I don't miss it.

As the US 2020 election rolled into its final weeks last year the level of garbage on Social Media had gone past sorry and launched right into all out insanity. Given the twitter and the facebook work hard to show you what they want you to see, sorry 'what they think you want to see' (Riiiiiight,) the only way to dial the insanity down was to pull the plugs. And so, I did. Both accounts deleted permanently. Gone.

The silence was, well, soothing. Mostly at least. No, I couldn't hide from all of it because it was everywhere. But using a chart indicating media bias I picked only a couple sites from which to get actual news, not opinion. Sites as high up the truth scale and in the center politically as possible. WOW, actual news stories! "This happened." "That occurred." Sure, they say why if it's there but no guessing on motive or foisting an opinion on me. And you know what else is missing? Unending INANE Comments! The sort of thing that just wastes bits and inflames hatred. And they are so hard to unsee when they are so many.

Some of you are saying that I should have not 'followed' those folks but there are two problems with that. First, most of them we that' suggestion' crap! Second, too often it was friends posting that shit. And each posting made me a little sad for them. Sure I commented now and then that they were wrong or over the top but when you know you can't change their mind why try? Doing so just adds fuel to the fire. As my friend Steve says: "Social media muscles are stronger than Beer muscles!" Further, with each post I could see the credibility of the U.S.A. taking another ding in the international community. Man we took a lotta dings in the last four years, a whole lotta dings!

An odd reminder of the inane comments was a driver in a pickup the other evening. Driving home in late twilight, in a valley with heavy trees on both sides a driver coming down the other side in a gray pickup has no lights on. It's just a shape in the shadows. I turned my lights off and back on. The driver turned theirs on and back off, and continued out of site with no lights. I call that the 'social media reaction.' The driver was absolutely unsafe, there could be no question about that. But because it was pointed out to them, their only reaction was 'Oppose!' No matter that if roles were reversed, they likely would have done the same to me, they just had to be 'right.' I do not miss that crap for a nanosecond.

But another thing happened, or rather it didn't. One of my very best friends commented to me about not seeing anything from me. I told him I was done with it. "Ah, good for you!" he said. A couple months later an international friend pinged me on LinkedIn. He was only the second person to notice AND care enough to say something in over 3 months. Not even my family, who would sit next to me at the table and comment about social media, had realized I was completely gone. They would say "Hey did you see the post from so and so?" "Nope, didn't see that" I would reply. They would say things like "So and so said xxx" I would respond: "mmmm" and in my head think "Didn't need to know that." It's sad that nobody noticed, and I had been gone for months!

So much for the 'social' part of social media. If you walk out of a room at least people usually realize it rather quickly: "Hey where did he go?" But SM is so loaded with crap and corruption that the goodness is drowned out by the tidal wave of hate. Worse, all of it is designed NOT to bring us together but to tear us apart. And the doubly sad part is during this pandemic that was SMs potential for upside.

I will not be back to 'social media,' sorry. Feel free to email me. Free to text me. Free to call me. Free to zoom call me. Or let's go have a good craft beer or glass of bourbon or even just coffee. That would be awesome!

Professionally I'm on LinkedIn and in the IBM Community pages. I remain active in the IBM i and POWER System Communities. But socia media is in my rear-view.

And let me close with this: On SM What I saw was vastly negative, and in so many ways. So I suppose it's to be expected that I never saw a single thing about Captain Sir Tom Moore. Sadly I found out about him only when he passed at age 100 this month. Look him up, he's a man I would have been proud to call a friend, a neighbor, or even a relative! One comment his daughter made after his death hit me particularly: "He was a big deal on social media but we handled that for him and we never told him any of the negative, that could have crushed him." Glad she did that, sad she had to. But Captain Sir Tom had a catch phrase I am adopting:

"Please always remember, Tomorrow will be a Good Day!"       -Captain Sir Tom Moore

- DrF