“I’m Quitting Social Media”

“I’m quit­ting social media.”

The oth­er day, I stumbled upon the art­icle “Going Postal — A psy­cho­ana­lyt­ic read­ing of social media and the death drive.”

In the art­icle, the writer Max Read tells us about his rela­tion­ship with social media in light of read­ing “The Twittering Machine” by Richard Seymour. 

And yes, Read tells us that he’s quit­ting social media.

Here we go:

Why Read Is Quitting Social Media

Read’s art­icle is well-writ­ten, both poignant and enter­tain­ing. And he does a tre­mend­ous job of con­vey­ing his think­ing on the sub­ject. The trope “I’ve had enough, and here’s why I’m quit­ting social media” has been an inter­net staple for years, but Read’s take is a classy blend of wit and cool.

Despite dis­agree­ing with Read’s con­clu­sion, I enjoyed the style of the art­icle wholeheartedly:

“I quit Twitter and Instagram in May, in the same man­ner I leave parties: abruptly, silently, and much later than would have been healthy. This was sev­er­al weeks into New York City’s lock­down, and for those of us not employed by insti­tu­tions deemed essen­tial — hos­pit­als, pris­ons, meat­pack­ing plants—social­ity was now entirely medi­ated by a hand­ful of tech giants, with no meat­space escape route, and the plat­forms felt par­tic­u­larly, grimly pathet­ic.

Instagram, cut off from a steady sup­ply of vaca­tions and parties and oth­er cov­etable exper­i­ences, had grown unset­tlingly bor­ing, its inhab­it­ants increas­ingly unkempt and wild-eyed, each one like the sole sur­viv­ing astro­naut from a doomed space-col­on­iz­a­tion mis­sion, broad­cast­ing deranged missives about yoga and cook­ing pro­jects into an uncar­ing void. Twitter, on the oth­er hand, felt more like a doomed space-col­on­iz­a­tion mis­sion where every­one had sur­vived but we had to decide who to eat.”

The Reversal of Read’s Argument

My ques­tion: Aren’t the neg­at­ives just as both­er­some for all types of media consumption?

For the sake of such an argu­ment, ima­gine repla­cing social media with tele­vi­sion in Read’s text:

“I quit watch­ing tele­vi­sion in May, in the same man­ner I leave parties: abruptly, silently, and much later than would have been healthy. This was sev­er­al weeks into New York City’s lock­down, and for those of us not employed by insti­tu­tions deemed essen­tial — hos­pit­als, pris­ons, meat­pack­ing plants—real­ity was now entirely medi­ated by a hand­ful of broad­cast com­pan­ies, with no meat­space escape route, and the shows felt par­tic­u­larly, grimly pathet­ic.

Day-time tele­vi­sion, cut off from a steady sup­ply of real­ity celebrit­ies and cued stu­dio audi­ences and oth­er cov­etable exper­i­ences, had grown unset­tlingly bor­ing, its inhab­it­ants increas­ingly unkempt and wild-eyed, each one like the sole sur­viv­ing astro­naut from a doomed space-col­on­iz­a­tion mis­sion, broad­cast­ing deranged missives about yoga and cook­ing pro­jects into an uncar­ing void. Late-night tele­vi­sion, on the oth­er hand, felt more like a doomed space-col­on­iz­a­tion mis­sion where every­one had sur­vived but we had to decide who to eat.”

This type of media cri­tique stems from a proud tra­di­tion all the way back to Neil Postman and Pierre Bourdieu. Such an obser­va­tion doesn’t weak­en the cri­tique but hints that this isn’t a new phenomenon. 

Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of reas­ons for cut­ting back on tele­vi­sion. My gosh, the amount of tele­vised crap is staggering.

However, con­text does mat­ter; if you think binge-watch­ing day­time tele­vi­sion instead of going to work and get­ting a healthy amount of exer­cise makes you worse, then you’re prob­ably right. 

There’s No Information Overload

If you’re unhappy with what you’re read­ing and see­ing on Instagram and Twitter, you’re simply mis­us­ing them. The same goes for YouTube, Twitch, Quora, Pinterest, and TikTok.

Even Google’s search engine has a social com­pon­ent; stop search­ing for (and click­ing on) crap, and the social media algorithm will bet­ter under­stand that you’re a ser­i­ous per­son who wants ser­i­ous search results.

“There is no inform­a­tion over­load, only fil­ter fail­ure.”
— Clay Shirky

Quitting social media (or tele­vi­sion) cold tur­key isn’t neces­sar­ily the obvi­ous solu­tion to your problems.

