Why I Left Facebook and Twitter

FACE-OFF!

Like many artists, I also joined the social media circle via Facebook and Twitter.  But I have now left both behind and don't really intend to go back.  If I ever do, it will be to connect with friends I actually do know personally and family.  Why?  Because I've had enough of the "buzz."  Have you heard it too?  It's not something you can actually "hear" in an audible sense, but feel.  It's overload.  I started out with social media via Twitter.  But before long, watching that stream go by just got to me.  I couldn't keep up with it and frankly, I didn't care to.

"Follow Friday" on Twitter became a great excuse not to even login on Fridays.  SPAM is what it really was.  In my opinion, it is nothing more than people helping others to SPAM their followers, etc.  Does #FF still exist on Twitter?  I don't know and I don't care.  Eventually my dislike of using Twitter on Fridays spread to other days as well.  It all just became a monotonous stream of words, or "shorthand' squeezed into 140 characters.  For me it felt like drivel.

Now the same thing has happened with Facebook.  I stayed with FB longer because of its format.  But it too began to "buzz" in my mind.  I liken each of these platforms to a "visual cacophony" of text.  At least with Facebook, I didn't have to go off site to see pictures.    When you start following many people on any of these platforms, things are going to get BUSY!    If  you are on Facebook, how many pages have you "liked"?  How many "friends" do you have?  It all can become quite monotonous in a very short period of time.

After mentioning this to a friend, she suggested using some apps to weed out the crowd....to "quiet" things down.  On the surface, that might make sense.  But after thinking about it, I wondered how many others were doing the same thing. 

BUT IT'S THE PLACE TO BE!  Is it?  Because so many people are on it, this is the argument that is often made.  Is this true?  Is it really where I want to represent my work?   I remember a gallery owner asking me once if it would be OK to place one of my paintings on the sidewalk in front of the gallery.  I balked at the idea on the grounds of it being too busy and noisy.  I was assured that the gallery would have paid for any damages.  But, for me, that wasn't the issue.  UNDIVIDED attention for my work was.  That's what I was paying for after all. At this point, almost every ad I see on TV ends with a "Like us" or "Find us" on Facebook slogan.  If everyone and everything is there, then this is the EXACT reason why I don't want to be!!   Have you ever heard of the term, "white noise"?   To me, this is what Facebook is becoming.  As far as I'm concerned, it has "jumped the shark."  It finally hit me that it had the day I saw a funeral home with a "fan page."  That was it.  Enough said.

Somewhere around August 10 I posted a  message on my wall stating that I would be leaving Facebook on September 1.  Though I did stop posting, I didn't stop watching.  I watched several of my friends to see if my suspicions were true.  Facebook and social media are addictive, or can be.  Several of those I watched had been on the site either through a computer or phone all day long.  I watched their "likes" and comments. It goes without saying, the more pages you "like" on FB, the more groups you join (or are added to)  the more cluttered your news feed will be.  This simply is not the place I want to show my work.  I don't care who says what about it....it simply isn't!   

True or not, I found this stat to be interesting.  If true, it's quite a revelation.  Whether only 1 out of 10 people actually saw my post on FB doesn't really matter to me.  I just don't see it as the "be all and end all" that everyone else seems to. Based on my own use, I didn't really care to click on links that went "off-site."  If a posted link went to a blog post, I usually wouldn't bother to read it. Instead, I'd head right back to Facebook to see what others were sharing.  How dare they post a link to an article that actually had multiple paragraphs in  it?!  Ahh...twitter brain lives on...  ENOUGH!

For those who use social media (networking) and "like" it, that's fine...and I'm not telling anyone to leave it or stop using it.  Nor am I saying that it doesn't have its useful purpose or place.  What I am saying is that after three years of using it myself, I have determined that it doesn't work for yours truly... and I haven't even gone into the "unethical" side of it....

There are other reasons for leaving.  The way Facebook handles its updates is atrocious in my opinion.   Foisting these things upon people as they do is ridiculous.   Sure, I met some wonderful artists and saw some great work while there and I will miss that side of it. But the time I spent removing myself from groups I didn't want to be in, or untagging myself from photos I wasn't actually in ( a TOS violation, by the way) or readjusting/rechecking my privacy settings, etc., just made it more of a headache than a help. 

I don't care how "small" my audience will be as a result of leaving.  Then again, maybe I do...as my hope is that it's a loyal one that I can relate and respond to in a more personal way.  And.....really....isn't that what being an artist is about?