Socia Media: A Cost Benefit Analysis
by Victoria Fortune
My teenage daughter surprised me recently by saying with an exasperated sigh that she wished Instagram and Snapchat didn’t even exist. When I asked why, since she is constantly on them, she said:
“I have to be on them, or I’ll be totally left out. But it takes so much time to look at everyone’s posts, and if I don’t comment on them or like them, people get mad at me. It’s stressful.”
She had pinpointed exactly why I joined social media in the first place, and why I resist using it.
As a writer, you have to be on social media. I’ve been told this by countless instructors, fellow writers, and agents. A few years ago, an agent told me she’s hesitant to sign writers—even ones with a great manuscript—if they don’t have an online presence to help promote their work. I understand the benefits: authors I follow post announcements about their new releases, readings, awards, and recommendations of other work. If I were not on social media, I would miss out on these notices, as well as the opportunity to spread such news myself
I’ve been on Facebook for years, mostly as an observer, looking at posts of friends and family, but rarely posting myself. My Facebook account has been primarily personal; and I feel funny about mixing in the professional. I also have a twitter account, but I’ve only tweeted a handful of times in the past few years. I like that social media keeps me connected to my friends and family and communities, but I resist weighing in myself. When I’m in the midst of those moments I’d most want to post about, I’m not inclined to take time out to post.
A few years ago, one of my husband’s high school acquaintances posted a photo on Facebook of the sun setting and wrote, “Just sitting here on the porch with my mom, watching the sunset, appreciating being in the moment. We laughed at the irony—her taking herself out of the moment to post about being in the moment. My goal is to be in the moment as much as possible, and social media is not conducive to that. The moment becomes about the image you want to project, rather than just experiencing the moment.
I also have an aversion to self-promotion— it doesn’t come naturally or comfortably to me—and that’s at the purpose of social media. I wish I was better at it—I know I have to get used to it. I’ve been working on it, but I’ve never been able to shake the feeling of discomfort I have with posting.
I did make progress this past year in one respect regarding my online presence. I began writing for this blog. That had been a daunting prospect to me. I knew I’d have to post once a week, and that would take up a big chunk of my precious writing time. When my writing group decided to create a blog together, it was ideal solution. It meant posting about once a month, rather than once a week, giving me a chance to get a feel for blogging without becoming overwhelmed. I’ve found that, rather than detracting from progress on my novel and other work, it has helped me reflect on my writing process and forced me to think more deeply about craft and my purpose for writing.
One of my main reasons for writing is to explore my thoughts and feelings, in order to understand them better. Blogging has provided a great outlet for this. Social media, on the other hand, is all about image. It's designed for relating one's life in soundbites, for firing off announcements and pithy pronouncements, flung out with little thought or intention.
It’s no surprise that Twitter is Trump’s favorite medium. Trump fans often say they like him is because he says, or tweets, whatever he thinks. The thing is, his tweets are not the result of thinking. They are knee-jerk reactions, in most cases. Somehow this is considered more “honest.” But for a thinking person, the first thought that comes to mind is not the most honest one; it is the starting point. Thinking involves having an initial thought, and then another that expands on or counters the first so that you question it, perhaps seek out some additional information to flesh out your understanding, which generally leads to another thought or question, and so on, until you’ve drilled down to solid ground and formed a well-reasoned opinion. For a thinking person, the opinion reached at the end of this process is more honest than the initial thought.One of the great dangers of social media is that it discourages this process. Tweets and Facebook posts, at least those that espouse opinions, are generally first reactions. The fast-paced, time-sensitive nature of the medium encourages immediate response. And there is generally little back and forth, so these initial reactions become final pronouncements.
My wariness of social media seems to have been validated with the 2016 election and the year that’s followed. As Jennings Brown wrote in Gizmodo, “This is the year everyone—including founding executives—began publicly questioning the impact of social media on our lives.” Between Russian interference in the election, including fake news on Facebook, and Trump’s reckless tweeting, we’ve seen the damage that can be done when these tools are turned to weapons.
Two former Facebook executives have recently expressed their guilt about what they’ve helped create. Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice president of user growth, said in an interview with Brown, “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works. . . No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth.” And Facebook’s first president Sean Parker lamented, “I don’t know if I really understood . . . the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other . . . God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”
If the very people who created social media are questioning whether it is a productive force, we should all be asking ourselves the same thing. For me, social media seems antithetical to one of my main purposes for writing: to think through complex ideas and contribute to greater understanding and tolerance. Social media, on the other hand, lends itself to shallow thinking and knee-jerk reactions. It keeps us connected in superficial ways and impedes rather than promotes greater understanding and tolerance.
I’ve heard a number of established writers vow to boycott social media. and I’ve considered it myself. But that comes with its own pitfalls. Do the benefits of social media outweigh the costs? What do you think?
