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the post-social tech party has more attendees than you think

~tffb

I use IRC a lot, in the #ctrl-c chat (via tilde.chat) and many are off social media. All "but" Mastodon, most of them. Many a folk seem to have left socials in the past couple of years - be it due to self-imposed abstinence because of COVID ("control yourself!") or because they knew/found a way to work at/from home and also on a computer w/o the constant checking/refreshing of social media, et al - a bunch of possible reasons for it. But when I left in late-2019, it was seemingly "no end in sight" for nearly *every. *single*. *person* I knew online and offline. Hell, e-mail exchanges were like pulling teeth sometimes.

Now, I see two camps (mostly online):

Those who threw caution/sanity into the wind and use TikTok, and subject themselves to endless videoplay (is there even a "scroll" feature there? Or do videos auto-torture the poor person on an endless feed?)

And those who more or less refrain from all/most social media usage. Some keep Facebook for family connections, some Twitter for professional reasons, Instagram likewise - but those who feel they have a choice (as we all do!) to use socials or to not, they generally tend to stop usage altogether.

Anyway, an uptick in people e-mailing (and blogging, newsletter'ing, etc) these days, and that's always nice :)

Also, I wanted to share this bit below from the "touch grass" newsletter:

"a year ago, i’d have written more words, tried to please, performed for an audience — but no longer. i share on my own terms. i keep it short and direct. i don't second-guess. after years of feeling like an npc, i’m ready to become the main character.

my body carries a mind pulverized and made anew. you’d be forgiven if you thought you were talking to the same person."

https://buttondown.email/touchgrass/archive/2022-was-a-reboot/

Stay well, all!

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Replies

~translucyd wrote:

I really can't imagine a life where I communicate with my friends via newsletter. That actually its like a dream. That's why I'm trying to do it here as a start!

~inquiry wrote (thread):

> Anyway, an uptick in people e-mailing (and blogging,
> newsletter'ing, etc) these days, and that's always nice :)

Yes!

> https://buttondown.email/touchgrass/archive/2022-was-a-reboot/

Thanks. Nice read.

~jr wrote (thread):

yeah i left pretty much every social media behind in late 2019/early 2020, holding onto a few for the sake of "staying connected" and then in 2021 realized how stupid that is... now i'm glad to say i thoroughly enjoy the time i have with people in the real world but also through conversations via email and text messaging. writing has become fun, and i'm glad about that because it's very therapeutic for me. i used to feel like i had this audience i had to please (as mentioned above) but now i just write about silly little things or very big things, all for myself.

cheers :)