the silent terror of social media

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Harlequin

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For me, social media is a little bit like the ocean: my fear of drowning + sharks is constantly at war with the sensory delight it provides.

The sheer quantity of people is what can drown you; the polarisation and viral nature of posts is what can bite. (The sensory delights come in the form of nice animal pictures.) There's a lot of good stuff on social media, but so often in recent weeks I've seen a few people I know (only casually, but still) put a foot wrong, or express something poorly, and even when those in the wrong attempt to back track or apologise, it's usually not enough.

My observation is that the majority of people seem to have very little interest in bridge building or peace-keeping, and at times give the impression that they enjoy a good mobhunt. Hence not being interested in apologies. I mean this as a general trend, rather than social media specifically, but I do think social media amplifies it. The online world is waiting for you, me, anyone, to make a mistake, to be today's viral object of pillory. I guess that sounds dramatic, but it really does give me anxiety. Especially when I see it happen in real time.

I have endless admiration for writers who are able to walk a continuous tight rope of entertaining + honest without committing social media faux pas. Still, even for adroit people, mistakes are bound to be made, and certainly in my case I'm definitely not adroit. Clumsy would be a better description. I feel like it's just a matter of time before I say the wrong thing to the wrong person, like there's a giant ticking time bomb sitting on top of my head and I can't read the numbers. It could happen today, tomorrow, ten years from now.

If you use social media to promote yourself as a writer, does the viral, take-no-prisoners aspect of social media concern you? How do you manage those aspects and concerns or do you just not worry about it at all?
 
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Elle.

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Personally I just make a conscious choice to stay away for debate with strangers and trolls and get sucked into one of those blackholes. I think when you are a known writer you will attract the kind of people who likes to tear apart what you say just because you have some recognition but that's not me. I do have the same admiration for writers would can walk that tight rope.

If you haven't read it I would suggest Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shame, which is a really interesting book about the mob aspect of social media and the long standing tradition of public shaming.
 

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Promotions use particular platforms in particular ways rather than just casting off and seeing where the current takes you. I think it makes sense to choose one place as a "home base" and start there. You can, for example, begin with an account that is not open to public view, or one with limited interaction. Like a blog or newsletter, and then use other platforms more to point to your "home" method.
 

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Continuing the ocean metaphor :e2steer:, I tried the social media rhyming with "space crook," which created a tsunami of unwanted "friends" all of whom came with schools of even less wanted fishy friends. The tide swelled to the point I cancelled my devastated personal e-mail, fled inland, and created another personal e-mail address I'll be more careful with. I'll never go near those evil waters again. :dire::chair
 

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I don't worry much about it, but I don't attract a lot of attention on social media. I think the vast majority of us don't - but I also don't think it's always "notable" people who end up going viral in a bad way.

I'll get into arguments sometimes on Facebook, but that's with friends. I'll do it here as well, but that's also with friends. :) On Twitter - where I think this stuff is the worst - I may rant a bit, but I don't generally engage in ongoing, contentious debate. I'm also very aggressive with the block button.

Having said that, I don't consider social media a particularly effective promotional tool, so I'd say it if worries you, there's no reason you need to keep it up.
 

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QFT to every words of both posts. Lots and lots of anxiety. After burning down my FB and multiple Twitter accounts, I've decided AW is about all the social media as I can handle (and even then...)

But there are certainly people with the adroitness & maturity to handle Twittersphere and the like, I am not one of them but they are real. I do miss be able to comment on attractive dogs and follow the further adventures of Dr. Tingle, otherwise I don't need the stress till I'm a real writer.
 

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But it's not even arguments, that's what really fills me with terror. I have enough self preservation to stay away from anything overly controversial; I'm trigger happy with mute and not afraid to use block chain :tongue It's when you get tripped up by seemingly normal conversations; this is the true, unseen shark.

I recently saw a literary agent post something (positive!) about DVPit, and all hell broke loose because they'd apparently phrased it wrong. And this is someone who is used to sailing the social media waters for many years. Elder Gods help an idiot like me if I'm ever (un?)fortunate enough to have a following of any note. I'll be stepping on so many toes it'll be unreal. Jesus Cthulhu, just thinking about it gives me the heebiejeebies.

