Continuing the improvement trend

Happy Monday, friends.  

In keeping with my last post, wherein I mentioned some areas of improvement that we've made at our house, I wanted to share a few more.

There's a new sheriff in town, so to speak, with a new President in office.  We're now treated to somewhat customary things like scheduled and uncontroversial press conferences, professional staff with capabilities and expertise in certain subject matter, and a sense of order in how things are being addressed.  Folks won't always agree on the politics, but the general demeanor is a welcome change after four years of absolute chaos.  During those years I dreaded looking at the news in the morning, fearing what had been done or said or decided or acted upon during the night that might affect me and my family.  

I want to say something about social media here as well.  I respect anyone's choice to use various social media platforms as they see fit, as I don't know any Instagram influencers or people who make tons of cash from their Facebook account.  And we all now that our most recent former President utilized Twitter as his primary vehicle for expressing his opinions on, well, everything, including policy and personnel.

But I recently watched a documentary entitled "The Social Dilemma" and it really hit home about how we as the user-public can be influenced by these social media companies and their algorithms that keep us engaged and keep us on their platforms.  Facebook, in particular, seems to be guilty of this, but the other "usual suspects," like Twitter, Instagram and others, are also a part of this.  

This is pretty easy for me, as I've never wanted to use Facebook for anything or to communicate with anyone.  Don't see that changing, either.  But many of the approaches which appear to make Facebook something less than the virtual town square it was originally thought to be have carried over to Instagram, which Facebook has owned for a while.  I follow a handful of people, mostly friends, on Instagram, but found that my preferred follows were being crowded out by "suggested posts" and advertisements for items in which I have no interest.  So rather than being sent down a rabbit hole, I decided to delete Instagram from my devices.  If there's an IG client that allows you to avoid all of the "suggested" stuff, I'd love to hear about it.  Until then, though, if I have been following you on IG and don't know about your posts, that's why.

Twitter is another platform that draws comments from critics on all sides.  My solution has always been to avoid using the native Twitter app or website, as they, too, put forward "suggested" posts and advertisements that don't interest me.  I use a Twitter client, Tweetbot, that gives me a little more control over what I actually see.  All of the clients that work with Twitter have to be approved by Twitter itself, but they still give users the ability to see what they prefer to see.

I also have continued my efforts to "prune" my Twitter feed about once a quarter and delete feeds that I come to dislike or at least be disinterested in.  Right now I have more follows that are associated with baseball than anything, which is OK by me.  The good news is that I don't believe I run the risk of being banned by any of these portals, as has happened to some other folks who will remain nameless.