Cards on the table, I am not a huge fan of sharing personal content online. I have, since 2018, made 11 Facebook posts that were not links to my blog or website. In that same time, I have tweeted or retweeted 15 times, and posted 9 photos to Instagram. I am, in other words, a social media luddite, so take any of my grousing on this subject with a grain of salt.
I find sharing personal content online strange. Perhaps if we curated our friend lists more rigorously then I would find it less so: the platforms would simply be convenient tools for giving updates to friends and loved ones. In actual practice platforms such as Facebook and Twitter often seem to sit somewhere between personal branding and soapbox: an opportunity to shout into the internet void and hope that you receive the right kind of attention. Studies have also documented the mental health repercussions of ‘Facebook Envy’[1]: browsing the highlights of your friends’ and distant acquaintances lives is an excellent way to feed depression. I myself am prone to this, and I wish I could kick my habit of logging onto Facebook when I’m tired and seeking a mental break.
I am being vague. Here is my actual question: who are we sharing content online for? Friends, family, or the greater family of humankind? Individual goals differ, of course, but I think that a great deal of online sharing is done with muddled intentions. Some content is for friends, some content is venting, some of it is virtue signaling. Audiences on social media are pretty good at self-selecting – friends and family will like your profile picture, while classmates will respond to your political posts. A great deal of sharing is probably just because the architecture of the platforms encourages it: we get a rush of dopamine when people like or re-share our content, and it is satisfying to show other people the good things in our lives.
Something that I think many people forget, however, is that social media is a kind of ‘public space’. It is not difficult to find examples of people whose lives have been ruined by an ill-advised post, nor friendships that have ended due to a debate in a comments section. Social media erodes the barrier between public and private life.
This begs the question: why am I sharing my writing and blog-posts online? What is the purpose of this article?
Excerpts from my book and short stories are easy enough to explain. Short stories are written to be read, and I want to present a professional authorial face. The blog-posts are more challenging. I don’t expect to make any kind of money off them, nor do I think that they notably impact the quality of my writing website.
Ultimately, I think I share them for two reasons. First, these are writing and thinking exercises: low pressure opportunities to practice my skills on subjects that I’m interested in. Second, I am explicitly interested in promoting conversation on the subjects that I share with whomever is interested.
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