I like using social media primarily to find and follow with people who have similar interests to me in creative hobbies (writing, drawing, zines) and genre-specific media (sci-fi and fantasy novels, TV shows, and movies).
I also browse social media for trending topics and news, but that’s a secondary purpose for me. More like a side effect.
It’s getting more difficult, though, to use social media to find and follow people who have similar interests to me. This is why:
1. Social media algorithms obstruct some content from people I follow.
Twitter and Tumblr let me see posts on my feed in reverse chronological order, but Instagram and Facebook do not. Right now, posts on my Instagram feed are in this order:
- 4 hours ago
- ad
- 6 hours ago
- 3 hours ago
- 7 hours ago
- 23 hours ago
- 5 hours ago
- ad
- 2 hours ago
Why is it like this? Because the algorithm shows you posts based on your behaviors: accounts you interact with most, people you are tagged in photos with, the types of posts you interact with (likes, comments), and even how frequently you open the Instagram app. But this also means if you don’t interact with some of the accounts you follow, you might not see some of their posts.
You can expand your own posts’ reach on Facebook and Instagram by playing along with the algorithm’s game (at least until the algorithm changes again), or you can pay to boost your posts. But the reality is, the everyday user isn’t going to have time or funds to do this. So we’re all at the mercy of the algorithm and advertising budgets for which posts we see and which posts our followers see in feeds.
2. The 24/7 news cycle spills over into social media and oversaturates it.
Updates about the pandemic, politics, and other social issues are important to see, but sharing and re-sharing these posts drowns out other topics. If one person I follow shares an update about the pandemic, I see that post once. But if twenty people I follow share the same update about the pandemic, I see that post up to twenty times. My feed gets oversaturated with redundant posts.
3. People’s social media feeds are their own content plus everything else they share.
Very few people use their social media profiles to share only original content they create. Profiles are a mix of original posts and re-shared content. You might follow a person for one topic (you both like talking about movies), but you see whatever other random posts they re-share, too. There’s no good workaround to see only original posts and not re-shared content.
So I’ve been spending more time reading blogs.
I’ve used Feedly on and off for years, ever since Google Reader was discontinued (RIP), but I’ve been spending more time in it recently. Feedly is the calmest way I have right now for reading stuff from people I follow.
When I go into Feedly, I see people’s blog posts, in chronological order, without re-shares and other noise in between posts. No random topics splintering my attention.
My favorite blogs to follow show how the writer does whatever it is they do. The author who talks about his writing process and where he goes for inspiration. The artist who shows her studio and works in-progress. Business people who talk about work culture. Blogs like that.
I’m looking for more blogs to follow, so if you have recommendations, please let me know in the comments or over on Twitter.