Lots of things on my mind since 6:30am in mid-December

It’s cold outside. Christmas is creeping in to my December.  We have the smallest Christmas tree we’ve had in decades.  It’s funny, but mostly sad.  I’m hoping it does its job when it’s decorated.

I’m 40% through Harari’s latest book - Nexus, “I just started Part II and excited about the jump to the computer generation and the inevitable concerns about AI” (excerpt from my update on Goodreads).  AI is on my mind as I doomscroll through social media and simultaneously feed the social media algorithms with my own content, wondering if my more regular postings have any unseen, indirect, small impact on my friends’ feeds. In my business world, I work for a large software company that is laser-focused on AI.  I am confident we need to harness AI to increase automation, but luckily the nag of the dystopian what-could-go-wrong scenarios are more fiction than being close to reality.  On technology, I’m comfortable explaining the impacts of post-quantum computing on cryptography - I have to be, it’s important for my customers and long-term data security. The news this week that Google has made massive strides in quantum computing raises the stakes and may be a tipping poing to enhance fundamental encryption algorithms we all use every day.

I like music, I like to have background music tuned to my activities throughout the day.  In my office, I have a small radio that is tuned to CBC Radio 2 and its format aligns quite well with my weekday work patterns.  Right now, sitting in at the kitchen bar, finishing breakfast I have a long-playing YouTube video on the TV - you may have seen these types of videos - I use them a lot.  I prefer jazz tones and some bossa nova with pretty and calming visuals, but also get into dancier content with live? DJs at the mixing table.  I’m sure watching the videos is messing with my YouTube viewer algorithm, like the algorithmic impact of listening to Sleep Sounds on Apple Music.  I’m wondering if this lovely Jazz music I’m listening to right now is a recording or AI generated?  Hold on, hitting Shazam…the result “Postcards: Cozy Bedroom, Cozy Apartment, Cozy Places” - suspicious!

I’m enjoying the NFL. It helps the Detroit Lions are playing so well, but I think I’ve decided that American football is the best sport this side of the Atlantic.  The main reason - every game (and almost every play) matters.  Netflix and Amazon Prime have realized the appeal of in-depth sports documentaries and I often say to new fans of sport, if you’re interested, becoming a fan, docu-series like Drive to Survive (for F1) and Receiver (for football) are superb.

I’ve been up for a few hours now and feel I’ve let my mind flow onto this page and I can get on with the rest of my day.  It’s cold outside.  I’m going for a walk and then a good coffee when I return and get cozy.

Post-walk: a perfect example of There’s No Such Thing As Bad Weather, Just Inappropriate Attire.

The topic of social media again

I’ve been on social media platforms for many years.  I don’t recall what came first, was it Facebook or MySpace?  MySpace was founded in 2003, Facebook in 2004 (I joined in 2007), but I’m not sure when I created a MySpace account.  I just logged in but it doesn’t show when I joined! 

I enjoy sharing my life and my thoughts with friends, family and the global internet audience.  I continue to tune my sharing - what I share, on what platform and how often.  I clearly want to participate in lots of places with lots of people, but I struggle with the stagnation on some platforms, privacy matters, and the uncertainty of newer places.  

Meta Facebook (FB).  It remains the place for sharing personal content with friends and family.  

Pros: privacy controls 

Cons: presentation of photos; ads and promoted content in your feed; too many lurkers vs true participants and contributors; trusting your content to Meta.  

Current status: active.  

Meta Instagram (IG/INSTA).   I feel it’s the most common platform for sharing photos publicly, but many users have private accounts.  Designed for (vertical) phone photographers.  

Pros: creativity features, e.g. adding music; sync with FB.

Cons: confusion on different sharing techniques and the associated restrictions on sharing and displaying media; ads and promoted content in your feed; cannot embed links; trusting your content to Meta. 

Current status: active as pjmixer.  

YouTube (YT).   I feel it’s the most common platform for sharing videos publicly. 

