Rules for Social Media: This Is Genius

There are certain seat-of-the-pants rules I've set for myself when using social media.The longstanding utilitarian metaphor of Ulysses tying himself to the mast so he can both hear the Sirens' song and also not succumb to it comes to mind.

First, never click on anything that says "To [achieve something desirable], do this." Similarly, avoid anything that purports to make anyone "speechless."

Never go to Buzzfeed.

Never watch a video with a robot voiceover track. (Look at me, I'm so old I don't even know what those are called.)

Avoid pages with titles like "[number] ways to [solve some problem that's common enough that you probably have it]," such as, "9 Ways to Never Have to Clean Your Toilet Again." Yes, you want to know. But no, the information is either not good or too obvious to be useful.

Never follow slideshows.

Always check out the source of the information you're reading. Ever heard of it before? Know anything about its reputation? Are sources cited? Ever heard of them?

And bear in mind you can't always trust sources you've heard of that used to be reputable. Sources such as People magazine and Newsweek are now junk, for instance.

Never get suckered by wanting to know what once-beautiful people look like now.

Never scroll down on sites suggesting miracle products.

Try not to care about anything Warren Buffet does. No, drinking five Cokes and eating breakfast at Macdonalds every day will not turn you into an investing billionaire.

Stay away from YouTube Shorts; they are as addictive as crack, and as nutritious. That one amazing magician guy who doesn't have a name is an obvious exception.

Unless you know the person or know of them, except when you're being helpful to them or vice-versa, don't engage. It's exhausting and absolutely pointless.

And, of course, never trust anyone who says something is "genius." They're not even smart enough to use the word genius properly, so what could they possibly know that you would want to find out?

Most important: never follow what the bots suggest to you. Don't browse. Choose what you watch/read/consume for yourself. For example, David Hurn on Instagram*. I do research on the Internet, and I can tell you, the bots and algorithms are just throwing hooks and bait into the water wherever you've been seeing swimming. (I'm very confusing to the bots, because I research all sorts of weird things and never return to 99% of it.)

And a takeaway: if doing something on your phone or computer is making you feel upset, lonely, distressed, depressed, or anxious, stop doing it.

Bright shiny metaphor
Not too far from me, in a small town that just saw its last grocery store close (it's now a dollar store, where everything costs $1.25 because of inflation), there's a gleaming new gas station / convenience store. The store part is surprisingly large. Apart from a small display of apples and bananas prominently featured at the main crossroads of the aisles—and the bottled water as well, I suppose—there is almost nothing healthy to eat or drink in the entire store. The whole place is lined with refrigerator cases featuring a bewildering array of brightly colored drinks, including beer, and freezer cases for ice cream and frozen cheesy foods in boxes. There are whole aisles for bagged candy, bar candy, and fake candy (such as "protein bars," which are candy bars for people who need to feel good about their choices. Yogurt is sugary pudding for the same folks). Mylar bags puffed up with air and filled a third of the way up with endless varieties of very expensive chips (I think the Brits call them "crisps") occupy anther whole section. I don't think I have to go on. The point is that everything there is carefully designed to be attractive and enticing, but almost all of it is bad for you and you don't actually need any of it...except perhaps for the one thing you went in for. And—too bad for a town without a grocer's—no matter how clever you are, you're unlikely to be able to put together a meal there. If you do, it's going to be a pretty sketchy meal.

That's social media, right there. Seriously: thinking of it as a shop or a catalog chock full of bright shiny sh*t you probably shouldn't bite on will get you very far along toward being able to put it into perspective. Pass this along to your favorite young adult.

—Uncle Mikey

*Thanks to John Krumm for this.

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

phil: "Sorry, I can't read your blog today. It starts out with 'this is GENIUS.'"

