So, it’s come to my attention that I’m something of an “internet hermit.” (thanks J.R.) Which is actually unintentional. I quit Facebook in 2014 and Twitter back in 2016, and while I’m still active on Goodreads, I mostly just use it to post book reviews and keep track of my TBR pile. After I moved back to Utah, the blog went mostly dark, which combined with everything else means that my online presence has practically gone to nothing.
I quit social media for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with privacy concerns. In the last couple of years, though, my reasons have changed. There’s a fascinating talk on YouTube by Chamath Palihapatiya, one of the founders of Facebook, where he speaks about the negative long-term effects of social media on individuals and societies. His observations are sobering. If you have the time, it’s worth it to watch his talk in detail, but this video does an excellent job of discussing the relevant points:
So with all that said, why am I experimenting with social media again?
Because it’s come to my attention that the people who are looking for me don’t really have a way to find me, and that’s a problem. There’s this blog, of course, but this isn’t the 00’s anymore, unfortunately; people don’t typically go searching for blogs anymore. They search Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram, or Одноклассники, or whatever social media they happen to use the most. For better or worse, if you don’t have a presence on these platforms, you’re effectively invisible to a whole lot of people.
When I quit social media, I was more concerned about my personal usage of these platforms than my own visibility. Not a lot of people were looking for me back then. There might not be a lot of people looking for me now, either, but I do want to set things up so that as my readership expands and my writing career grows, people have a way to find me.
So here’s what I plan to do: set up social media accounts, link them to my blog feed, and post content primarily through my blog. If people want to interact with me on social media, I’ll log in and interact with them, but my primary home on the internet is going to be this blog.
We’ll see how it turns out. In case you’re interested, I have a Facebook page here and a Twitter account here. If there’s any other social media you think I should have a presence on, please let me know.
