What I’m doing with social media now

Greetings from a pleasant early August, at least in terms of weather. I’m back home in the Washington DC area and the heat wave has moved on. It’s still very warm (84 degrees F) and humid, but not so beastly as it was a couple of weeks ago.

I have a stack of analytical and even polemical posts in the pipeline, but today wanted to offer one of my irregular posts about my digital habits. The reason is that in one particular area things have become chaotic, and I thought I could:

1. pin down my practice at this moment in time, at least for my own records, but also as a documentary sample of social media use in August 2023
2. elicit feedback and suggestions
3. stir some conversation on the topic

The topic is social media, broadly construed. 2023 has pushed the technology and its user behavior into all kinds of directions, between Elon Musk’s demolition of Twitter (I still can’t write or say “X”), the boom and bust of a supposed Mastodon succession, the emergence of new platforms (Threads, Bluesky), and whatever is happening to Facebook as Meta gives up on its Metaverse. Not to mention the impact of generative AI.

For my own practice, I make decisions based on several factors, mostly balancing research interests and professional productivity.

Here’s what I’m doing now. Links if you’re like to connect:

Traditional social media