This process of refining my Facebook feed has been interesting… and I am not done with it yet.

Slowly I am putting people into groups of demographic.  (Sorry kids, I don’t like labels either but now you each get your own space in a category.)

By clicking on my Friends Lists under the Heading “Explore”, I can see a grouping of posts from people that I have separated.  Which means if I don’t want to see stuff about my home town, music, or babies… I can effectively do that.  When I want to see what’s happening in the music community, I can click on that group and scroll, until the feed ends.

This experiment has been both awesome and gross.  One on hand I am taking control of my input and output and on the other hand I am silently judging and allocating realms for people, they don’t even realize they are now existing within.

Doing this has significantly cut down on my time scrolling my FB feed.  Now, if I am curious about something or someone, in particular, I go to the list I put them in.  I get the added benefit of seeing posts from people who are also existing in that category.  In relation to that and on a side note, the algorithms are putting similar posts in alignment.  This is when I see two strangers talk about the same thing, even though they are unaware of one another.  I like it for research purposes and find it creepy as fuck on another level.

I have to face the fact that I will be invisible to people I care about, who I thought cared about me due to the “unfollow.”

The “unfollow” means that two people are responsible for their interactions.  If they stop interacting online, eventually the dialog will dry up.  Who knows if you still call each other, send letters and talk, if you don’t do those things, expect that relationship to take a hit in the cyber realm.

I’m not sure yet if the menial contribution I have after this point, will be useful.  I’ve basically told you how to take baby steps in completely disconnecting from the most major social media site on the planet.

I haven’t missed the mindless scrolling, but I miss the late night banter on a controversial posts.  I suppose that says a lot about me, and the types of things I like to engage with.

Regardless, I want to feel confident and happy with my online social experience as well as being real with myself about how I do not want social media to dominate my social existence.

I will continue to post updates as I notice, notable things.  Such as the featured image on this post which begs the question of how badly I want to be involved in one of the largest data collection experiments in human history.   That isn’t as easy to answer as I do appreciate the platform for reference in the world.

See, even if I am isolated, I know what is going on around me because of this platform and it allows me to do something that I enjoy doing, which is to assist others with requests or needs.  I imagine that pretty soon everything will be powered by auto-bots virtual assistance (this is a growing trend and being marketed to individuals who don’t have the time to man a busy page all day, and have no trust for a human Admin.)  The program will scan for questions and deliver answers more quickly than waiting on a human to share their input.

There is a need to sincerely look at this from a higher perspective and not just the selfish nature of desire.

Until then, may you interact with social media with balance and responsibility.