I'm going to sound like an obsessive nutter, now, but it honestly gives me flashbacks to certain members of my family, who were the kind of people who literally were waiting to jump on you for any wrong word, and by extension had an emotional need for gratuitous apologising. Explanations or discussions not allowed. A kind of weird, bizarre power play. Maybe that's not how people on social media intend to come across, but the similarities seem uncomfortably close to me. But now I'm digressing.


Maybe I should move to Instagram. Pictures of random objects must be safer, right? Right?
 

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It's an incredibly distressing dynamic. It's only been getting worse, some of it is inherent to the design of the systems themselves (i.e., outrage sells ads, keeps you looking at the feed longer), and the rest of it is just the worst part of human nature.

I think it calls for care, for sure. I'm not a big believer that all writers should be on Twitter or the like, partly for this reason. Too many aren't likely to use it well, be it spamming, fighting, or just bad luck. Increasingly, I'm seeing the opposite trend: writers and other intelligent, creative people fleeing social media in droves. It's the old axiom, one bad apple ruins it for everyone. Social media was a great tool for hitherto unseen access to public figures. Ironically, that access stood to benefit marginalized communities and people who might not be so great at more exclusive, more meatspace networking. But because we as a species can't behave in a group without destroying more or less everything around us, the atmosphere slowly becomes more and more toxic.

There's a point or two to be made about moderation, but really, on the scale that social media operates, it's almost impossible. It's also easy to point fingers and say "they did it!" where [they] is the outgroup/ingroup/tribe/frenemy/whatever, but even that doesn't really matter. It comes from all sides.
 

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I recently saw a literary agent post something (positive!) about DVPit, and all hell broke loose because they'd apparently phrased it wrong. And this is someone who is used to sailing the social media waters for many years. Elder Gods help an idiot like me if I'm ever (un?)fortunate enough to have a following of any note. I'll be stepping on so many toes it'll be unreal. Jesus Cthulhu, just thinking about it gives me the heebiejeebies.

Yeah, as someone who grew up with that too, it can be rather unpleasant.

Maybe I should move to Instagram. Pictures of random objects must be safer, right? Right?

Heh. You should see the DM's my girlfriend gets. Best one: "WHY DO YOU HATE MEN!?"
 

Harlequin

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ironically, this thread actually makes me feel much better.

Forums are generally safer. I think mods disallowing issues to carry over, encourages axes to be buried sooner. The lack of character limits means people have a better shot at choosing the right words, or using enough words.

@VBB - yes, I am starting to wonder if it's worth the time. I must have half of YA twitter on block or mute by now, purely for my own sanity (the constant fighting makes me feel ill). But longterm, that can't be helpful for networking, and is bound to bite me on the arse eventually.

@KJ... wait, Instagram has DMs? I mean, I have an account and didn't even know that :p Or is that Twitter? Idk.

Fb is very stifling, Twitter is a pit of blood and teeth, Instagram is annoying and counterintuitive. Pinterest is mostly harmless but not very interactive.
 

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Social media is definitely stressful. I've seen bad stuff happen to people when they say the wrong thing. You really have to be careful what you say everywhere online. I've seen threads here even that went bad and that scares me. I stay far away from threads like that. And stuff on Twitter that might cause controversy, the same thing.

It is a tight rope to walk on for sure. That's why it's so important to take breaks and not hang on it too long. Too much of anything isn't a good thing.

Sometimes you gotta go old school and shut it all down.
 

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Increasingly, I'm seeing the opposite trend: writers and other intelligent, creative people fleeing social media in droves.

I've always been annoyed by FB. At its best, it allows family and friends to share photos. I love seeing photos of friends on vacation and my nephew's kids, etc. I like funny memes. At it's worst, FB is absolute junk. Garbage. It's one more thing to maintain in an already busy life. I regularly weed out my friends list, and I've muted half of the ones that remain. Sorry, I'm not interested in your politics or your recipes. Then there's the guilt for not liking or sharing every post by fellow authors and non-profits I follow. Grrrrr...

After joining Twitter recently, for purely promotional reasons, my annoyance with social media has increased dramatically. The psychology of getting likes and wanting likes and thinking about whip-smart things to post to get more likes....god, we're a needy species, aren't we? Anyway, like Big Beard, I've noted that my favorite authors engage only sporadically, and often only to promote their own work. They get in, they get out. That might be the key to keep one's self from drowning.

