I quit Twitter my second year of grad school cause it was killing my soul. I occasionally check Instagram and keep it off my phone. Severely limiting my social media use has improved my life. I'm generally less angry, resentful, and envious when I'm off social media. I compare myself to others less and frankly I get less irritated at my …
I quit Twitter my second year of grad school cause it was killing my soul. I occasionally check Instagram and keep it off my phone. Severely limiting my social media use has improved my life. I'm generally less angry, resentful, and envious when I'm off social media. I compare myself to others less and frankly I get less irritated at my friends (who I like in the flesh but despise in the digital). I've seen arguments from woke Twitter appear in real life but I know way too many PhD students and art school kids.
At the moment, my daily news consumption is what is doing the real damage. I need to quit or limit that soon. The same stupidity you find on Twitter you find in the Guardian. However, quitting the news seems more like a moral and political failure or sin to me despite knowing it's really no different than social media at this point.
An hour of zazen most days, exercise, and limiting my alcohol consumption have also helped heal my soul, self, whatever we want to call it. I tend to think we are shaped by our environment and our habits or practices. Social media and smart phones have most definitely shaped our subjectivities since they dominate our life world and how we move in it. Woke identitirianism seems to flourish in the digital but I don't think this is where it was born.
the point about envy is a good one. I think social media breeds and feeds off of ressentiment, just like capitalism has to convince you there is something wrong with you in order to sell you a product.
I've also noticed the Guardian and others have changed significantly and integrated a lot of this social media thinking. There are also articles where they will quote twitter reactions about events in place of interviewing people...
I have a similar problem with some of my friends - I love them dearly as people but cannot stand their online personas, which raises all sorts of fascinating (and troubling) questions about identity and relationship.
The impulse to compare is so corrosive, but worse for me is the way instagram induces me to experience my life as something to be represented.
"The same stupidity you find on Twitter you find in the Guardian."
This is because 100% of journalists are complete twitter addicts. Add that indisputable fact to some other usage statistics: 92% of all tweets are made by the most vocal 10% of twitter users, only 22% of US adults use twitter and some 80% of twitter users are "affluent millenials," and it becomes clear that a very small segment of society has an extremely outsized impact on what counts as "newsworthy" to the modern journalist. I can't tell you how disgusting I find it that so much news (when I am unfortunately exposed to it) revolves around "a couple of people said something on twitter."
I quit Twitter my second year of grad school cause it was killing my soul. I occasionally check Instagram and keep it off my phone. Severely limiting my social media use has improved my life. I'm generally less angry, resentful, and envious when I'm off social media. I compare myself to others less and frankly I get less irritated at my friends (who I like in the flesh but despise in the digital). I've seen arguments from woke Twitter appear in real life but I know way too many PhD students and art school kids.
At the moment, my daily news consumption is what is doing the real damage. I need to quit or limit that soon. The same stupidity you find on Twitter you find in the Guardian. However, quitting the news seems more like a moral and political failure or sin to me despite knowing it's really no different than social media at this point.
An hour of zazen most days, exercise, and limiting my alcohol consumption have also helped heal my soul, self, whatever we want to call it. I tend to think we are shaped by our environment and our habits or practices. Social media and smart phones have most definitely shaped our subjectivities since they dominate our life world and how we move in it. Woke identitirianism seems to flourish in the digital but I don't think this is where it was born.
the point about envy is a good one. I think social media breeds and feeds off of ressentiment, just like capitalism has to convince you there is something wrong with you in order to sell you a product.
I've also noticed the Guardian and others have changed significantly and integrated a lot of this social media thinking. There are also articles where they will quote twitter reactions about events in place of interviewing people...
I have a similar problem with some of my friends - I love them dearly as people but cannot stand their online personas, which raises all sorts of fascinating (and troubling) questions about identity and relationship.
The impulse to compare is so corrosive, but worse for me is the way instagram induces me to experience my life as something to be represented.
"The same stupidity you find on Twitter you find in the Guardian."
This is because 100% of journalists are complete twitter addicts. Add that indisputable fact to some other usage statistics: 92% of all tweets are made by the most vocal 10% of twitter users, only 22% of US adults use twitter and some 80% of twitter users are "affluent millenials," and it becomes clear that a very small segment of society has an extremely outsized impact on what counts as "newsworthy" to the modern journalist. I can't tell you how disgusting I find it that so much news (when I am unfortunately exposed to it) revolves around "a couple of people said something on twitter."