It took me less time to install this blogging software — no "five-minute install," either — than it did for me to decide what I'd use it for. What do I write, these days? Code. (Lots and lots of code.) Handwritten notes about code. E-mails and texts to friends, full of snark and advice and too much truth to be exposed. Not blog posts.
And what will I write about? I rarely travel anymore. There are no fat little feet in my household to document. I drink my coffee black, so there are no latte hearts to capture. I prepare a limited repertoire of gluten-free, mostly dairy-free meals, so I would make a terrible food blogger.
I'm finding it really difficult to understand the folks who don't see the difference between A/B testing or optimization and Facebook running a full-blown psychology experiment. No reasonable person should expect the site to be a neutral content-delivery service; I think most of us expect certain content to be weighted higher to encourage interaction / clicks / revenue for and from advertisers. To sell us something. (After all, if you're not paying, you're the product.) What I don't think any of us expected an attempt to make us feel bad, just to see if they could.
I am kind of surprised they did that by merely filtering statuses by tone instead of, say, showing a bunch of wedding- and engagement-related updates to folks who have listed themselves as single for an extended period of time.
It's pretty much a mix of Shares From Your Aunt, people who #hashtag #everything, and that clique from high school who all still hang out together.
I was at a mixer a few days ago after a long day and found someone I knew standing in a circle with others, all holding beer, not really talking to each other. I squeezed in next to and said, "I'm going to stand here and not say anything, but look like I'm halfway social." That's what Facebook feels like to me these days — I feel like I've had all the exhausting parts of being social, with none of the restorative, and I don't really say much.
Then I get used to not saying much.
Then I waste the better part of a day wondering why I even bothered to set up a blog.