I’m not act­ively try­ing to be an asshole here. There’s a case to be made that many people are ill-equipped to man­age their social media feeds. Many of us don’t have the sens­ib­il­it­ies to man­age these “new” tech­no­lo­gies — at least not yet. 

I agree that the eco­sys­tem with inter­con­nec­ted devices, big data, and dopam­ine-trig­ger­ing noti­fic­a­tions is more addict­ive and access­ible than tele­vi­sion ever. Just like tele­vi­sion was so much harder to res­ist than radio. 

You’re Not Supposed To React To Everything

In 1998, while play­ing around with my Nokia 1611 dur­ing class, my his­tory teach­er gently reminded me that the most sig­ni­fic­ant dis­ad­vant­age of being a slave was that they were always accessible. 

Maybe this is a cru­cial point. 

It might be that some gen­er­a­tions have yet to under­stand that you’re not sup­posed to reply to all emails, com­ments, phone calls, text mes­sages, and DMs. The mind­set, ”Oh, I got a DM; it might be import­ant,” will pull any­one into digit­al enslavement.

If you try to con­tact someone who isn’t paid to answer and you can­not pass through their fil­ters, it’s not on the recip­i­ent for “not pick­ing up”. It’s on you — the sender. If not, your inbox and your feeds will become every­one else’s agenda for your time — if you let it.

Online Wannabeism

The wide­spread beha­viour where non-influ­en­cers mim­ic influ­en­cer man­ner­isms is fas­cin­at­ing — and some­what sad. ¹“Our res­ults con­firm that the five aspects of influ­en­cing posts affect con­sumers’ atti­tudes pos­it­ively and sig­ni­fic­antly, which in turn leads to pos­it­ive beha­vi­our­al out­comes through their desire … Continue read­ing

Online wan­nabeism = when a reg­u­lar social media user mim­ics influ­en­cer man­ner­isms while cre­at­ing con­tent; a form of aspir­a­tion­al role­play in front of an ima­gined audi­ence. ²Silfwer, J. (2021, August 10). Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​o​n​l​i​n​e​-​w​a​n​n​a​b​e​i​sm/

We might not all be influ­en­cers, but that does­n’t stop us from mim­ick­ing their beha­viours when we cre­ate and pub­lish content.

“The main-test res­ults, using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) ana­lys­is via AMOS 23, con­firmed that the con­cep­tu­al mod­el and all the hypo­thes­ised rela­tion­ships were stat­ist­ic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant. Further, the boot­strap res­ults demon­strated that a target’s mim­icry desire indeed served as a sig­ni­fic­ant medi­at­or link­ing the target’s atti­tu­din­al beliefs to beha­vi­our­al decisions.”
Source: University of Tennessee ³Ki, C. (2018, March). The Drivers and Impacts of Social Media Influencers: The Role of Mimicry. University of Tennessee. https://​core​.ac​.uk/​d​o​w​n​l​o​a​d​/​p​d​f​/​2​6​8​7​9​9​9​2​1​.​pdf

The Social Mirror Theory

Where does this online wan­nabeism stem from?

The social mir­ror the­ory (SMT) states that “[…] people are incap­able of self-reflec­tion without con­sid­er­ing a peer’s inter­pret­a­tion of the exper­i­ence. In oth­er words, people define and resolve their intern­al mus­ings through other’s view­point.” ⁴Social mir­ror the­ory. (2023, July 21). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​o​c​i​a​l​_​m​i​r​r​o​r​_​t​h​e​ory

SMT is a psy­cho­lo­gic­al concept that sug­gests that people learn to see them­selves and their iden­tit­ies through how oth­ers react to them. The the­ory sug­gests that people use the reac­tions of oth­ers as a “mir­ror” to under­stand and form their sense of self.

Social Media Loneliness

Online influ­en­cers are typ­ic­ally suc­cess­ful because they con­sist­ently evolve and provide new con­tent. While online fame is tax­ing for most influ­en­cers, they keep going to stay relevant.

Still, an influ­en­cer can­not sus­tain that many sim­ul­tan­eous two-way rela­tion­ships. So, these rela­tion­ships are one-sided in nature.

Put in oth­er words:

I feel for us. Having advised hun­dreds of brands, I know that the most com­mon chal­lenge isn’t bad PR… it’s no PR.

“Take a selfie, fake a life.” ⁵Silfwer, J. (2019, March 2). The Selfie Generation: An Epidemic of Online Narcissism. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​e​l​f​i​e​-​g​e​n​e​r​a​t​i​on/

Learn more: Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers

In our wired world, when any­one can so quickly con­tact any­one any­where and at scale, it’s just dif­fer­ent now. I even have a per­son­al phone policy to that effect.

