Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: cranky
  • Music: The theme from Pokemon X.

Social media saturation.

There's a trend I've been noticing lately: everything is suddenly everywhere. I think this may have something to do with the emails I receive daily that are literally checklists of every social media site in existence, complete with a handy "be sure to like this here! Be sure to tweet about this here! Be sure to make a witty Tumblr post complete with reaction .gif here! Be sure to..." and I don't know what comes after that, because I have already deleted the email and gone off to interact with something less exhausting. I have enough trouble remembering to promote myself; I can't take on the responsibility of promoting everything I come into contact with.

It feels like the signal to noise ratio is getting skewed; everything is a sea of signal boosts and endorsements and link-backs and that's lovely, if they're things that you support and believe in. I try to post and tweet and yes, Facebook and the rest about things that I care about. But I don't care about everything in the universe. That would be exhausting.

I wonder if we're just all drowning, and thus all afraid of being overlooked. Whatever it is, I admit I'm getting a little tired of being told how to use my social media. "People will be more likely to notice this if you tweet it!" Well...yes. But then they're less likely to notice my awesome Pokemon.

Everything's a trade-off.
Tags: contemplation, technology
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  • 62 comments

muddlewait

December 14 2013, 22:11:34 UTC 3 years ago

Thank you for writing this. Knowing your reservations about the current state of social media makes me feel less awkward about my own.

I worry that people spend so much energy in these spaces trying to be heard that they don't have enough time to think about what they're saying, about what they're listening to, or about what they're actually *doing* rather than saying.

That aside, I really value your social media presence, especially your tumblr. Thanks for your judgement and effort in compiling it, and especially for continuing to listen to your audience as much and as thoughtfully as you do. I hope you never have to stop.

seanan_mcguire

December 15 2013, 19:02:24 UTC 3 years ago

<3