Curating
Facebook vs Insta
Facebook launched in 2004. I was not an early adopter. I created my profile four years later, which also was the year Barack Obama was elected President, and I took over as president of the local Democratic women’s group. My Facebook page was pretty much all politics, all the time. Liberal politics. Democratic politics. I felt like I’d found my tribe.
Instagram launched in 2010. I was also not an early adopter, hopping on board six years later. I think. I may have joined the Insta community earlier, but my account was hacked in 2016 while I was recovering from hip replacement surgery. The earliest photo I can find is from February of that year. My Instagram posts were photos of flowers and food, mostly, and I followed photographers and artists, along with friends and family. No politics allowed.
I’ve pretty much stuck with those content parameters, but there’s been some politics-creep onto Insta and some art-creep onto Facebook. The current times being what they are, and my current headspace being what it is, I’m beginning to curate both platforms.
I bet you can’t guess what direction I’m heading toward.
[The predictive text for ‘toward’ is nearly always ‘towards.’ I should probably consult Benjamin Dreyer’s excellent book, Dreyer’s English, but I’ve always preferred ‘toward,’ and that’s what I’m going to use from here, henceforth, forever.]
Each of the two platforms make it easy to zap a post you don’t want to see. On Instagram, just click on the three little dots in the upper right corner and choose an option from the drop-down menu. The choices are different for accounts you already follow and those you don’t.
Facebook offers an instant zap with a little X in the upper right corner. Next to it is the three-dot drop-down menu if you want to dig a little deeper. Both platforms let you know if the post is sponsored or suggested.
Neither is much fun any more. When Instagram was all-photos-all-the-time, I can remember being inspired by your lunch plate or your shoes or your cloudscapes. Now I’m urged to click to join, click to try, click to LEARN MORE. Each click leads to an ask for money, eventually.
Facebook is nothing like it used to be. It was such an easy way to reconnect with high-school and college friends, and to then keep up with their lives, something that just didn’t happen in the five years between reunions. Now it’s ad after ad after suggested for you after ad.
To make my morning social media time friendlier, I’ve been slowly unfollowing and unfriending the people and companies that want me to know the worst. On Facebook, if I haven’t met you in person, I unfriend you on your birthday. Harsh, I know, but a fairly innocuous way to cull the list. Most of my never-met-you-in-person ‘friends’ were collected during political campaigns, and since political posts definitely want me to know the worst, my boundary-setting is legit for me.
On Insta, I hide or report ads that don’t interest me, or I scroll on by if I don’t have time to make my opinions known to the algorithm gods.
My goal is to see posts on both platforms from artists, writers, musicians, makers, crafters, foodies – creatives of all kinds. I use my laptop for social media and brain games only in the morning. (I use it for freelance work and volunteer projects as needed.)
I check my email, and then read news from the Associated Press website. I check Insta, then FB, then exercise my brain a bit. As I continue to cut back the friend list and the incessant and annoying ads, I’m finding my morning routine to be … lighter. Sweeter. Much more positive.
Maybe someday I’ll ditch social media altogether. Maybe someday I’ll write actual letters to send in the actual mail. That’s all aspirational at this point. I live alone and can do whatever I want with my time.
At 75, I want my time to be as pleasant as possible. Which should probably be a goal at any age.
🙏🏻