Refreshingly, Iâve noticed that my more recent blog posts havenât been about Big Tech as often. I havenât changed my views: the ones Iâve stated earlier still stand, and Google and Facebook in particular continue to be a blight on democracy and even individual mental health.
A lot of the posts were inspired by real-world usage of those websites, if you look back over the last decade. As I use them irregularly, and wish others were in the same boat, then thereâs little to report, unless I come across new revelations that I might have a say about.
Google is the search of last resort though it has a great translator; now that the news alerts donât even work, thatâs one fewer contact point with the online advertising monopolist. Facebook is good for monitoring who has breached my privacy by uploading my private data to the platform, and to delete off-Facebook activity (Facebook serves these pages at a ridiculously slow speed, you wonder if youâre on dial-up). Beyond that neither site has much utility.
My Instagram usage is down to once every two months, which means itâs halved since 2020, though I still keep an eye on Lucireâs account, which isnât automated.
I stay in touch with some friends on email and thereâs much to be said about a long-form composition versus a status update. Itâs the difference between a home-cooked meal and a fast food snack. And, of course, I have this blog to record things that might pique my interest.
Go back far enoughâas this blogâs been around 15 yearsâand I shared my musings on the media and branding. My blogâs roots were an offshoot of the old Beyond Branding blog, but I wanted to branch into my own space. A lot of my views on branding haven’t changed, so I haven’t reblogged about them. Each time someone introduced another platform, be it Vox or Tumblr, I found a use for it, but ultimately came back here. Just last week I realized that the blog gallery, which came into being because NewTumblâs moderators started believing in the Republic of Gilead, was really my substitute for Pinterest. It might even be my substitute for Instagram, if I can be bothered getting the photos off my phone.
I must say itâs a relief to have everything on my own domain, and while itâs not âsocialâ, I have to ask myself how much of Instagramming and social media updating ever was. Twitter, yes, to an extent. But oftentimes with Instagram I posted because I got joy from doing so, over trying to please an audience. Itâs why I never got that many followers, because it wasnât a themed account. And if doing what suits me at the time is the motive, then thereâs no real detriment to doing so in my own spaces. These posts still get hundreds of viewers each, probably more than what I got on Facebook or Instagram.
I donât know if this is a trend, since setting up your own space takes far more time than using someone elseâs. Paying for it is another burden others may wish to avoid. Nor do I have the latest stats on Facebook engagement, but when I did track it, it was heading south year on year. I do know that the average reach for an organic post continues to fall there, which is hardly a surprise with all the bots. Instagram just seems full of ads.
But in my opinion, fewer contact points with Big Tech is a good thing, and may they get fewer still.
Posts tagged ‘Pinterest’
My first tech post in a while: how I use my social-computing time
09.09.2021Tags: 2021, Beyond Branding, Big Tech, blogosphere, email, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Medinge Group, Pinterest, social media, technology
Posted in business, culture, interests, internet, technology | No Comments »
The social web is not divided by race
06.07.2012
Above: A snapshot of my Tweetdeck: people of different walks of life, avatars where race is barely determinable, and logos which are not racial at all. Does the BBC expect us to take it seriously when it says we cluster by race on social networks?
I came across this piece via Twitter, which instantly struck me as cobblers: that people in social networks congregated with their own racial groups online.
There’s not much to the article and I risk republishing all the words, but a video goes with it if you want the full story. The write-up reads, in most part:
Micro-blogging website Twitter has seen an upsurge in traffic from Hispanic and African-American audiences. These groups now claim about 30% of the site’s user base, according to third-party statistics website Quantcast.com.
Meanwhile, white users claim 90% of US traffic on Pinterest.com, while Tumblr.com has seen an over-representation of Asian Americans as of late.
Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd says though experts once thought the internet would help destroy racial barriers, “all of the divisions that exist in every day life, including those by race and class, actually re-emerge online”.
So, how many social media users have logged in to a particular platform because others of their race are there and drawn them in? No, that’s unfair. Let me reframe that: how many social media sites are used to reflect the divisions we have in life?
I just don’t think we create these divisions. We have cultural divisions, maybe: we like having our own world-view reinforced. But that’s seldom down to the colour of your skin.
Let’s dismiss the easiest one first: Pinterest. It’s the newest, so our recollection of its growth is probably the clearest.
A casual stroll around Pinterest sees dresses and cakes, if my friends are anything to go by. The boom group of Pinterest users appears to be female, and usually mothers, who used the online “pin board” for its intended purpose: to put up images of their favourite things.
This group caught on to it probably because it was one that no other network had targeted. Busy mothers probably found it easier to pin, rather than Tumblog or blog. And as Pinterest grew via invitation, it wasn’t surprising that they reached out to others who were of a similar mindset. The fact that most happened to be Caucasian is probably more a consequence of where it has grown: in countries with white majorities.
My friend and colleague William Shepherd dug up these stats about Pinterest. As 83 per cent of the audience is female (70 per cent in the Quantcast video, so it is already heading south), might we conclude that the world is sexist, too? Yes, I realize there are sexism and glass ceilingsâbut just how much of this is the users’ fault, based on some innate desire to “be with their own” on a social network? It’s simply more to do with a female audience being catered to, with content being largely female for anyone who first logs in to Pinterest. Your typical male user might think, ‘There’s nothing for me here,’ leave, and the female content continues to grow.
Twitter’s growth among US Hispanics and blacks could be down to numerous other factors, very possibly the availability of reliable apps for Twitter which appeal to these groups’ use of cellphones and smart phones for accessing the site. Given that one’s race is not something readily identified on Twitterâa look through my Tweetstream sees logos as well as unclearâand often racially indeterminableâavatars, it’s highly unlikely race is the factor that has driven blacks and Hispanics to go on to the service. Think to yourself: have you ever followed someone back because they had the same ethnicity as yourself?
Which brings us on to Tumblr. Could its growth among AsianâAmericans simply be down to its growth in Asia itself? My experience on Tumblrâand I have been there since the beginningâis that it had plenty of interest from Asia, particularly Japan. These users are posting things that appeal to the diasporaâa cultural reason, not a racial one.
The internet has destroyed racial barriers, and continues to do so. I see people interact, engage and exchange regardless of race every day on social networks. It’s like those newspapers that always paint websites as centres of evil, where pĂŚdophiles, rioters and terrorists congregateâit appeals to a certain bias, but it might not be real. And maybe my idealism is founded on a personal bias, too, but I just can’t see, in 2012, how the best invention for bridging divides is actually used to reflect them. What I see every day is multiculturalism and a sharing across cultures, and that the internet, including the social networks, has been the best leveller that humankind has yet conceived.
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Tags: BBC, culture, Multicultural Brand Consultancy, multiculturalism, Pinterest, racism, social media, social networking, statistics, Tumblr, TV, Twitter, USA, William Shepherd
Posted in culture, internet, media, technology, TV, UK, USA | 2 Comments »