Peak Twitter

You're on social media right here.

 

You and I both know SJ.com is the bastion of hope that rises above the fray into its own category. Perhaps "meritocratic media" would be more apt.

 

I'm curious. Was my grandmother's telephone party line social media?

 

Regarding young people and social media, limiting it to Facebook/Twitter is missing the point entirely. Instagram is more popular than either. WhatsApp too. (Facebook bought both, which is an integral part of why it's beating Twitter.) And Snapchat. College students are moving toward Yik Yak and Kik, which I've personally never seen. There are probably a few others that none of us have ever heard of.

My teenage boys use social media almost exclusively through the chat and messaging functions in Steam, the video-game platform.

Facebook has built an audience of older people, yes -- but we spend money too, and the ads are targeted incredibly well. Twitter doesn't seem to have a sweet spot or a base.

 

I don't know how any of these outfits make money, except by using what little personal info we might provide. And if many people are like me, they lie their asses off on that part.

I never see ads on social media, so it can't be that path.

 

Are you on Facebook? What you put in your profile says shit. Where you click tells them everything. You provide them more personal info than you give your bank.

It's fucking frightening how quickly and narrowly they can show me ads of things I am actually interested in.

 

Much like surveys I answer, the bulk of information I provide is bunk.

Wait.... that sounds like my MO here.

Also -- I don't see any ads on Facebook. Am I missing something?

 

Good point.

But what I'm saying is the information you "provide" is immaterial. I can make my profile say I'm an 80-year-old black grandmother in Tennessee who never leaves the house. And my Facebook ad feed is still going to feature hotels in coastal California, youth baseball, and restaurant discounts. The only way to beat that is to consciously spend time clicking links that you have no interest in, just to throw off the algorithm.

 

I just went and looked at my Facebook feed again, and I see no ads. I don't remember ever seeing ads. Wonder if I somehow turned them off long ago and forgot about that.

 

From what I've read Facebook has seen increases in total users ever year. I don't know whether or not it's as popular with American young people as it once was or is less popular. But since they've bought Instagram, it's safe to say they own the most popular social media platform used by young people.

I like Twitter better because it's less cluttered. I literally use three pages on a daily basis: the main timeline/newsfeed with tweets, my notifications panel and my private messages. Literally a few moves of the thumb/mouse. It seemed like on Facebook I'd have to click on 20 pages everytime time I was there to see what I wanted. Had to click to read full posts, had to go to individual news pages (because posts got buried faster under junk). Also I've encountered far less spam or shares of stupid stuff on Twitter.

I hate Facebook for a number or reasons. They irked me years ago with the decreasing privacy options and moving from a wall to a timeline theme. Toward the later end of my use of the platform, the game requests went through the roof. Finally after the election of 2012 and more family friending me, I decided life would be simpler to dump my profile. I did in early 2013 and have not missed it at all in the past three years. Unfortunately I still have to visit a few times a month to post things to my shop's page.

 

What is the sound of one hand patting?

 

Look at the Facebook prediction, though.