Here is Cardinal Sarah’s argument in a nutshell: Shut up. Seriously, just shut up.
ERIC SAMMONS
Eric Sammons is taking a break from his Twitter X addiction:
I took a break from 𝕏. Here’s what happened.
Sammons learned a few things with this break, but he is not about to break up with the platform. His issues mirror my own struggles with the platform:
Post Twitter Homesick Blues
That post from 2015 ranks as the most popular item on this blog. If I had known it would become so popular, I would have put more effort into what I wrote on it. I remember writing it originally in frustration over my addiction, and I was just ranting. But I touched a nerve back then that persists today.
I am happy to say that people are now fully aware of the hazards and harmful effects of social media (the crack) and the smartphone (the crack pipe.) Entire countries are moving or contemplating a move to ban kids from social media. On an individual level, people are trying to break free from the social media addiction. That takes me back to Mr. Sammons.
Sammons recognizes the problem, but he is not going to do anything to fix the problem. He is at the stage that I call "bargaining." This is where you think a strategy of habit modification will allow you to harness the benefits of social media without the downsides. THIS NEVER WORKS. It didn't work for me when I tried it. It doesn't work for anyone else either.
Delete your social media accounts. Trade out your smartphone for a dumbphone. This works. The problem with Mr. Sammons is that he feels the need to self-promote his content on Twitter X and respond to the events of the day. He has the same problem as a friend of mine who wants to go back to using a flip phone, but his job won't allow it. Personally, I don't buy this excuse.
The real issue people need to address is FOMO. They can't disconnect from the online world. The sad thing is that these idiots have disconnected from the real world. Just the other day, I watched a man crossing the street in my town at great peril to himself as he had his face buried in his smartphone. He couldn't even put the thing down long enough to not risk getting creamed by a potential distracted driver playing on their phone behind the wheel. This is the insanity of our world now.
The online world of social media is not the real world. It is an alternative existence that has similar effects to a mind altering drug. And it has real world consequences such as the tweet posted in a heated moment that costs you your reputation and career. It had real world consequences for me as a distracted driver put me in the hospital. I am still angry over that.
I love the internet, and I wondered why I have a positive experience with the internet now. I think Cal Newport nailed it with his distinction between the social internet and social media. The social internet is what existed before Facebook. This would be blogs and personal websites. This blog is part of that social internet. I have never wanted to be free of this blog. It has been a big part of my life for the last 20+ years. Publishing on a weekly basis has helped calm down my worst impulses as it gives me time to think carefully about what I am writing and posting. This doesn't happen on social media.
Cal Newport has never had a social media account. Yet, he has reached his audience using the old fashioned social internet. I suspect Mr. Sammons knows about Cal Newport because he mentioned "deep work" which is a Cal Newport book and concept. I recommend that Sammons find a way to engage without using social media. If a comp sci prof can do it, why can't a Catholic writer and editor?
Another issue is the definition of social media. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are definitely social media. Blogs, YouTube, Spotify, and reddit are not. What makes a platform social media is the engagement and the manipulation. YouTube is simply television. Spotify is the radio. Reddit is the old internet messageboard from the 1990s. Blogs and websites are the newspapers and magazines of this generation. Social media has no analog to older media. It isn't a movie theater but a gambling casino. The fact that these social media companies consulted with folks from Vegas to make their platforms more addictive is very telling.
I found Eric Sammons's article through an old but true method--the email newsletter. I didn't find it on Twitter X. Email, RSS, and Google News are how I find my content. I don't miss anything that is happening in the world. I don't have FOMO. The truth is that I usually know the news first and with more details than anyone using social media. What I do miss is a controversy on Twitter X that amounts to nothing. The social media platforms create the news now. Many news stories you read on websites amounts to copying and pasting social media shitposting. Our current president is a shitposter-in-chief. This is what passes for discourse in our age now.
I don't know if the world will reject social media and smartphones on a large scale. But no one who uses these things can deny that they are worse off for it. People still smoke, so I don't expect this widespread addiction to end anytime soon. I do expect to see more people escaping this addiction. I hope Mr. Sammons can turn his break into a breakup.
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Back to textbooks: Denmark rolls back digital learning
Cal Newport
On Social Media and Its Discontents
Digital Minimalism
Dumbphones