I've put a 15 minute time limit on my phone for social media, and I feel so much better.
 

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I'm relieved you brought this up. I've been worrying about this, myself, wondering whether to make a thread; now, I don't have to!

I'm not only worried about being verbally chastised on social media. I'll just say that, with the recent news of that journalist who was killed (and how they used a Twitter employee's access to their enemies social media accounts to keep track of their movements), I'm afraid of stuff like that.

So, it's frustrating to read that some agents are saying that publishers expect authors to have social media accounts, in order to help promote their books and gain followers when there's a downside to trying to become famous or popular.
 
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ElaineA

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The psychology of getting likes and wanting likes and thinking about whip-smart things to post to get more likes....god, we're a needy species, aren't we?

We certainly are when we're being targeted to *feel* needy, and SM companies are absolutely designed to do that. Humans are social animals, and social media targets the amygdala perfectly.

When I first joined Twitter it was a new (to me) and fun way to engage in a unique way of writing. To express something interesting in 140 characters or less was a real skill. I couldn’t do it, but I was inspired by people who were smart/funny/fascinating in so few words. Then there was the social aspect of finding people I liked in the wild. People from AW, people I beta read for, and who read for me. Back then, to show appreciation for a tweet you clicked the gold star, which I thought perfectly expressed how most people reacted to things on Twitter. It didn’t strike me as a hard-core-cliques place when I first joined.

But I’ll tell you what, I noticed the change almost immediately when they switched to the heart. There’s something—again, psychological—about that heart. It’s much more of an emotional connection than a gold star, and the cliquish nature of Twitter seemed to really take off when they made that change and purposely made Twitter more like FB.

I try to understand the psychology of what’s going on there as a method of avoiding the worst excesses. Control Twitter, don’t let it control me. Which means IDGAF about how many people follow me, I *do* GAF about who I follow, not clicking follow-back just because. It takes actively disengaging the amygdala, I think, but it’s a fight every time one opens the app.

So, it's frustrating to read that some agents are saying that publishers expect authors to have social media accounts, in order to help promote their books and gain followers when there's a downside to trying to become famous or popular.
For fiction writers, this is not true. For non-fiction, platform is everything, so social media following matters. But I have seen far more agents say it’s not at all necessary for fiction. I think Jessica Faust says as much in the thread she’s participating in the Ask the Agent forum.

Write a book people want to read. Let the people who love the book talk it up. Reader word-of-mouth sells way more books than any marketing a writer can do.
 

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Seems like most of the people who've got in trouble on Twitter did so because they were extremely rude, racist, or they had a history of posting sexist, racist stuff in their past that was dug up.

And you have to be a target, nobody is going to target me because I'm a nobody. I don't have to worry until I'm famous. I've got some Facebook posts from back when I was a teenager that I'm not proud of. Also the webcomic I do has some sexist stuff in it that I'm sure some people will find offensive, it's a comedy.

I'm probably going to have to go with a pen name. It means I'll have to build up my social presence from scratch, but it will be clean.

I'm thinking of using YouTube.
 
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Harlequin

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Social media is definitely stressful. I've seen bad stuff happen to people when they say the wrong thing. You really have to be careful what you say everywhere online. I've seen threads here even that went bad and that scares me. I stay far away from threads like that. And stuff on Twitter that might cause controversy, the same thing.

It is a tight rope to walk on for sure. That's why it's so important to take breaks and not hang on it too long. Too much of anything isn't a good thing.

Sometimes you gotta go old school and shut it all down.

After joining Twitter recently, for purely promotional reasons, my annoyance with social media has increased dramatically. The psychology of getting likes and wanting likes and thinking about whip-smart things to post to get more likes....god, we're a needy species, aren't we? Anyway, like Big Beard, I've noted that my favorite authors engage only sporadically, and often only to promote their own work. They get in, they get out. That might be the key to keep one's self from drowning.

I've put a 15 minute time limit on my phone for social media, and I feel so much better.

Completely agree. But that's the beastly part: being controversial and edgy is what attracts followers, garners retweets, the usual. Twitter thrives on drama and outrage. (FB doesn't seem to thrive at all, and I definitely prefer it as a "personal" connections thing.) If you're dull, you're a dead duck.



I'm relieved you brought this up. I've been worrying about this, myself, wondering whether to make a thread; now, I don't have to!

