A letter to my mother (and other facebook boomers) about our social media experiences
Hey Mom.
You've been giving me that uncomfortable tone again. You know, the one where you know more about what's going on in the world than I do, despite us both getting the majority of our news from social media.
But I can never really explain the difference to you between our experiences, because you've only ever used Facebook (except for that very brief period that you signed up for Instagram, but that was only like for a week).
I've been on Facebook, Fedi, Twitter, Tumblr, G+, Scuttlebutt, Bluesky, Tiktok, Reddit, and others. So I've seen what lies outside those tarnished cobalt gates, and it's difficult for me to explain the difference when you only have the one experience.
But I'm going to try again, because I really don't like hearing that tone.
1. algorithm
Facebook uses an algorithm to decide what to show you.
You don't really need to know about how it works, just that it uses one.
Facebook decides what to show based on your past history.
What have you looked at before?
What have you spent the most time on?
What have you liked?
What have you commented on?
What have you shared?
It's kind of like shopping for books.
"If you liked this book, here's some books that other people who liked this book also liked."
fedi
Fedi doesn't have an algorithm.
It doesn't keep track of what I've interacted with before to decide what to show me next. It just shows me posts from people I've followed, in reverse chronological order.
If I were book-shopping...
It's like looking at the lists published in the books I just read, "other books by this author".
2. business
Facebook is a business.
They make money from two primary sources:
Selling your data and ad revenue.
For the purposes of simplicity, we're going to ignore the data side of the business and focus on the ad revenue.
Facebook makes money when you look at advertisements on Facebook.
They don't get anything if you look at ads that aren't on Facebook.
It's in their best interest to keep you on the platform as much as possible, because the longer you hang around, the more ads they can show you.
More ads = more money
Back to the book metaphor:
The book seller wants you to buy from them, so they're more inclined to push you to buy something, so they give you tailored results that you might like. And they'll incentivize you to sign up for their newsletter, so they can tell you when it's time to spend more money, to buy the latest books or to share new insights about other books you might like.
fedi
Fedi isn't a business.
Most of the servers are run by volunteers and funded by donations.
(Though oftentimes the people running it will use something like an LLC to keep things safe and organized, and make handling the money and any disputes a little easier.)
If anything, it's in Fedi's best interests to minimize how much time you spend there, because then you're using less bandwidth and storage, both of which cost money.
So there's an incentive to only show you what you actually want to see, nothing more, and in an order that's simple and straightforward. Get your social media consumption done with as quickly and efficiently as possible, and save them money on server resources.
Sorry, the book shopping metaphor completely falls apart for this one.
Maybe someone who's reading this can click here to suggest something for me to put here.
in summary
Facebook wants to keep you on Facebook as much as possible.
They'll show you more of what you tend to look at the most, whether that's cute animals or anger-inducing politics. They don't care what kind of emotional response you have, as long as it keeps you watching, reading, and scrolling. Because the longer you're there, the more ads they can feed you, and the more data they can collect. And the more of both ads and data, the more money they make.
Fedi wants your visit to be efficient.
Show you want you asked for and then move on with your day. And most of the people who build and run and visit Fedi don't want another Facebook. They don't want a gated community that tries to lock you inside the tarnished gates. They want a social media experience that lets them socialize with their chosen community, not one that force-feeds them endless drivel that they didn't sign up for.
I hope that helps.
Sincerely,
pockets
Leave a comment or continue reading: other Tuesday posts or some social media selections.
