The internet. What a place. A place which once felt like running into an open meadow, has become a cage where one is constantly poked and jabbed into a reaction by the anonymous crowd piled outside. It all seems horrifically depressing.
It is why I have posted only 19 times on here this year, despite paying for a subscription plan. It’s why I have been finding myself disenchanted by social media. It’s why I can’t even garner the energy to message people back. There is too much stuff, too much negativity, it is easy to be overwhelmed. Social media feeds have become polluted with content there to rage bait you, and it feels the more you ignore it, the worse the stuff gets.
My Facebook is currently unusable. It was full of adverts and pro-Reform videos. The kind of stuff that I didn’t really have an interest in. In fact, it has become so tailored, that the content is stuff that is actively against the things that I align myself with politically or morally. So animal cruelty, racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry. I have a belief that you treat those around you in a way that you would expect to be treated. So, if I want to be treated with kindness and respect, I do that with others. My patience runs out, when people get threatening and blatantly spread misinformation about certain demographics. And Facebook is full of misinformation. It has got to the stage where it is better for my mental health to stay away from Facebook altogether.
But Facebook isn’t the only service like that. Every social media platform seems to be the same. They don’t take down hatred, or threats of violence, but will give warnings about someone talking about medication they take for a health condition. The truth of the matter is, anger and hate will aways create more engagement that love and positivity will. I read a thing, just a random article I came across not too long ago, where it tried to explain why people are more likely to respond to rage bait online. It appears to be very similar to way people post anonymous hateful content on the internet. It is because it feels like there is no recourse for their behaviour. In the real world, if people see something that angers them, they will say nothing at the time, and then mumble under their breath or tell someone else later. Online, you can be angry in your reply, because you don’t see the person who has made you angry. Most of the time, those people who are starting the hate, are completely anonymous, so it is like if you lose it at them, you are not losing it at a ‘real person’. But your social media algorithm sees that, and decides you like that kind of thing. So you get more rage inducing content for you to react to.
It is an endless loop.
The other side is that you, as a user, post something about a TV show, sport, pop band, and someone angrily replies to you. I frequent the F1 community on Threads, and that site has become a hotbed for such interactions. Celebrate your driver doing well? You may get replies like ‘He is so awful. All his empty headed fans would be celebrating. DTS fan girls’. Which as a singular comment seems odd, but ignorable. But, when every thing you post can attract such comments, you automatically start distancing yourself. People have been getting death threats, where people can be either fans, drivers, driver’s families, team members, commentary teams, even the stewards who keep the race safe. Like… when I used to venture on the F1 forums back in the 90s/00s, it was never like this. Yes, you would get a hate monger, but the admins would be on it and kick them out. But, those hateful replies get kept, as they may collect more engagement than the original post. It is why social media companies are notoriously bad at dealing with hate on their platforms. Engagement is king.
I have sat for a while, and tried to figure out what I wanted to do. I put a time limit on all my social media accounts. So, I can’t doom scroll for hours, whilst getting increasingly angry. All the anger and musings about the world goes into my journal, a notebook that I bought from Asda a couple years ago. And it is helping. I put something on the TV or on my stereo and just ramble away offline. It is less focused than this ramble, if you can believe that. But, it’s making things better. I feel more organised. I am also trying to recognised when I am getting agitated by what I see, and just closing social media. If I could also stop responding, that would be great. But closing the app instead also works.