I'm not only worried about being verbally chastised on social media. I'll just say that, with the recent news of that journalist who was killed (and how they used a Twitter employee's access to their enemies social media accounts to keep track of their movements), I'm afraid of stuff like that.

So, it's frustrating to read that some agents are saying that publishers expect authors to have social media accounts, in order to help promote their books and gain followers when there's a downside to trying to become famous or popular.


For fiction writers, this is not true. For non-fiction, platform is everything, so social media following matters. But I have seen far more agents say it’s not at all necessary for fiction. I think Jessica Faust says as much in the thread she’s participating in the Ask the Agent forum.

Write a book people want to read. Let the people who love the book talk it up. Reader word-of-mouth sells way more books than any marketing a writer can do.

I suppose if/when you get big, you can have the sort of account where you basically only say something intermittently, or only stick to your areas of expertise. I think a couple authors I follow basically do that. But yeah, I completely agree that newbie writers worry far too much over follower size.


Seems like most of the people who've got in trouble on Twitter did so because they were extremely rude, racist, or they had a history of posting sexist, racist stuff in their past that was dug up.

And you have to be a target, nobody is going to target me because I'm a nobody. I don't have to worry until I'm famous. I've got some Facebook posts from back when I was a teenager that I'm not proud of. Also the webcomic I do has some sexist stuff in it that I'm sure some people will find offensive.

I'm probably going to have to go with a pen name. It means I'll have to build up my social presence from scratch, but it will be clean.

I'm thinking of using YouTube.

I suppose that depends what you mean by target. I've once (thankfully JUST the once) had ten people jump on me for a misunderstanding. That's by no means a big mob, but it was more than enough to stress me out for the entire evening.
 

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Seems like most of the people who've got in trouble on Twitter did so because they were extremely rude, racist, or they had a history of posting sexist, racist stuff in their past that was dug up.

I think that's not true. Many who are targeted are targeted by those who are racist, misogynistic, etc. The victims themselves are often simply targets who dare to say things racist/sexist asshats disagree with.
 

VeryBigBeard

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After joining Twitter recently, for purely promotional reasons, my annoyance with social media has increased dramatically. The psychology of getting likes and wanting likes and thinking about whip-smart things to post to get more likes....god, we're a needy species, aren't we? Anyway, like Big Beard, I've noted that my favorite authors engage only sporadically, and often only to promote their own work. They get in, they get out. That might be the key to keep one's self from drowning.

I've put a 15 minute time limit on my phone for social media, and I feel so much better.

To a point, this works, and the 15-minute thing is a really smart tool, but it won't prevent a major pile-on. The phrase "ratio'd" applies--this refers to when the number of replies dwarfs the number of likes on Twitter. It tends to happen when you say something that goes viral for the wrong reasons. Or maybe you wrote a book someone with a big following decided to make a point with. At which point your notifications blow up, people who know you start asking what's going on, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

It didn’t strike me as a hard-core-cliques place when I first joined.

But I’ll tell you what, I noticed the change almost immediately when they switched to the heart. There’s something—again, psychological—about that heart. It’s much more of an emotional connection than a gold star, and the cliquish nature of Twitter seemed to really take off when they made that change and purposely made Twitter more like FB.

Twitter wasn't always clique-y. It still isn't, in certain very niche parts of it. It used to be entertainingly weird, almost like old sci-fi communities. As it grew, the cliques formed. Of all the social networks, I think Twitter is the one least in control of its own development. It was never expected to get as big as it has, its core design is built on an ideal of complete open access which actively undercuts any attempt to control it, and its business model has always been, even among social networks, wobbly. It's why Twitter has such a time of it with moderation and free speech. It's not entirely Jack Dorsey's fault; it's that the platform's key appeal is the very thing that makes it intolerable the more you use it. Try running any business on that dichotomy.

The hearts/likes thing exacerbates this, but it's not the root cause. Twitter was a cesspool before that change, and srill would be if it switched back. A lot of social networks make these kinds of superficial changes and they can have an effect but they aren't going to rewrite the fundamental design of the things. Often they just distract from it. I miss stars because a like/favourite used to be more like a bookmark, and now it is more of an endorsement. But it was always kind of an endorsement, too.

