My 2024 thoughts on the state of social media

How I use Social Media

Different people use social media in different ways, and my thoughts are governed by how I use them. If you have different interactions with social media, you won't find my analysis lines up with what you experience, although I hope you'll still find my perspective interesting.

I'm not really a social user of social media. I first started using social media (in some form) in the late 1980's with Usenet. I learned quickly that I disliked the often-heated arguments that blew up there, and so I avoided reading them and, above all, avoided getting into them.

When it comes to reading, I prefer to follow a fixed feed of accounts that I explicitly follow, trying hard to avoid any kind of system suggested feed. I curate my feeds to read people who say interesting things, and don't post so much that I can't keep up. The most valuable things they post are links to articles (or occasionally videos) that have some thoughtful depth. Following a fixed list does mean I miss a lot of promising stuff, but I only have so many hours, and anything really good usually gets picked up by the people I do follow.

When it comes to posting, my main use to is announce new articles that I post, and other interesting stuff that I think my readers may be interested in. I try not to post too often, as I presumptuously assume that my readers share my dislike of over-active posters. I consider any post I make on social media to be ephemeral - anything I write that's meant to be long-lasting I keep on this site.

Bluesky

Bluesky has seen a steady rise over the last couple of years. I created an account on there a while ago, but haven't posted much so far. I used it mainly to read a few folks that migrated there from Twitter. Mostly these people were in the current affairs or boardgaming world, but recently there's been a significant uptick in tech people posting there. Consequently I'm inclined to post there more as well, and have added it to the growing list of social networks that I'll be posting site updates to.

One of the things I like about Bluesky is its use of an open protocol, which reduces the chances that it will follow the fate that befell Twitter. I've set my domain for Bluesky, so hopefully even if bad things happen to Bluesky itself, the AT protocol will live on.

X (Twitter)

Predictions of its demise, either technologically or financially, have not come to pass - but that hasn't stopped its decline in importance. Any social media network depends on who is posting there, and many people have moved away from Twitter, either not posting there at all, or posting on other sites in addition. I'm in that second camp, if you're interested in my posts, you can find essentially the same posts on many places, so only need to follow me on one of them (or deal with duplicates).

If I find someone doing what I'm doing - posting on Twitter and on other sites - I prefer to follow them on a different site. As far as I'm concerned, Twitter is in decline, and although I'm not leaving it for the moment, I prefer to follow activity in other places.

I will continue to post updates there, at least for a while. I have many followers there, and I believe that my readers should have the choice of where to follow me, constrained by my enthusiasm in posting to so many social networks. But if you do follow me there, and also use one of the other sites I post to, I do encourage you to change to follow me on another network.

LinkedIn

I long avoided LinkedIn, as its whole ethos of avid connection-making was thoroughly unappealing. But it's also grown in importance for social media posting, and many of my colleagues remarked that it had replaced Twitter for them. I thus joined LinkedIn in March this year. As I write this I'm up to just under 100,000 followers, less than the 350,000 I have on Twitter, but still a significant reach for my publication announcements.

It's not a place I enjoy, however. I have little control over my feed, and my notifications are full of “someone liked your post” events. I don't pay any attention to those, but do want to see notifications when folks mention my work or comment on my posts. This problem exists on other sites too, but the user experience is worse on LinkedIn. The feed also has lots of professional puffery, which lowers the signal-to-noise ratio, and a distinctly corporate personality.

Despite all that, I've noticed that I'm getting more reactions to my article announcements on LinkedIn that anywhere else, which is an indication that more readers are finding out about articles there than on the other sites. So for letting people know about new material, LinkedIn is currently the best place for me.

If you do want to follow my posts on LinkedIn, use the “follow” feature. I'm still as averse to “connections” as ever, and only use it with a few people that I've worked with a lot, and those that have written articles for the site.

Fediverse (Mastodon)

When The Muskover happened, many people saw the Fediverse as the natural successor to Twitter. It's federated nature meant that there wouldn't be a single owner that would take over the network, giving it a greater resiliency to the future. I felt there was a good chance that we'd see organizations hosting Fediverse nodes, allowing an organization to control its own social presence. My colleagues at Thoughtworks had set up such an example.

But it seems that much of that promise hasn't come to pass, probably because too many people found that choosing a server was too awkward, and that the advantages of federation were outweighed by the complexities of its usage. Bluesky is more approachable, and although it's a commercial organization, it is building on an open protocol that has a similar prospect of resilience.

A few tech people moved to Fediverse, and I'm happy to post and follow there at the moment. I don't have follower statistics for it, but I get much less response to announcements than I do on Twitter or LinkedIn. If it wasn't for its open nature, I'd probably wind down posting there, as it's not worth the trouble, but because it's open I'll continue posting for the foreseeable future.

RSS

This isn't really a social media, as there isn't a mechanism for discussion, but since I'm mostly into social media to find out about interesting publications, RSS fits into my discussion. There are many interesting folks that have RSS feeds, sometimes using services like Medium or Substack. I've been posting my new material on my RSS feed for a long time, and will continue to use it for posting and following.

Threads

Threads got a lot of attention due to its rapid take-up, but I haven't been involved. I don't really want to put time into another big-tech social network unless it demonstrates its importance in the way that LinkedIn has.

Facebook

I stopped posting there many years ago. I still have an account, and pop in occasionally, but I see a feed that seems almost entirely adverts, and the people I do follow have their posts mixed up by an algorithm that is determined to think it knows better than I do what I want to read. A decade ago, I enjoyed it for personal contact, but now I only pop in every few months and am never encouraged to return.

Board Game Geek

This is a niche network, for those like me who are over-enthused by the world of hobby board games. I've been posting more there in the last year, sharing my opinions on the many board games I get to try out. It's a great resource for such enthusiasts, but not something of any interest to most people. It is, however, an interesting example of a social network designed for a particular activity, one that continues to prosper, doing a great job of serving its users.

Discord and Slack

I'm lurking in a number of groups using Discord or Slack to host conversations, and these are smaller groups where I'm more inclined to chat. Most of these are about board gaming, as I find them a good way to unwind in the evening nattering about something that is fun, while I don't want the distraction of such chatter in my work context.

Final Thoughts

All in all, social media is a very dispersed medium, which means there are annoyingly many places to monitor. Looking forward, I'm hoping that open protocols will gain more traction, so I've not given up on the Fediverse and am encouraged by the progress of Bluesky.