Pros: consistent look and feel; ability to have unlisted videos and control sharing.  

Cons: ads; true private videos need viewers to have a YT account; lack of personal feedback for amateurs like me; trusting your content to Google.  

Current status: active.  I predominantly use my pjmixer account and it’s where I share my videos, phil.sewell is just to organize my business playlists.  

X (Twitter).  Still the most common platform for public conversations and reposting articles, but some users have private accounts.  I used to share a lot, but I only go there on occasion these days to see stuff from people and organizations not on Threads.  

Pros: audience and coverage.

Cons: too many reposts without adding to the conversation; trusting your content to X. 

Current status: rare use but still have two accounts - philsewell and pjmixer.  

WhatsApp.  A messaging app that my ultimate frisbee friends treat as social media in our team groups.

Pros: texting and calling people via the internet.

Cons: clunky interface; trusting your phone number and content to Meta. 

Current status: Occasional use for messaging.

Threads.  A newer platform positioned as an alternative to X.  

Pros: Familiar interface; decent presentation of media; feels less cluttered; no ads?; sync with FB and IG.

Cons: I haven’t found a way to create lists or groups; opening links; trusting your content to Meta.

Current status: active as pjmixer.

Flickr.  It’s been around a long time (2004), I joined in 2007 when it was part of Yahoo.  It is now owned my SmugMug and independent from the big monopolies.  I have 13,873 photos on Flickr.

Pros: stats (I have 1.75M views), groups, organizing features, privacy settings.

Cons: public sentiment that it’s old fashioned.   

Current status: active as pjmixer.

Vero.  I’ve used this newer platform quite a lot.  I recall it was optimistically positioned as an alternative to IG.   From my POV, it’s frequented by lots of photographers.  

Pros: high quality presentation features; flexibility, ability to share a variety of content, e.g. music and movie reviews.    

Cons: closed community, i.e. non-intuitive discovery 

Current status: occasional use as pjmixer.

Bluesky.  The hottest tech talk this week for social media.  It promises of independence and freedom, but I’m still learning and not so sure.  

Pros: familiar interface; lots of flexibility.

Cons: lack of participation; needs work to create your connections and feeds.

Current status: I created accounts this week for pjmixer and philsewell.

Nostr.  I found this on the guidance of a photographer, but it’s promise is big and has associations with bitcoin.  It appears to be well architected and de-centralized, but it still requires a good dose of trust.

Pros: independence from a central platform provider, i.e. a company doesn’t own your content, nor controls your profile, connections and experience.  

Cons: techie setup; lack of participation.  

Current status: I created an account this week, my public key is: npub1mp08p6fyu3p0r8psycsgxcgcea9s5xzmx2tcg8ep4nfjpl4wpm6qajzn2s

LinkedIn.  Dominant site for connecting with your business community.  

Pros: Well organized.

Cons: dominance of industry promotional content; most business people are there, but there is inconsistent participation.

Current status: active.

Reddit.  I can’t easily describe it as I don’t use it very often.  Let’s say it is highly democratic opinion and advice site.  It has an interesting popularity voting system, covers a high amount of subjects and has huge amounts of users.

Pros: Strong contribution.

Cons: Unusual, unattractive interface.

Current status: occasional use. 

Pinterest.  I spent some time on this platform a long time ago and then snapped out of it.  It geared toward shiny material things and maybe experiences and is mostly geared toward the shopper, but could be seen as inspiration for creatives.  

Pros: Different, one-of-kind?

Cons: Narrow focus.

Current status: no longer active.  

There are other social media platforms that I’ve never participated in like TikTok, SnapChat, NextDoor and BeReal.  Maybe others could comment on their pros and cons.

Finally, there are some outliers.

Teams.  A Microsoft office messaging and on-line meeting platform that I use daily in my work life and in some situations is being used for social interaction in the workspace.  It has some fun features and it works for me.  I think Slack may have similar features, but I’ve never used it.  Skype and Zoom are used in the workplace and I’d imagine have similar add-on social features.

