“What I Left Social Media”, by Dominick Whelton.
Well, this one doesn’t seem to be the radical step of
closing your social media accounts and leaving it forever. People have threatened to do that (like David
Pakman) and not followed through.
He says he gave up posting on Instagram for a few weeks
after some family issues distracted him, and feels better about it now.
I have a more complicated potential situation. My own online presence is very old (since
1996) and supports my three books and supports a “brand”, a lot of it with
hosted content rather than social media itself.
This does not make money now and that is OK with me in retirement as I
am OK because of other assets, but that may not be OK forever with social media
platforms or even hosting companies because social polarization and cultural
changes, especially since Charlottesville.
It could make a lot of sense to discontinue a lot of my activity
(including these blogs, as Blogger is somewhat a social media platform as opposed
to just publishing even now) and focus narrowly only on a few things (including
finally finishing some music composition that has been out there since 1962). In that kind of environment, it might make
sense to discontinue discussing social and political issues on FB and Twitter
too, and mention only narrow interests, and not be taken for granted. I don’t generally participate in raising
money for causes or candidates – but Facebook tries to prod me to do that
whenever I make a news story linking post.
I like my work to be mine, and not be someone else’s mouthpiece or let
them be mine.
So right now Whelton’s video seems to be the tip of a very
deep iceberg – and we do have climate change.
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