Jack Mac: "Speaking of fake candy: I confess to be the inventor of Nature Valley Granola Bars. I worked in the breakfast division of General Mills. We made Nature Valley Granola cereal. It had less nutrition than Cheerios, but how could that be, since it was Natural? Cauliflower is natural too, but does have nutritional value. But it lacks sweetness. I ate the granola cereal as a snack. I liked to grab the biggest pieces. So I asked the researchers how the granola was made. They said it was mixed up, rolled into a thin sheet and oven roasted. Then it was mechanically crumbled up. I asked them if, instead of crumbling a batch, they could just cut it up into candy-bar size. They could. I got an improved oh-so-natural snack for myself and the rest of America.

"That was in 1974. Now I would have made them Organic too, and advertised them on Instagram."

Ed. note: My friend Jack Macdonough introduced himself to me originally as "a retired beer salesman." Turns out he retired as CEO at Miller Brewing. I've known him for years, yet this is the first time I've ever heard the Nature Valley Granola Bar story! A man of many surprises, not to mention modesty....

Moose: "Sadder, but wiser Uncle Mikey! As to genius, the internet remakes words. Once in effect, the old definition is gone, on your screen, if not in your heart. 'Meme' was such a wonderful, interesting, subtle word, but no longer."

Not THAT Ross Cameron: "Couldn’t agree with you more. The phrase you are looking for is Critical Ignoring—the next step beyond critical thinking—to make sense of and filter the facts vs. information vs. opinion / entertainment / commercial interests (including so-called ‘alternative facts’ and Colbert’s Truthiness). Interesting article on that from The Conversation, here. Reminds me of this page—now quite dated, but still relevant, for researching. A good tip is to use more than browser when searching for info on the interwebz."

ASW: "The worst part is that the shiny new store will outsell the recently closed grocery store by orders of magnitude. To extend the analogy a bit further, if the new store is social media the grocery store was a dying local newspaper. Better for you, hopefully with some locally produced products, and invested in the community vs pure profit."

Flavioapu: "Thanks for sharing some thoughts about it. Nowadays there’s so much information available and so many people doing anything for popularity that we actually need to mine the Internet (or life) in order to find quality stuff. Whether we’re looking for food, information, connection or anything else, we need to break through a lot of 'attention stealers.' Everything is so superficial and I just wonder how deep the root of this human issue goes."

c.d.embrey: "William Gibson said: 'Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low-self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surround by *ssholes.' Is Gibson thinking about the internet? It seems like that to me."

Dan Khong: "Thank you Uncle for your pearls of wisdom in tackling the contents of the 'Net. As the name suggests, a net is meant to catch unsuspecting fish. And most fish have small brains."

Michael Ryan: "I also avoid: Will change your life forever. Will blow your mind. Will make your jaw drop. This is hilarious. All shockingly false promises."

Comments

[Rick Graves]

Spot on! I think that you have described social media and the internet correctly!

[robert e]

So, "13 Ways to Avoid Social Media Addiction"? Not as enticing as "This one neat trick" but I'll take it. Thanks!

Yes, the Kwik-e-mart is an apt metaphor: food as widget, mass produced for mass consumption.

The term "artificial intelligence" as used today is a misnomer, and it distracts from the fact that these generative algorithms will be used to churn out internet junk in unprecedented quantity. We should be calling it "artificial inanity".

[Richard Parkin]

My grocery delivery yesterday contained 2 free cans of “Pepsi Max” which the accompanying leaflet said was “preferred by 75% of British people”. Preferred to what it didn’t say … gnat’s pee I guess.

[Doug Vaughn]

Sage advice in this post. I don't fall for most of the things you listed but have been known to start reading Buzzfeed comments and realize 90 minutes have passed. I feel stupid every time, but it's addicting, like watching a train wreck. I could say the same thing about the amount of time I spend following politics, even though I can't do much to fix the world's problems.

The convenience store description makes me glad to have two large well-stocked grocery stores just over a mile away. Living in farm country, we also have all the fresh fruit and vegetables you could want for 6 months of the year. It keeps me still fitting in those jeans I bought 20 years ago.

[Albert Smith]

"...in a small town that just saw its last grocery store close..."

The sociologist types call this a "food desert", and the communities that suffer with this lack of an option have higher rates of obesity and the effects of that such as diabetes. I'm sure the lack of quality food in that area is more than made up for by a wealth of liquor stores.