Blogs and personal websites.  If you have something to say, you perhaps write a blog post or create your own website.  Like an opinion piece in a newspaper a well written post on a current topic could create a debate, invite comments and even go viral.  For a long period of time I wrote regular blog posts across a wide variety of topics, including images and videos.  A few friends provide comments and I have to delete unwelcome comments now and again.  If I have something more substantial to share, I put in here.  Like this post.

Email.  Well, some might say it was the first form of social media.  It was a way to communicate one-on-one, but as soon as someone added other addressees or created a distribution list, an email could quickly create a long thread of discussion.   

  

If you’ve read this far, thank you.  You may wonder what I’m doing today with all these options.  It changes week to week, but it goes something like this.

New thoughts about social media

Why do we share things on social media?  

I thought the the term “social media” came from the early days of Facebook where the prompt said “Phil is…”.  Since 2009, it now says “what’s on your mind?”  https://talkingpointsmemo.com/idealab/facebook-tests-new-status-prompt-questions-how-are-you-feeling#. But from Samual Stroud, the term has older origins to the days of AOL.  https://www.giraffesocialmedia.co.uk/who-coined-the-term-social-media-first/#:~:text=In%201997%2C%20Ted%20Leonsis%2C%20was,which%20being%20AOL%20Instant%20Messenger.

At its simplest, social media is the way many people communicate today.  Think about it this way.  You’re invited to a party and you just got back from a European vacation.  It’s natural that you want to share your stories with friends and maybe even new acquaintances at the party.  You may even take out a photograph to share.  Or maybe even further back - the postcard.  When you were on vacation, you’d write your impressions of a new place on the back of a pretty picture of your vacation spot and mail it to a single person.  Are there people that would go to a party and not tell their friends why they haven’t been around for a few weeks?  That’s kind of weird, right?  You may say it’s even anti-social not to share what you’ve been doing.  Ok, if you don’t got to parties or don’t have friends, this may not be for you.  

Some people use a “trick” in social settings.  They ask you “how was your weekend?”  Many people ask this out of true interest or are simply being polite.  But some may hope that after you share your story, you ask them about their weekend which they’d love to tell you all about (and oh, by the way, they just happen to have some photos to share).  I apologize as a keen storyteller, after telling my story, I often forget to ask the initiator “thanks for asking, and how was your weekend?”.  I see some people on social media simply post “how’s your day?”.   It may not be fair to all, but I’d guess that may be a similar strategy for people wanting to (politely) share their story.

This is a stretch - when some of us log into our social media platform of choice, are we not asking the question “what’s new”?  We may not ask it directly, but we’re here aren’t we, we came to the party, what did we expect?  We want to see what’s new with our close friends, old friends, new acquaintances and maybe even strangers.  Then, when we’ve made the rounds, we’re comfortable sharing [in case you were wondering], this happened on my weekend (and here are a few photos that I took to remember it).

I feel that social media is an amplified digital version of traditional social meetings and gatherings.  It’s a new form of communication that lets us connect with friends and with strangers beyond the limits of physical proximity.  But, the social contract is delicate - I confess, I don’t appreciate all of its finer points and I can dominate a conversation at times or accidentally offend some people.  Digital amplification on social media can potentially create more serious issues or bigger embarrassment for some people.  I don’t have the new rules, but there are some commonly accepted guidelines for social media.  You need to carefully monitor your frequency of communication.  You need to be conscious of the amount of information you share.  And just like an office party, you cannot talk about sex, religion or money.  

I take a huge amount of photos of many subjects.  I record my impressions and ideas on video.  I travel quite a lot.  I have some friends that have the interest and time to see my longer-form stories while others like to get a glimpse into what Phil’s been up to.  I’m trying to be careful how much I share, but there’s lots more if you’d like to sit down.

Epilogue - remember that guy that used to come to all the parties with a mixed tape of all the new tunes he wants to share, what’s he doing now on social media?