Way back in the nascent days of social media, when I was fairly active on LiveJournal and MySpace, I chose to close/delete my accounts all at once (already felt "too online" in 2006). Within a day, I was getting texts and calls and emails from people asking if I was all right (or still alive). It was a telling experience. Of course, I ended up turning that experience into an op-ed for the weekly paper I worked for at the time.
I don't think today I would even notice if someone went dark on any social media platform, probably because we've shifted to so much algorithm -based content being served up to us, not real-time, chronological posts from people we actually follow or care about. I just saw an acquaintance "return" with her first story posted to IG in 6 months (as she said in the post), but I was never even aware she was "gone."
So true! I posted on FB before I deleted my account, asking people to reach out with alternative contact info and only heard from a few people. Either no one saw my post or our relationship was superficial enough that they weren’t interested in doing anything extra to maintain it. I’d prefer the former explanation, of course, but the latter doesn’t bother me much - there were only a handful that I felt necessary to reach out to privately. The truth is social media relationships aren’t really relationships, they’re just another way to personalize our content streams.
Wow - I'm so impressed with all your activities, Stace! I really appreciate your section about using "suddenly" - I think I suddenly noticed I may be guilty! 🫥
Thanks, J.Q.! It’s nice to see everything wrapped up like this at the end of the month. Though to be fair all those YouTube videos were just reposts of stuff that had appeared on Substack already. I’m hoping to get some original stuff published there this month though.
You were not kidding about the turtles!
That is not even half of them! I couldn't get them all in frame and still be close enough to tell what they are.
Way back in the nascent days of social media, when I was fairly active on LiveJournal and MySpace, I chose to close/delete my accounts all at once (already felt "too online" in 2006). Within a day, I was getting texts and calls and emails from people asking if I was all right (or still alive). It was a telling experience. Of course, I ended up turning that experience into an op-ed for the weekly paper I worked for at the time.
I don't think today I would even notice if someone went dark on any social media platform, probably because we've shifted to so much algorithm -based content being served up to us, not real-time, chronological posts from people we actually follow or care about. I just saw an acquaintance "return" with her first story posted to IG in 6 months (as she said in the post), but I was never even aware she was "gone."
So true! I posted on FB before I deleted my account, asking people to reach out with alternative contact info and only heard from a few people. Either no one saw my post or our relationship was superficial enough that they weren’t interested in doing anything extra to maintain it. I’d prefer the former explanation, of course, but the latter doesn’t bother me much - there were only a handful that I felt necessary to reach out to privately. The truth is social media relationships aren’t really relationships, they’re just another way to personalize our content streams.
Wow - I'm so impressed with all your activities, Stace! I really appreciate your section about using "suddenly" - I think I suddenly noticed I may be guilty! 🫥
Thanks, J.Q.! It’s nice to see everything wrapped up like this at the end of the month. Though to be fair all those YouTube videos were just reposts of stuff that had appeared on Substack already. I’m hoping to get some original stuff published there this month though.