Technology is supposed to make things smaller and better, often also cheaper. However, that has been anything but with the so-called “smart” phone. It’s gotten bigger with bigger screens, and now is looking at folding screens to make it thicker. It’s gotten heavier and more bulky to carry around. Most of the new features are more addictive than helpful like with apps and social media. And we’re paying more and more for it? What kind of rational product development is this? But I shouldn’t criticize unless I had a better solution, right? Well, allow me to imagine one.
media
Definition: Anti-social Media Repository
I’ve decide to skip the “queue” today, for order of new words and terms I have been learning and documenting via Twitter this year. It’s a term I came up with for what I’m doing, which is posting things on social media to have available fairly “universally”, but without intent to engage much in the “social” aspects of social media. That is, I’m only going to follow those with info I want to know, which is a fairly short list so as to optimize value for time, and not follow back because people follow me. I’m hardly ever going to engage in debates, Likes, retweets, or any of that stuff. I have means to do that otherwise, should I care to. That’s the “anti-social” aspect of it, which is grammatically correct as “anti-social” media, and not “anti socialmedia” in its grouping of terms. It’s really just the social media’s technical ability to be a universal repository I can point people to “cleanly” (like in one phrase or link) for which I use it.
Btw, as you can see the numeration from this tweet of 104 made yesterday, and 037 that was the previous high numeration from Jan 12, I have built quite a repository in the past week or so by fluke of what I had come across in my reading, art history studies, and podcast listening!
Definition: Socialboating
Socialboating
(read “so Showboating”)
Authentic showboating on social media, as in flaunting achievements, rather than just wealth or just showing yourself in a favourable light online (social peacocking) with some mundane effort.
I coined this term for the pun of it, mixing social media, showboating, and just an expression that’s “so showboating” in terms of a response fairly expected from some others. I created it to inspire people to rise above “social peacocking” and flaunt about things really worth flaunting, which are achievements. That’s what I’ll be doing this year on my Facebook posts, which will be far fewer than before because it’s not easy to be achieving everyday or even every second day!
The achievements don’t have to be huge. Maybe I’ll just finish a painting (challenging to a newbie), or finish sewing (and designing) a garment, run a marathon or shorter race, etc. But I’ll be proud of it and flaunt that pride in socialboating on Facebook and other social media.
Definition: Socially Prescribed Perfectionism
Socially Prescribed Perfectionism
Perfectionistic motivations due to the fact that important people in one’s life expect one to be perfect.
- Wikipedia
That’s not quite the definition I got from the TEDRadio Hour podcast episode below. It was more like
A definition of perfectionism people get from seeing others’ curated posts on social media.
That is, people selectively posts only what they want to tell about their lives, which is usually a vast imbalance of the good things, often exaggerated for falsified, and others who view enough of it start setting that amalgamation of all they see as their idea of a perfect life, as if someone had it and they didn’t, when even the truth is those who posted all that stuff don’t even have a life close to it. It’s a perfection that’s socially prescribed to them via social media.
Hiding Like (and Follower) Counts to Reduce Social Media Addiction
Word on(the)line is that Instagram is considering hiding the number of Likes posts get!
I don’t know about you, but I see that as an ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT way to reduce social media addiction.
Lots of people posts to get those micro-dopamine shots from the Likes others give them on Instagram. Part of it is the notifications and numbers, but a big part of it is also knowing others can see that number, too! If it were not for the latter, the former would have limited meaning. You’d have to make an effort to tell one person at a time how many Likes something got, and update it. And if you were to make a post, lots of people might see it but would only call you out for vanity on it.
Now, think about if Instagram also hid the number of Followers! If Likes were micro-dopamine shots to the brain, Followers are milli-dopamine shots! If you’re not yet metricized, that’s 1000 times more potent for Followers to Likes. Imagine what hiding the number of followers will do! All kinds of people’s egos and image will be shattered. All those fake followers they paid for to make others believe they’re popular will no longer be seen! Some will lose their entire identity! No, seriously. Some will lose their entire identity! That was not sarcasm by exaggeration!
Now, think about if Twitter and other social media services did the same? Let people do all those Likes and Follows, just don’t show the totals!
Wow! What will the social media cartel do? Oh, wait. Those social media platforms are the cartels! Well, all the better on them, then!
Digital Citizen 