with ILX. But that only goes so far. Whatever scraps I've gotten into have been, presumably, "with other people interested in that topic who ostensibly read/post on the thread because they also have an interest in the topic." But that doesn't really spare you from confrontation--it facilitates it, if--the part of ILX I've never understood--someone's lying in wait to make a big deal out of the fact you don't see this common interest (a film, a baseball player, whatever) the same way. The control on Facebook is in who's on your friends list and what feeds you let onto your wall. Which, to me, feels like much more control.

This thread making me thinking about a lot of things, not sure how much I can post now, probably not too much, but for the most part, with some expected exceptions of course, FB posting seems to me so generic, so disposable, so preaching-to-the-converted, so me me me me me, etc.. Here we have a ghost of chance that we are having some kind of interesting conversation. Also you post something interesting on FB, maybe at best you will get a few likes (I have kept my number of friends amazingly low over the past decade) Post something interesting here and there is a much better chance someone will respond in kind. Even if no one responds you may find it again yourself years later and get something out of it, it doesn't have that same sense of sitting there Unliked or Uncared for.

I mean, the problem -- which is also a problem with twitter, but maybe not a social media-specific problem -- is that there are designated Bad People, which are sometimes designated due to good reasons, or reasons that are knowable and avoidable, but not always. and once someone is a designated Bad Person then anything else they post is deemed bad; and furthermore, once someone is designated as a Bad Person, everybody else is compelled to share that opinion, or else they too will become a designated Bad Person

see: the dozen or so people here who supposedly are trolls but whom, at least from their posts, have given zero indications that they are not operating in good faith, and yet every time they post in a thread, even if that string of words would be acceptable with another name attached, they receive so much vitriol

I'll probably regret saying this, but I never--never--understood the vitriol heaped on Fred B. I know he had lots of opinions on American politics from a thousand miles away--if I were American, I'm sure that would sometimes get under my skin. (I went through a much more benign version of that when I first joined ILX, a Canadian who had an interest in American politics--especially, horror of horrors, the "race-horse" aspect of it.) But, as you say, "that string of words would be acceptable with another name attached."

I've never really understood either and have wondered whether there were some posts or threads that I missed.

That's what I always think.

I've never really understood either and have wondered whether there were some posts or threads that I missed.

Yes, there were. Obviously. It wasn't just US politics threads he annoyed people on btw, he did the same every single time he appeared in a UK politics threads too. I don't want to list Fred's faults, because that's a thankless task if ever there was one, but I tried with the guy occasionally but all he did was throw stuff back in your face. I will mention one fault though: one minute (haughtily) "I don't resort to insults and personal attacks", the next minute, "You're an idiot".

No big deal though, every person who's ever been banned on here (or banned more than once in Fred's case) has had someone say, "I never saw what the problem with them".

"... with them was"

Rule #1 of ILX: every thread eventually becomes a Fred B thread, especially when he's not there to partake in it.

He's just the latest one.

Come to think of it, he supplied ILX's current board description, no?

What is it?

'not I day goes by where I don't feel like I'm smarter than everyone else on here'

It is very easy to engage with social media in moderation and maintain mental health. No one knows discipline anymore. I love Twitter but I don't spend all day on it. I know lots of people who read *their entire timeline*, like every tweet. Insane. Social media is to be checked in on, watched when you have a moment's rest, like a river or a stream. I like skipping pebbles on ponds. The key is remaining the person and not becoming the pebble. The overextended metaphor ends here, with the post

yet the thread does not

For me it does. I must leave now

but

I've always liked Fred B's contributions to the film threads. I would follow him on twitter but all of his posts are in Danish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM86DdwT71Y

It is very easy to engage with social media in moderation and maintain mental health. No one knows discipline anymore. I love Twitter but I don't spend all day on it. I know lots of people who read *their entire timeline*, like every tweet. Insane. Social media is to be checked in on, watched when you have a moment's rest, like a river or a stream. I like skipping pebbles on ponds. The key is remaining the person and not becoming the pebble. The overextended metaphor ends here, with the post

― flappy bird, Thursday, May 21, 2020 3:33 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

no it's not, actually. it's no secret that these platforms / interfaces are designed to be addictive. people don't check their phones all the time because they lack self-control. they're hooked like junkies or alcoholics.

we have an entire society that's wrapped up in this shit, that's toxically dependent on total trash, scrolling, filling the void, unable to step away.

just do some basic research on the deleterious cognitive effects of social media. we're going to look back at children with smartphones and IG accounts like how we see smoking culture now.

Post something interesting here and there is a much better chance someone will respond in kind. Even if no one responds you may find it again yourself years later and get something out of it, it doesn't have that same sense of sitting there Unliked or Uncared for.

i like this about ILX. sometimes you're posting just to share. other times it's for the conversation / perspectives / tips. but occasionally you look in on threads and it's clearly just one person's little project, and that's okay, too.

It is very easy to engage with social media in moderation and maintain mental health. No one knows discipline anymore.

― flappy bird

a boy used to kick a ball in the yard

I did have to put in place a rule, i.e. I'll read x amounts of pages/chapters before picking up my phone again.

And then I'm reading a lot more links I get from twitter and here too, so if anything I'm just reading a lot more.

I like both of bodu jeru's posts, they explain why ilx is the best social media to me

*medium

The addiction thing is real.

more and more I am starting to think the issue is more my not being cut out for human contact, of which social media is just a subset

LOL I've just remembered Joe Biden was responsible for Fred's demise too. That guy's a menace.

like, for instance, right now I do not know the proper stance to have toward the shallot pasta. I did not know it was wrong to make it until like an hour ago. how many of my other recipes are attached to the designated wrong people? how would I know? (it's all a moot point anyway because I hate shallots and would never make it anyway; but that in itself also is a wrong stance, because according to the discourse it makes me a bad person because my food thus has no flavor -- something I don't understand because there are plenty of things without shallots or onions that nevertheless have plenty of flavor (like puttanesca, which the shallot pasta basically is), but the discourse is firm with no wiggle room

No one knows discipline anymore

flappy i'm not making fun of you here but you are a person who had to *quit* listening to the smashing pumpkins

xp don't like shallots much tbh, they seem incidental to any recipe, just use onions and garlic

(to clarify this is not me defending her, but rather this is saying that I so rarely know what the rules are until it's announced that people retroactively are horrible people for having broken them. like everything one can do in life that isn't obviously morally charged, like making a recipe for pasta, can be milkshake ducked at any time)

Perhaps not every moral outrage is worth engaging with

I mean once it is put out into the world that there are moral stakes, then "not engaging" is itself a position

It's ok to sometimes say you just don't care about the controversy du jour. None of us has the mental or emotional bandwidth to take a principled stand on every last topic.

Definitely not cut out for social media but I can find a comfortable/bearable place in most uncomfortable rooms. Also trying to retrain my brain to believe it’s alright to promote myself.

I mean that's the thing though, it is always "this is wrong," not "this is wrong unless you don't have the mental or emotional bandwidth"

What the shit are y’all talking about re: shallots and pasta??

https://twitter.com/search?q=shallot%20pasta&src=typed_query

Shallot pasta only has to bother you if you willingly engage in the posting wars. Whatever the controversy is there just treat it like the tabloid headlines in the supermarket checkout line. You never had to argue with anyone about Bat Boy’s predictions.