[Tom Duffy]

And any video that starts with “wait for it” isn’t worth waiting for.
If you can answer these 10 questions, you have an IQ of 154.
Or my favorite from my father-in-law when he got on the internet at age 75, “Are girls in Ann Arbor really dying to meet me?”

[Ernest Zarate]

In my life, I have found most “rules” to be overly complex and self-propagating. They build upon themselves, in byzantine manner, and their complexity most assuredly means one shall fail at adhering to them. I’ve never understood the fascination with them.

For me, I find it best to simply not participate in SM. I signed off of FB (my only SM app) several years ago, and I haven’t looked back, nor have I missed it at all. I don’t have to consider the consequences of clicking/viewing/following/etc… As 99.999% of what’s on SM is unnecessary (to put it kindly) to my life, it has no hold on me.

But that’s me. I don’t pretend to think I have answers for anyone else. Obviously, SM is a thing in many lives. To each their own.

[John Krumm]

I like to think of TOP as "somewhat social" media. It offers little backyard of comments where we gather and share opinions on a featured essay for a bit. A host who can easily shut us up, but is usually generous. All interested in something to do with photography, even though we probably have some differing political opinions. A salon of sorts.

[Robert Roaldi]

Too true. The problem of closing grocery stores is big. Not only are neighbourhood grocery stores disappearing in small towns, but it's happening in big cities too. The sellers have managed to offload the cost of the "last mile" of transport to us, for which we need to own multiple very expensive cars per family. Our systems are no longer serving us.

We are not benefitting from these developments.

[Terry Letton]

I knew not to read it as soon as I got to. “This is genius “

[Luke]

How about a slideshow of what a once-fat photography blogger looks like now?

[John Krumm]

One more thing, some people are just really good at social media. I've mentioned this before, but take Magnum photographer David Hurn, who keeps a running journal of sorts on Instagram that is quite popular. Fun to read too. Both old photos and new ones.

https://www.instagram.com/davidhurnphoto

[Bruce Bordner]

The source of all the problems is Free Stuff. Free (to you) Stuff is very expensive. We end up paying for it in many ways, most of which destroy our experience.
We may as well pay in taxes - let the government set up a public forum and run it. It would at least be a centralized, transparent madhouse. Any attempts to influence us would be seen as political and fail. Maybe. It can't be much worse than "Free".

[Andy Kowalczyk]

I got half way through your article and had an argument with myself about continuing - is Mike warning us about the very thing he is doing? Surely he will end with a redeeming message for the modern world?

Andy Kowalczyk
Oak Park, Illinois

[

I guess the crux is the sentence, "...if doing something on your phone or computer is making you feel upset, lonely, distressed, depressed, or anxious, stop doing that." These thoughts derived from an article linked by PetaPixel that is difficult to read and summarize, but conveys the fact that engagement with social media sometimes makes "emerging adults" sadder, more anxious, and demoralized. That contention, if true, hurts me. --Mike]

[David Dyer-Bennet]

David Hurn is an interesting case.

If I read his intro right, he's been shooting for Magnum since the year before I started doing my own darkroom work in junior high. I'll call that "a while now".

And he labels what he does as "non fiction photographs", which is not a common way of saying it and seems to me to cut to the heart of the matter. (In the end, we're dependent on the view of the photographer, moment shot, direction camera is pointed, etc., even if nothing whatsoever is changed from the capture. He's declaring his intentions, there, without making promises about the process.)

[Jim Arthur]

We probably don't need most of the stuff we buy and our economy seems to be based on this. In a sad sorta way it kinda makes sense that all this faux food exists because of how addictive it is. There is no better way to drive sales. I would imagine that even the grocer needs the sales from the high margin faux food to allow them to carry the lower margin fruits and vegetables. Social Media is just as addictive. Its up to us to know a sales pitch when we see it and to think about how we choose to fuel our mind and body.

[Dan]

The hardest section in grocery stores for retaik buyers are fresh meat and the produce sections due to vendor management and availability of fresh goods. Those are the only two sections I shop.

