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Friends, 

Social media has gone astray. 

On a system architectural level I wrote in the past how Facebook (the example I will use today) is a real-estate business more than a services one (and used the beloved plumber scenario as an alternative). The long and the short of it is that you can think of social networks–today–as metaphysical domains you need to cognitively travel. 

So Facebook could be likened to a big tower, where someone lets you in, you have one floor for groups, one for your photos, one for events, and as you go along, you see ads and your behavior is being monetized (in what Shoshana Zuboff calls Behavioral Surplus). 

Plenty of issues so far, but I want to focus on an often overlooked issue: this has a direct influence on your well-being. The reason you’re over in the first place is to connect with people, see photos of your friends, and hopefully engage in healthy social and professional rituals. 

When Facebook is a bouncer to your social connections it interferes with a very basic, personal and human activity. On a user experience (UX) and human computer interaction (HCI) level the mediums we use, password protected website (Facebook.com) and apps, are a great focal point.

In a subliminal, but very real way, you are asking ‘Facebook’ permission to access to your networks, access to your life, and eventually access your identity.

Side bar - the dissonance between how others (the worlds, and algorithms) see you, and how you see yourself is something that I will be exploring much more this year,

In the way of an experiment I closed my Facebook account last year and have attempted to run a local system of people. 

As a crude experiment, I have a spreadsheet on my desktop called My People. That is where I will go to when I invite people to dinners, and salons, to send a new year’s mailer or to seek feedback for new ideas.

It can be used as a CRM, an accountability circle, or a forum for that matter (if used together with something like a Google Group: which by the way also errs on the side of Facebook’s bouncer metaphor).

Accept the tool below as a quick and dirty idea on how you might tweak the mediums in your life and how that effects wellbeing, and eventually creativity.

How to use it?
  1. Think about the networks you’re a part of
  2. What are the guiding principles of navigating those?
  3. What is common to people in a certain cluster?
  4. Can you think of a taxonomy that you might use in a spreadsheet? (e.g. 80%/50%/30% overlap in interests and work, current cohort and alumni at large etc)
  5. Add the taxonomy and network in this spreadsheet 
  6. Reflect on how does that manual process feel
  7. Does the slowness help, does make connections more intentional, do these people pop to your mind more organically?
I hope you find this useful, and please get in touch with questions, thoughts or feedback.
Wishing you a great week ahead.

Nitzan
 
@byedit @byedit
@themetadesk @themetadesk
Copyright © 2020 Future-of.Agency, All rights reserved.


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