I kind of miss what I like to think were the best years of social media (or at least Facebook specifically): that period from maybe around 2010-2015 when there were enough people you knew from real life posting on social media sincerely. It felt like a time when it was easy to connect with your IRL friends online. As an introvert, I liked being able to see what my friends were up to without necessarily having to go out and meet up or talk to them about. And also being able to blast out my thoughts to see if any of my friends could relate or run surveys without any pressure to respond or just share my bad jokes and know there's people who would read it who understand my sort of humor.

That era also marked a period of low activity on this blog, as noted on my archive page.

This era of social media mostly ended around 2015-2016, I think mostly because this was the time propagandists and politicians and publishers and marketers started seriously trying to game Facebook's algorithmic feeds which led to a rise in people sharing clickbait headlines and divisive political opinions and even trying to become "content creators" or to go viral or whatever. My own Facebook activity peaked in 2016-2017, but that was largely due to being caught up in the election and politics.

Since then I've shifted my online presence mostly to this blog and Twitter and later Mastodon. The people I followed on Twitter and Mastodon were mostly strangers, so that meant I had a lot less online communication with people I knew from real life.

Tracy Durnell writes about how people you know from offline don't read your blog:

What I talk about in offline relationships varies person by person to focus on our mutual / aligned interests, whereas I talk about anything I am interested in online on my blog(s). That means my writing has a lot more noise versus signal for most offline relationships relative to our in person conversations.

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Our online writing voice doesn’t necessarily match the way we communicate with people in person either, so it might not even sound “like you” to offline friends and family.

She quotes from Tiramisú who wrote about hiding in plain sight:

Most of my close friends (and even my parents) know about my blog, but hardly any of them read it. That's the way I like it: if I knew all of them read my posts my freedom would certainly be stifled. But I'm quite content to keep hiding in plain sight here.

I like to imagine that the persona I present online (via this blog or via social media) is largely the same as how I am in person, so I don't feel like knowing that IRL friends read my blog would stifle me in any way. One time I was catching up with a friend I hadn't spoken to in a while and she said she heard about some recent troubles by reading about it on the blog, which is always a pleasant thing to find out. Sometimes your IRL friends can be an impetus for more blogging too... I originally wasn't planning to write about the GrabTaxi thing I wrote about yesterday but when I told some friends about this story one of them asked whether I would write about it so I did.

I don't think we're getting that era of social media connection back, because the platforms have largely pivoted more strongly towards the algorithm game in a deranged attempt to try to become Tiktok. Kate Lindsay talks about this a bit when she discusses how We're All Lurkers Now:

It’s somewhat ironic to see tech companies now coming to the realization that people on social media may want to talk to each other. That’s why social media started, after all. It’s just that the people in charge dropped the ball on those features in 2020 during their frantic (and failed) race to usurp TikTok. Apps began prioritizing algorithms and discovery and ways of increasing views that de-emphasized direct connection, putting us all in the same place while somehow tearing us further apart.

Lurking can be a good thing though. Bix says blessed are the lurkers:

In some ways, this time-honored practice of active lurking could be seen as part of the antidote to the ills of the modern social internet and its extractive nature. By lurking before speaking up, you can learn to recognize both the places and the people you want to be with and those you’d be better off simply avoiding.

These days most of my online connection with IRL friends now happens on the non-public internet, in group chats on Messenger, Viber, Discord, whatever. While I am active on the blog and on Mastodon, I don't necessarily expect friends from offline to be following me via those channels. And maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing. I do share a lot on this blog, and people might not necessarily be interested in all of that, and I can always just forward to them those parts that I think they might find interesting.

I find that my modern internet writing is more about putting things out there into the world without expectations and being pleasantly surprised when some people, even strangers find it and appreciate it. This is similar to how I wrote even before on Facebook. I think it's an introvert thing, because talking to people directly or in person feels like you might be bothering them or unnecessarily using up their time with something that might be important or interesting to you but not necessarily to them. Writing online is more about "Here are my thoughts, read them at your own pace and maybe even respond if you like. Or not, that's also fine."

Colin Walker writes about how blogging is a good way for introverts to connect with other people:

I'm profoundly introvert but that doesn't mean I don't want to talk to people – it's how that happens, how I can control the context around meeting people. Walking into a room full of strangers and being expected to talk to them scares the life out of me, but sharing very personal experiences on the web and interacting with others on the back of it (generally on a one-to-one basis) is something I enjoy greatly. I will often initiate a connection when it's via the written word but come up with just about any excuse not to do so in person.

Jake LaCaze also wrote a bit about introverts being online:

But the extroverted web doesn’t want you to slip away to recover and rejoin when you’re ready. The extroverted web says you’re missing out on the endless firehouse of content that will be outdated and irrelevant by the time you learn about it. You’re also missing out on exposure, as the most crucial part of the online growth formula seems to be consistency, meaning you must constantly churn out content so that your audience doesn’t forget you.

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The tech giants have built their platforms on our content. They've simply given us a place to connect, but we do the hard work of creating content that keeps eyeballs on the page or on the app. No wonder the tech giants love the extroverted model.

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But to have meaningful sustained discourse with introverts often requires pursuing them to some degree. Maybe this is how it should be online as well. Offline, we have the option to go to so many parties that we never attend. Maybe this is how it should be online too. We can try the parties every once in a while when we feel up to it, but the rest of the time you can find us at our websites and email addresses. Reaching us may take a little effort on your end, but hopefully it's worth it.

The online landscape is ever-changing. The old platforms feel like they're all starting to fall apart or fade away and we still don't know what will take their place. But I hope to still be writing and blogging for many years to come.