The last decade has been a frenetic rush of information, with our eyeballs constantly drawn to an endless stream of content: Breaking News, memes, entertaining videos, personal milestone moments, family photos, and opinions about everything. Social media can be an addiction for the average consumer, but it’s also an important and necessary tool for artists, writers, experts, journalists, and other creators who are trying to promote their work or get their message out to an audience.
So when a social media platform starts to collapse or a new unwanted feature or algorithm is launched, it can feel like we’re each in little boats, trying to navigate a change in the current or rough water, trying to keep up and not capsize. Wondering if we’ll all end up in the same harbor.
That’s how a lot of artists felt when Instagram started prioritizing reels and videos over images. Suddenly, in order for their work to be seen by the same number of people as before, they had to not only post pictures of their artwork, but now they needed to start creating videos too. Creating all of that content is a necessary form of marketing, so that people will see their work and choose to buy it or choose to hire them for a project. As a children’s book editor, I follow a lot of artists on Twitter and Instagram and I’ve seen so many people lamenting this change. They’d rather make their art in their chosen medium than be making process videos or reels about themselves. But they adapt, rushing to keep up with the endless demands of the ever-changing social media sea.
Twitter has been a valuable tool for me in my career as an editor. It’s connected me with a host of children’s book authors, illustrators, literary agents, and publishing professionals that I would not have easily connected with if I was reliant on more traditional modes of networking. I owe my career in large part to the kidlit community on Twitter and I’m so grateful for the books we’ve made together as a result.
But Twitter has changed quite dramatically over the past year. The algorithm has changed, and ordinary people without a blue checkmark aren’t getting the visibility they once did. This is hurting artists, writers, publishing professionals, and other creators and people in other fields. The network that was once so valuable is now diluted by ads, promoted posts, and tweets from people we never intended to follow in the first place. It’s becoming less useful, in addition to being a breeding ground for trolls and disinformation.
Same goes for Facebook. What used to be a place to connect with friends and family has turned into a dumpster fire of arguments, ads, and misinformation spread both intentionally and unintentionally. While I still use it to connect with people I care about and for the niche interest groups I’m part of, I feel less invested and less entertained than I once was.
Social media also has a profound role to play in the way we discover and consume news. In the past three years, I had a front row seat to live updates and sometimes live video of horrible events unfolding, including Covid-19 spreading around the world, the Minneapolis (and beyond) Uprising after the police murder of George Floyd, the January 6 insurrection, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and too many mass shootings to name. I don’t watch TV news or get a physical newspaper (though I do subscribe digitally to a few). When I hear something big is happening, I immediately check Twitter. And it’s really hard to look away.
This week, National Public Radio became the first news organization to stop reporting on Twitter after being falsely labeled as “State Affiliated Media” by Twitter. I wonder if others will follow. And if they do, where will we go for breaking news and live updates of events as they unfold? It’s another change in the way we navigate the world.
I’m not on TikTok, which I blame mostly on the fact that I’m an elder Millennial and couldn’t get the algorithm to show me anything I liked, but it is currently the most popular social media app in the US. And TikTok is having its turbulent moment too. TikTok is being investigated as a potential national security threat because it is a Chinese-owned company. So there are some in the US government who want to ban it in the US. This would be a huge upset for all the people who rely on it for their careers, activism, and artistic expression, among other things.
I came to Substack to escape some of that noise, uncertainty, disappointment, and hustle culture of other social media platforms. And now Substack has unveiled Notes, its own version of a newsfeed app in which users can post short bits of content and engage in conversations with others. On the one hand, I’m excited. I enjoy virtual networking and communicating with interesting people this way. On the other, I’m annoyed. Substack was a nice respite from the frenetic pace of every other social media site. I liked the slower pace of longform writing and the opportunity to do my own writing, without the pressure to “create content.” I am worried that writers will feel pressured to spend more time writing Notes than writing Newsletters and we’ll lose the depth and breadth of beautiful content to be found here. Are these peaceful waters suddenly going to become a raging river?
So what do we do when we’re faced with a disappointing social media change or we lose that way of connecting with a particular online community? You might feel unmoored. Grief. Loneliness. Uncertainty. Frustration. Anxiety. Maybe even relief. All of these feelings are valid. Some may try to dismiss these feelings—it’s only an app! It’s only social media. Who cares. Go live in the real world for a change.
I mean, yes, true. But also—this is the real world. The real world is big and messy and both offline and online. The way we experience ordinary life and connect with other people is multilayered and interconnected. It makes sense that when a tool used to connect people is suddenly unreliable or not as effective as it once as, that we feel a bit lost at sea.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter and fired thousands of employees and Twitter felt erratic and unpredictable, people joked that the people who remained were like the violinists on the deck of the Titanic. We were hanging on, refusing to quit making art and jokes, wondering if the ship would just sink along with us.
This comparison really does capture many people’s grief and mixed feelings over the changes there and I wouldn’t be surprised if people feel similarly about other platforms as well.
All of this matters because it is real life. And there are real life consequences to what is said and shared online. So “who cares?” I do, actually. And I think you do too.
I’ve been grappling with my own social media use and wondering where I should invest my time. I want to be intentional about it—both in my professional life and in my personal life. As well as staying grounded in the material reality of my family life, the natural world, and local friendships. We can have both.
What are you feeling about past or current major changes on whatever social media platform you’ve been using most? How do you feel about Substack Notes? Worth investing in or is it just more noise? Or if you’re not online as much as I am, I’d love to hear how you feel about that too.
Thanks for being here,
—NK
Going Deeper
For more reading on this topic, I highly recommend these pieces:
And this book, which I’ve recommended before: IRL: Finding Our Real Selves In A Digital World.
It had become addictive. It feels liberating to walk away. I’ve asked a friend to remind me to not go back.
You might like this https://open.substack.com/pub/lettersofnote/p/a-library-is-many-things?r=4t4i2&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post