Last week I wrote a piece about the lessons I learned after being one year away from social media and this is sort of part 2. Many of my mixed feelings towards it came from reading some scientific articles, watching testimonies of people’s experiences on YouTube, general talks with friends and family, and also from watching these documentaries.
1) Citizenfour (2014)
In this film, journalist and filmmaker, Laura Poitras, tells the story of Edward Snowden, the famous whistleblower who revealed how the American government was heavily surveilling not only people from outside the USA but also as its own citizens. I believe it was after this documentary that people started covering web cameras on their laptops and also being more aware of what they share online. Citizenfour served as inspiration for Snowden, a later fictional movie about his story.
2) The Social Dilemma (2020)
The Social Dilemma focuses on the side effects of social media in our day-to-day lives. Director, Jeff Orlowski, decided to present the theme by exploring two narratives. The first uses the regular documentary language with some psychic specialists and “tech innovators” explaining how a tool, for instance, the like button, was created with a positive intention but turned out to become fatally destructive in more serious cases. The second follows the fictional lane and follows up the story of a few characters and can very explicitly show how a social media algorithm can work. I think in terms of eye-opening effect this is probably the most powerful film on the list.
3) The Great Hack (2019)
The Great Hack brings a more criminal and legal perspective of the subject. Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim, the directors, do a great job explaining how a service that seems to be free is actually highly costly. It exposes a little bit the case of tech-media-marketing companies that take users’ data to manipulate information. And these types of companies normally acquire these data from social media networks that have it because their users are constantly uploading photos and videos and content about their personal lives. It can impact big social events from the presidential election of a country to police profiling at protests. Information is definitely power and can be certainly dangerous.
4) Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2017)
To end on a lighter note, there’s Fyre, directed by Chris Smith. This is a very interesting and funny film that proves the following point, and that I have also talked about in last week’s article (read it here): what we see online is most likely not real. This is the story of a very exclusive festival that was endorsed by some celebrities and was massively marketed on social media, which turned out to be completely fake. This is a very atypical case, but it goes to show that when we see people advertising products, for example, that is to be taken with a pinch of salt. But not only that, perfect bodies, perfect skins, perfect lives… they don’t exist.
To conclude
All of this is not to discourage anyone from utilizing these products and services, neither to make anyone stop following their favorite influencers nor even to make people afraid of it using it for a professional reason (I do too). However, it is important to be informed, educated, and critical. Very critical.
And you, how do you use social media? Do you try to protect yourself somehow? Do you think about these things at all?
In January 25, 2020, I decided to quit cold turkey (almost) every social media I was part of, namely Instagram and Facebook. I have thought about it for a long time and even wrote an article, a year prior related to the subject.
I’ve imagined I would collect everybody’s email, write down their birthday dates, and that’s how I was going to communicate with people. None of that happened.
In January 2020, I had just come back to Portugal from a month trip around France where I had some interesting but not so fun experiences with volunteering.
When I uploaded something to my IG Stories, the response I would receive was not matching to the reality of life. And I didn’t want to expose myself too much, so I also didn’t give people a chance to understand.
What I realized, however, was that it is easy to make it seem life your life looks a certain way on social media. That was when it hit me: if what I’m showing cannot be trusted, then nothing can.
Other reasons also played their part. I’ve seen so many documentaries on data storing and its dangers, on how manipulated we get, and how we’re losing the skill to concentrate and focus.
So I left.
And then came a pandemic
I had no idea this global crisis would hit this hard. Back in March 2020, when the lockdown was declared in Portugal, I had in mind things would be back to normal in no time. Who didn’t?
I went through lockdown and the whole year of 2020 oblivious of the state of things in the world and most especially in my home country, Brazil.
I was checking in with friends and family via WhatsApp, which at the time (and now still) was not possible to quit. But it is not the same as if I was following their day-to-day.
Here are some things I noticed after being back for about two months:
My distraction level went up to the roof. I’m finding it hard to make myself finish a short video on YouTube and it takes me way longer to focus to write something up, as opposed to last year when I wrote every day for 3 months;
I’m having a harder time remembering things I’ve seen online. There is so much visual information it seems they all mixed up in my headspace;
I find myself reaching for my phone for no reason;
The comparison game is strong, even though I fully understand what I see it is not most likely the reality.
Why did I come back?
I want to stay connected and don’t want to miss out on what friends and family are doing and going through;
I find it easier to stay in touch with new people I met via Instagram or Facebook;
I do want to document and share things. Mostly learnings and processes along the way;
It is a good way to share any artistic work I do.
There’s a book called Show Your Work (affiliate link) or in Portuguese, Mostre Seu Trabalho (affiliate link), by Austin Kleon, where he talks about documenting the process of anything you’re trying to make or achieve. He discusses the difficulties of self-promoting, but also its value.
My relationship with this means of communication has changed over the years and probably will continue to do so. I guess overall, an online social network is beneficial when used with real awareness and comprehension of what it really is. Also, having some sort of limitation in time usage has been helpful.
And you? Do find social media important? What for?
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