The biggest thing I dislike about the internet is searching for something and then having to go through 90% of an article because in all probability, the writer is paid by the word.

[John Krill]

I went to the David Hurn page at Instagram and I couldn't believe what I saw - CAPTIONS. Who does captions anymore? David Hurn does

[Well, I do. But yes, that's remarkable, and desirable, IMHO.

I think I wrote an article once called "In Praise of Captions." Who knows what happened to it, though. --Mike]

[nextSibling]

See also: "The TRUTH about..."

[Ned Bunnell]

Mike, since John Krumm mentioned David Hurn’s Instagram account, there are two more photographers I follow who are very active and post wonderful images and stories.

Joel Meyerowitz
https://instagram.com/joel_meyerowitz?igshid=MTIzZWMxMTBkOA==

Stephen Shore
https://instagram.com/stephen.shore?igshid=MTIzZWMxMTBkOA==

You might want to check out Stephen’s recent posts . He’s sharing photos he took 50 yrs ago along with photos of his road journal including receipts from where he stayed, gas stations he filled up at, and notes about each of the photos he took on that particular day.

[Robert Harshman]

Facebook also has a lot of scam ads were prices are simply too good to be true. Years ago I started seeing ads for ebikes that were not yet made or fully funded on Kickstarter and electric wave boards at $99.00. In reality the real ones were thousands of dollars. Currently there are a lot of "Bed, Bath and Beyond Warehouse" ads that show ridiculous low prices like $9.99 for a multi thousand dollar ebike. FB should be vetting these but as long as the scammmer pays for the ad it seems they just don't care.

[DB]

>> First, never click on anything that says "To [achieve something desirable], do this."

ok.

>> Similarly, avoid anything that purports to make anyone "speechless."

Sure.

>> Never go to Buzzfeed.

Np.

>> Never watch a video with a robot voiceover track.

Done.

>> Avoid pages with titles like "[number] ways to [solve some problem that's common enough that you probably have it]"

ok.

>> Never follow slideshows.

ok.

>> Always check out the source of the information you're reading.

Hmm.

>> Never get suckered by wanting to know what once-beautiful people look like now.

Np.

>> Never scroll down on sites suggesting miracle products.

Sure, ok.

>> Try not to care about anything Warren Buffet does.

This is harder if you include his investment strategies in "anything."

>> No, drinking five Cokes and eating breakfast at Macdonalds every day will not turn you into an investing billionaire.

Yup.

>> Stay away from YouTube Shorts.

Can do.

>> Unless you know the person or know of them, except when you're being helpful to them or vice-versa, don't engage.

Depends on your job.

>> And, of course, never trust anyone who says something is "genius." They're not even smart enough to use the word genius properly...

Wha...? Hey!!

[DavidB]

[I think I wrote an article once called "In Praise of Captions." Who knows what happened to it, though. --Mike]

Is this it?

https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/07/in-praise-of-captions.html

[Dave]

I've never been on Farcebook or Twitter or any other soc.med. site. (You have to give out too much personal information just to join "their club".)
I ignored the Classmates.com notices in my e-mail. (Why do I need to contact someone with whom I haven't sent an e-mail or called on the phone since high school?)
I have developed blinders for the ads on the sides of each page.
My brother is on some sites because his kids use them. So I get alerted for recent bikini photos of Elizabeth Hurley (who is still stunning). That's the only use I have social media.
I do follow some links because hyperlinks in legitimate articles can be helpful. (More often long ago, before soc. med. "was a thing".)
No wonder the younger set has such short attention spans.
I don't consider regular websites such as TOP as social media -- there's actual thought involved with your posts! :>)

[Keith]

One of several articles I recall reading a few years ago about the impact of dollar stores on local grocers and food quality.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90278384/why-dollar-stores-are-bad-business-for-the-neighborhoods-they-open-in

[Roger]

Some years ago I was wandering around our flea market—looking for cameras, of course—when I came across a couple of people engaged in an energetic conversation. I don’t recall the topic, but one of the participants decided to clinch whatever they were asserting via the statement “And do you know how I know it’s true? Because I saw it on the internet!”

We are so doomed.