I’m trying to come up with an ethos of how I want to use social media. What rules and constraints do I put around it. This is a living document.
Rules for posting/reposting content:
- Repost/Share cool links from the internet
- Repost/Share cool art (and credit whenever possible)
- Repost/Share people looking for work
- Doubly-so if the people above are in tech and from an underrepresented group
- Repost/Share job listing from reputable companies
- Then… if you’ve done all that, promote your own thing
General principles for me and my brain:
- I have a bad habit of starting the day off with a goof, avoid this
- I like riffing and puns but it can have reply-guy vibes, limit this
- In any conversation you have 3 options: Be rude, Be nice, Say nothing – the latter is usually the most correct answer
- It’s okay to let people be wrong
- Write down the issues you allow yourself to get outraged over
- Read the room before posting
- You can block/mute any person or channel for any reason, it’s fun
- Research suggests it takes 23m15s to resume a task after a distraction!
- Raycast Focus is your friend
On specific social-media apps:
- X is for Nazis and Russian bot nets, avoid.
- FB/Instgram are for family and friends, use on occasion.
- TikTok is a dopamine trap, avoid.
- YouTube is a dopamine trap, but useful.
- Bluesky is fine.
- Mastodon is for quality conversations.
- Discord is for like-minded communities, prioritize intimate ones.
- Log into LinkedIn once a month and give some thumbs-ups. It supports your friends and colleagues in the algorithmic trash fire and that handshakefullness and relationship building might be helpful in the future if you need a job.