Social Media is dying

Morning Mugs

Today is Blue Monday it seems. Another 'made up' day to apparently let everyone know that it's the day when the early Xmas pay has dried up and there's a week to go before pay day. Blimey, my pay has usually gone about 2 days after pay day , after which everything seems a blue day. If I didn't know better, and was more cynical I'd wonder if Blue Monday was marketing tool for the Pay Day loan industry. Surely not......

Anyway, in 2004 I posted 202 entries here. In 2005 it fells to 165, but hey...still reasonably prolific. Then from 2010 onwards I've only hit double figures once.10 posts in 2017. So I ask myself what happened? 

It's pretty simple really. Social media. Most notably Facebook and Twitter. I've been a pretty huge advocate of both in recent years. I looked at Facebook as a huge room in which you and friends have access to and can use it to share moments, voice opinions and catch up. it was, and still is to a degree, a great way of keeping in touch, with the choice of how much touch being with the Facebook user. But over the years, it's been sullied by targeted adverts, although the person aiming the adverts is usually horrendously off beam. And then it became a way of getting gullible people to spread horrendous cod philosophy, fake news, bullshit political claims, hatred. It became a place where gullible people could spread malware and friends lists by sharing an 'Amen' message on completely untrue stories. It now resembles a junkyard where you have to sift through rubbish to find the odd status update of any interest. In the last year, I use it for crap jokes and sharing photo's or getting photo's, local events and wining people about hoaxes on bloody Facebook. It's lost its way. It's slowly but surely dying. 

I turned to Twitter some years ago out of interest. It seemed fun, a place to get news quickly, to find out much more interesting things because you could fill your timeline with things that interest you. I have around 2300 followers now, pretty much all due to a shared interest in Chelsea FC. I've also made some truly lovely friends as well. But just as there iOS the positive, there is a negative and there are some truly dreadful people out there. Those who want to snipe, to argue, to belittle, to abuse and to dismiss. It's a mosh pit of keyboard warriors and trolls. Negotiating Twitter is now like walking through a city, you love the good people but constantly have to be scanning for the bad and the ones who wish you harm. I'll keep on there but use that account less. 

I do have one now for the Guild though, and if you're interested in short bursts of joy, angst, frustration, disbelief, anger and interest then do follow me on @GrumpyBlokesUK. It's there to complement this not replace this. I made a resolution that once the festive stuff was finally behind us, I'd try and do a little post here, every couple of days, and to try and recapture the humour of the blog from days gone past. 

Let's do this. 

Later Mugs, GJ