Thoughts on Social Networks

As I am not on your mainstream social networks (Facebook, Instagram, X, etc.), I have instead started using an instance of Mastodon that I spun up myself. (Link to my profile on Mastodon).  Mastodon has been great, there are some really interesting people out there to follow, and I have had some really cool conversations.  Despite my positive experiences, and the great amount of comfort I get from the reduced amount of ads in my life, I fail to get the biggest reason I use social media: the ability to keep up on the lives of my family and friends.

Some thoughts on the different networks

When social networks began to be popular in the aughts, there was a lot of excitement around it.  With Facebook, everyone wanted to get on because it was an easy way to post updates to your life and see what was going on in the lives of those you cared about.  And the more people you knew that joined, the more you wanted to use it.

With Twitter, for me it was about getting updates on nerdy things.  I follow a lot of Apple nerds online and Twitter was a way for them to post quick updates to things.  Personally, I love the format and function of Twitter, which is why I love Mastodon so much.  Eventually Twitter absorbed more people who were big celebrities or journalists and the verified check helped you know that the person you were following was the real person.  

Instagram was a cool app when it launched. It was about sharing photos and it was like taking a poloroid square photo and sending it off to a friend.  It had some similarities to Twitter with hashtags and mentions, but every post required a photo which I thought was neat.

All these and others were good when they came out.  All of them had contributions that others were able to learn from.  But the landscape of how these services worked has changed, and how people used them has changed as well.

The Problem with Social Media and Networks

I wanted to see what I could do to make my Mastodon instance more useful, especially to members of my family.  I spoke with some of them a bit about social media and why it is hard for them to want to switch to something like Mastodon or anything on the Fediverse.  The primary reason for them is that there is nothing to consume.  No one they know is on there.  

So the solution to that, is to get content on the site.  Creating content can be hard for the average user.  Most users (that I know) of social media are lurkers, wanting to consume but not willing to contribute.  Then I hear about issues that come from content moderation and trying to help people use the service in a kind way.  

In the end, the solution is another problem to be solved.  I want to get people on my instance and use it.  I find it a fun platform and that I can make genuine connections with people that I know.  I still am not sure what to do about it, but I think the more I reach out to people in real life, the easier it will be to persuade them to give the Fediverse a shot and hopefully start sharing content that would be fun for others to consume.