I see lots of conversations about quitting social media and all the negative effects of using social media. I don’t disagree. Yes, the platforms were built to be addictive. Yes, they spread misinformation. Yes, they manipulate people’s emotions.
But social media also offers a way to connect with people and build communities that we didn’t have before.
What’s missing from those conversations about quitting social media is, what comes next?
How do you keep the positives of connecting and building community and leave behind the negative aspects of social media?
I haven’t seen many people talking about that. (If you have, please send me links.)
One solution might be, people take back their online identities. Build their own site and that’s their home on the internet, along the lines of IndieWeb principles.
But lots of people don’t want to (or don’t care to) build their own website. It’s a lot of effort, compared to posting on Instagram.
We need easy-to-use tools that help people create their home on the internet.
Tools that:
- don’t require a lot of technical skills
- are low-cost (or better yet, open-source and free)
- break down barriers to having your own site
As long as social media platforms are the simplest way to post online, lots of people will keep using them. We need alternatives that are just as accessible as social media apps.
Is anyone building something like that?