Social Media Audit
I primarily use three social media platforms: Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin. Lately, I’ve noticed that my social media usage has been negatively affecting my mood. Doomscrolling on social media elicits feelings of jealousy, envy, and despair. Not to mention the guaranteed brain fog I get afterwards. Thus, it’s worth taking some time to audit my social media.
Personally, Twitter is my favorite social media platform. I’ve made friends, learned about opportunities, and been exposed to many novel ideas via Twitter. I found it valuable when I was not just a consumer but when I was actively tweeting, replying, and DMing. I especially enjoyed it as an outlet to express my ideas.
Recently, I mostly been consuming. Part of it is because my main goal right now is landing a full time job after graduation and I saw Twitter as a distraction. In particular, every time I scrolled the Twitter app my feed would be full of Web3/NFT/Crypto related shit. While I’m interested in these things, I can’t help but feel anxiety and FOMO because I want to get in on the action.
Initially, I was adamant on temporarily uninstalling Twitter but instead I’ll experiment with being an active producer on the platform again. It’s probably also time to start purging the accounts I follow.
After years of friends asking me to get Instagram, last year, I finally created an account. I wrote a few of my initial impressions in a previous blog post. Most of those impressions are still relevant now. I find its main value in catching up with my friends. And I can get most of the value of the platform by checking it once a day for a few minutes.
One of my main goals this year is finding a full time job after graduation and Linkedin aligns with this goal. However, holy crap Linkedins feed sucks. It’s definitely the lowest signal of the social media platforms I use. Every time I think of Linkedin, Trung Phan’s piece, Why is Linkedin so cringe, comes to mind.
Occasionally, I may find a post mentioning a job opening that I’m interested in or a useful job search tip, but in general, it’s filled with useless crap. I’m better off uninstalling Linkedin off my phone.