Left to my own devices

I'm often intrigued by the FiveThirtyEight podcasts on their YouTube channel, but was really enthralled with one of their recent videos , where the topic was Why Misinformation Spreads So Quickly on Social Media . Host Galen Druke interviewed guest Max Fisher for nearly an hour. Fisher has written a book called The Chaos Machine , and listening to them talk about the subject of social media's psychological effects on people was, at least to me, quite fascinating.

I recently mentioned to an acquaintance (I am not using the word "friend" here, as the reason will soon be evident) that I was thinking of deleting my Facebook account (again). There wasn't one, specific reason for this, more so an accumulation of... dissatisfaction. Interactions (or lack thereof) on that particular social media platform have felt hollow for some time. And the Zuckerberg app, more than other outlets, tends to bring out the worst in my emotions for some reason. "But how will I know what's going on with you?" the person asked. And there's the rub. This person has my phone number. They can call or text at any time, yet never do. In truth, they rarely interact with me on Facebook, yet I know they see what I put up there because they report back to various people some of the stuff I post. So it goes. At any rate, I reminded them of how they have my phone number. We'll see if they ever reach out.

On a blog post from earlier this month, Kevin Drum gets at something I've been thinking about off-and-on for awhile. It's the contemplation of whether there are truly more "extremist nutballs" today than there used to be, or if it only seems that way because now they have the megaphone of the internet -- specifically, social media -- with which to share their ideas. Without conducting a special sort of census, there's no true way to get numbers for the aforementioned notion, however, after careful thought on the matter, I tend to think the number of political and societal cranks has remained fairly steady over the years. Granted, there's probably more extremists now than there were in, say, 1985, but that's because there's 3 billion additional people on the planet. As a percentage of the population, we're probably looking at approximately the same number now as compared to the past few decades. Such a conclusion will probably cause some people ...

His face was staring back at mine, frozen in its digital essence. The person had commented on the post of an online friend and, well, there it was, a link to his profile along with an accompanying picture. Pretty standard stuff as far as social media is concerned. Only the person whose photo was staring back at me through the computer screen stimulated a minor negative response within my psyche. He was someone I'd known in high school and who had engaged in some minor bullying. Bullying is, unfortunately, commonplace. It can occur during adulthood, but seems rife during our youth. Beginning in fifth grade, right on through senior year of high school, bullying was often just a regular part of my school life. Some of it was slight (verbal taunting, etc.), while at other times it was more serious (threats, or actual acts, of violence). Again, this person's profile that I'd suddenly come across online was in the former camp. And yet it was enough for the connotation to ...

Profuse profanity. Catty remarks. Bad news. Pleasure in others' suffering. Near-constant outrage. In-case-you-didn't-know posts about depressing situations, sometimes accompanied by terse, negative commentary. These things are often commonplace on social media (I'm an old man, so for me that means Facebook and Twitter). Accessing social media sometimes requires taking a deep breath, bracing oneself for whatever gloomy, pessimistic entries one may find from others. Then, as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed one day last summer, my left wrist buzzed. Thinking it was a notification of a text or e-mail, I glanced at it only to find the following message: "Your Apple Watch has detected a heartbeat above 120 BPM while you were resting." It recommended keeping an eye on it, or seeking attention if necessary. And I was, indeed, resting, sitting lazily on the couch on a comfortable summer day. That was the deciding moment. I'd been contempla...

Our household regularly watches a television show that last aired (in its original run) over half-a-century ago. What's My Line? -- the popular game show that ran from 1950 to 1967 -- featured four panelists, a moderator, and multiple guests. The panel had to try and guess what each guest did for their "line" of work. It's a fun show to watch, and a fascinating time capsule of its era. We usually watch an episode or two every evening. Most everyone associated with the program is dead. This is true of Dorothy Kilgallen, a long-time panel member who died suddenly in 1965. One day, several weeks ago, we were watching an episode of the show on YouTube, and I read a few of the comments below the video. One of them purported to be from Dorothy's grandson, who said he was glad to be able to watch his grandmother at the top of her game, even though she long ago passed away. Whether or not that was truly Dorothy Kilgallen's grandson who wrote the comment, it...

Confession: I've never watched Game of Thrones . Well, that's not technically true. I watched the first episode a few years ago, found it mildly entertaining but not terribly gripping, and never watched another one. Life has been fine without it. Several people I know, however, love the show, and that's great, but something I've noticed is that folks really, really don't want episodes of the show spoiled for them. Like, really. Game of Thrones isn't the only program to elicit cries of 'Don't spoil it for me!' from its fans. LOST comes to mind. I actually had someone unfriend me on Facebook because I posted something about a LOST episode a few minutes after it aired. They hadn't watched it yet, and we even got into a discussion about time zones and what not. It was way more intense than it needed to be. On another occasion, a friend chastised me for openly discussing events of The Walking Dead that were six months old. He explained ho...

Social media can be a mixed bag. On the one hand, it allows us nearly instant communication with friends and family as close as the same town and as far as countries that are thousands of miles away. Sadly, there is also the reality that not everyone we are connected with online are truly friends. Add to that the sensory overload that can occur with updates, notifications, etc. and social media can be both a blessing and a curse. It is the negative aspect of this dichotomy that has led me of late to unfollow certain people, though not without a wringing of the hands. Failed relationships, be they romantic or platonic, are never something one feels good about. Whenever an unfriending occurs on Facebook (whether I am the one unfriending someone or vice-versa), it never feels good. Perhaps this is why I have taken lately to simply unfollowing people? This allows for the illusion of an online 'friendship' to continue, all the while I can no longer see the unwanted informati...

Perhaps you've the seen the signs? Various advertising billboards around town have sprouted-up, attempting to make a connection with a static object and a live social media account. This is a product of Adams Outdoor Advertising Company, and they even have a web site devoted to it. Here they tout one of their more pronounced billboard messages: 'Our first tweet was hand-painted.' They go on to explain how they come to equate their business with that of social media: