Poster's Brain

I’ve used social media for almost 15 years now, joining Facebook as soon as I turned 13. One aspect that I’ve never really been able to wrap my head around is posting. Arguably, the reason social media exists, is just not something that seems to come naturally to me. 

Moving to Japan, and subsequently starting this blog, has given me the best reason to post in years. And yet, I didn’t post any articles last week because I couldn’t really settle on a topic. My last social media post was about Halloween, almost 3 weeks ago. There must be things in my life that are interesting to either post or discuss, and yet I never think of them that way. 

I know there must be things I could post about, because there are people whose entire career is about posting their life to social media. Are their lives somehow more interesting than mine? Probably not. Likely, they’re just better at making their lives seem more interesting. Flashy clothes, fancy cars, interesting locations, time spent editing, filters, it’s all just dressing up a life that probably isn’t that different from my own. 

Then again, for those people, posting is a career. For me, it’s more like a hobby, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone describe their social media use as a hobby. It’s something people do for fun, usually for a good amount of time each day, it should be a hobby right? Maybe it’s because it’s more of a communication tool that we don’t think of it that way. 

Although, most of my time on social media isn’t about talking to friends and family, and I’m rarely posting, so how do I spend my time? Scrolling. I scroll through the posts of people I know, but more often than not, I’m just swiping through whatever content the Instagram algorithm has decided I’m interested in. 

Maybe we don’t consider social media a hobby, because, at least for me, it’s not usually all that pleasurable. I don’t usually choose to spend time on Instagram, instead, it’s just somewhere I end up. I have a few moments to kill at work, so I check my phone, and just end up on Instagram, flicking through things I probably don’t care about. 

In addition to not being much of a poster, I don’t really comment either. Maybe as a result of being shamed just days after joining Facebook. When I first joined, as I was figuring out social media for myself, I would comment on plenty of posts. The next day, when I got to school, a chorus of my peers yelled “don’t comment on photos you’re not in!”. A rather ironic comment in retrospect. 

A selfie of any given celebrity has over thousands of comments from people who both aren’t in the photo, and have never met this person. Perhaps I took this shame to heart, because to this day I rarely comment on photos, even if I have a thought like “This is a nice photo” “Where is this?” “My friend looks really good here”. All things that would make for positive comments, or maybe start some dialogue, I simply keep to myself. 

This could, in some ways, just be an extension of my personality. I’ve always been more on the introverted side, and this may extend to my relationship with social media. If someone starts a conversation with me, I’m usually happy to engage, but starting that conversation or taking that initial step I tend to find difficult. I usually need a way in, or an excuse to try and make that first attempt. 

The same goes for posting, if I have some kind of excuse, a recent event, a hobby, I’ll find both a reason and motivation for posting. Though, even with those things, I often tend to post things late, or eventually just forget about the thing I was going to post about.  

It could also be that I’m just never that great about taking photos. I take a decent amount of scenery photos, like when I’m traveling, and the odd selfie, but I often forget to take photos with friends. I always dreaded taking pictures with family, but it does mean that a lot of my time spent with my family is fairly well documented, and that’s worth a lot. 

I’m not entirely sure that I really want to become more of a poster either, it’s more that I’ve been thinking about social media more. Post election, there seems to be a huge shift over to Bluesky, a newer decentralized social media platform. I’ve thought about checking it, but what exactly would I plan to use it for? 

If the Bluesky algorithm is customizable, what would I want to see? I’ve gotten so used to being a passive user of Instagram, that when I think about more actively controlling my social media experience, I’m not quite sure what I would want. Would I try to follow more news, gaming or otherwise? Would I try and further promote this blog, and follow other writers and bloggers? 

Perhaps, my lack of a poster’s brain is merely a symptom of a larger issue, I’ve forgotten why I like, or even use social media. It’s not like it’s the only way to keep up with friends and family, and even if I need to keep it for that purpose, that doesn’t mean I need to use it as much as I do. If social media is a tool, then what do I want to use it for, pleasure, information, or maybe connection? 

All of those things require a more active level of participation than I’ve had in a long time, and maybe that’s part of the issue too. I’ve gotten so passive with the way I use social media, that I’m no longer getting whatever it is I actually want out of the experience. 

I’m not entirely sure where this ongoing social media journey will lead me. After some soul searching, I’m hoping to give Bluesky a shot, and see if there’s more to social media than just passive scrolling. I’ll be sure to post about how that journey goes, probably, unless of course I forget.