If you’re a Fortnite stream­er using the Twitch social plat­form, there are built-in func­tions to allow the audi­ence to pay for a chance of get­ting the stream­er to notice your mes­sages. And oth­er social plat­forms (even Facebook) fol­low suit by imple­ment­ing new ways for influ­en­cers to get paid.

We’ve gone from “Thanks for call­ing” to “Thanks for replying.”

Who’s the Bigger Fool?

This reversal might seem absurd to some, but the under­ly­ing logic is evid­ent to most inter­net-savvy demographics.

Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t an older-people-just-don’t‑get-it rant. That would be unfair. Those who grew up without social media have no play­book and, more import­antly, no older gen­er­a­tions to learn from.

Max Read goes on to write:

“These people, with their just-ask­ing ques­tions and vap­id open let­ters, are dullards and bores, pet­ti­fog­gers and casu­ists, cow­ards and dis­sem­blers, time-wasters of the worst sort.”

If this is true, and it might well be, what do we call those who allow time-wasters to invade their social feeds? I don’t have any big words, but fools come to mind.

We must man­age our social feeds, DMs, and inboxes. Otherwise, they will man­age us.

PR Resource: Social Media Sharing

The Narcissistic Principle

“People want to be loved; fail­ing that admired; fail­ing that feared; fail­ing that hated and des­pised. They want to evoke some sort of sen­ti­ment. The soul shud­ders before obli­vi­on and seeks con­nec­tion at any price.”
— Hjalmar Söderberg (1869−1941), Swedish author

When we share on social media, we share for a reas­on. And that reas­on typ­ic­ally has some­thing to do with… ourselves:

It’s the nar­ciss­ist­ic prin­ciple behind why we share on social media.

The nar­ciss­ist­ic prin­ciple = when we share or engage on social media, we mainly share aspects of ourselves — because that’s what we care about most. ⁶Silfwer, J. (2012, July 16). The Narcissistic Principle. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​n​a​r​c​i​s​s​i​s​t​i​c​-​p​r​i​n​c​i​p​le/

If you can get social media to work for you, great.
Make the most of it. 

However, we should all be mind­ful not to let the “online pres­sure cook­er” get the bet­ter of us.

“A status update with no likes (or a clev­er tweet without retweets) becomes the equi­val­ent of a joke met with silence. It must be rethought and rewrit­ten. And so we don’t show our true selves online, but a mask designed to con­form to the opin­ions of those around us.”
— Neil Strauss, Wall Street Journal

Learn more: The Narcissistic Principle

PR Resource: Social Media Logic

Enter: Social Media Logic

Media logic is a set of the­or­ies describ­ing how the medi­um affects the media. Typically, the format (as the medi­um dic­tates) influ­ences the medi­ated message.

“Media logic is defined as a form of com­mu­nic­a­tion, and the pro­cess through which media trans­mit and com­mu­nic­ate inform­a­tion. The logic and guidelines become taken for gran­ted, often insti­tu­tion­al­ized, and inform social inter­ac­tion. A basic prin­ciple is that media, inform­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies, and com­mu­nic­a­tion formats can affect events and social activ­it­ies.“
Source: The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication ⁷Altheide, D. L. (2016). Media Logic. The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, 1 – 6. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​2​/​9​7​8​1​1​1​8​5​4​1​5​5​5​.​w​b​i​e​p​c​088

As fam­ously stip­u­lated by Marshall McLuhan, “The medi­um is the mes­sage.” What are the typ­ic­al effects of media logic on medi­ated messages?

Classic Media Logic Effects

Classic media logic is hypo­thes­ised to influ­ence the news media in the fol­low­ing ways: ⁸Nord, L., & Strömbäck, J. (2002, January). Tio dagar som skakade världen. En stud­ie av medi­ernas beskrivningar av ter­ror­at­tack­erna mot USA och kri­get i Afghanistan hösten 2001. … Continue read­ing

The effects of the above media logic can also be recog­nised in social media. Still, social net­work algorithms seem to add even more effects:

Social Media Logic Effects

“Social media logic, rooted in pro­gram­mab­il­ity, pop­ular­ity, con­nectiv­ity, and datafic­a­tion, is increas­ingly entangled with mass media logic, impact­ing vari­ous areas of pub­lic life.”
Source: Writing Technologies eJournal ⁹Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding Social Media Logic. Writing Technologies eJournal. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​7​6​4​5​/​M​A​C​.​V​1​I​1​.70

Based on the sug­ges­ted addi­tions for social plat­forms, we can add four extra dimen­sions to the clas­sic media logic effects model:

Social media logic seems entangled with clas­sic media logic. While more com­plex, social net­works seem to amp­li­fy the effects of clas­sic media logic.

Learn more: Social Media Logic