I try to understand the psychology of what’s going on there as a method of avoiding the worst excesses. Control Twitter, don’t let it control me. Which means IDGAF about how many people follow me, I *do* GAF about who I follow, not clicking follow-back just because. It takes actively disengaging the amygdala, I think, but it’s a fight every time one opens the app.

Admirable as this is, you can't actually turn off your amygdala, and social media designers know this. I design games and it is painfully easy to get someone addicted to a basic reward system.

Being selective about who you follow is also smart. It tends to be what most of the more successful/public accounts do--you follow only a handful of accounts, maybe 150 max, about equal to the average number of people a person can actually know properly. Then you tweet like a blog. Followers will come and followers will go. You do it because you like what you tweet.

This doesn't avoid the above problem, though, where you tweet or write something that someone else comes across and decides to blow up.

Seems like most of the people who've got in trouble on Twitter did so because they were extremely rude, racist, or they had a history of posting sexist, racist stuff in their past that was dug up.

And you have to be a target, nobody is going to target me because I'm a nobody. I don't have to worry until I'm famous. I've got some Facebook posts from back when I was a teenager that I'm not proud of. Also the webcomic I do has some sexist stuff in it that I'm sure some people will find offensive, it's a comedy.

I'm probably going to have to go with a pen name. It means I'll have to build up my social presence from scratch, but it will be clean.

I'm thinking of using YouTube.

Everyone's a target. All the time. That's how this works. All you have to do is have someone willing to spend an hour digging into the past to find something they can pull out of context, and motivation for that can be as simple as a breakup, a desire to show off, or just because trolling is fun and get you likes.

This happens in every sub-group. So yes, people who probably deserve some shame get shamed. But then someone who just phrased something badly gets shamed. And then someone whose post was taken wildly out of context gets shamed (e.g., comedy, which relies on context). And then someone who hasn't done anything at all gets shamed, just because someone wanted to, or because someone wanted to increase their standing within a group they knew would reward them with likes and retweets for doing it. The target really doesn't matter.

Because so much discussion of this dynamic still occurs in private whispers--DMs, emails, group chats--it's extremely easy to let certain implications remain unsaid, which leads to more misinterpretation, which of course makes the whole situation worse. It means we always think of the targets of this behaviour as Someone Else, that it couldn't possibly be us. As writers, our sub-group is likely to be liberalish, intellectualish, broadly well-read, and for lack of a better term, polite. It's very easy to categorize the bad behaviour as belonging to some other sub-group, even when the same behaviour--sometimes with different style--operates within the group, rewarding members of the group. We're more likely to see the call-outs over a turn of phrase, "cancellation", de-platforming, etc. and yet we're less likely to actually criticize these things because we've all got friends that do it on the regular, or we indulge in it ourselves.

Every group does it, even if the target change. It's inherent to the design. As soon as you introduce curation--be that a Twitter feed of people you follow or a Facebook friends list--you curate the bad behaviour you see.

The cynical part (if the above wasn't cynical enough) is that all of this benefits advertisers.

Except many of the advertisers are fleeing in droves because of the bad behaviour, and because it turns out social media viewership metrics are mostly works of fiction.
 

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Twitter is indeed a wreck, but 99% of us are ignored. The problem is, it's hard to predict who's going to end up in that 1%.

I've considered deleting Twitter more than once, but it's still the fastest place for me to get news. As author promo? I love every reader I have, but I've yet to see any evidence Twitter moves the sales needle to a statistically significant (never mind publisher-significant) degree. I'm sure it does in some cases, and one never knows where useful contacts will be made; but I do suspect dropping social media wouldn't make a massive difference to most authors.
 

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I have to say, I'd categorise Twitter writers are more, um, outspoken than demure, as these sliding scales go.

People who don't deserve it definitely get targeted. I can think of lots of examples.

One awhile back - Will Wheaton's wife, Anne. She made some off-hand comment which was of course interpreted wrong, and had people jumping all over her for her priviledge and so forth. She came out and explained in painstaking detail, which included an account of childhood sexual abuse, and an abusive adult relationship.

She shouldn't have had to explain. She shouldn't have had to appease the mob. Survivors don't owe anybody their story. But the algorithms love faux outrage, and public dissection of public figures, so it was probably a win all around for Twitter itself.


More personally, a provaccine scientist friend of mine has been doxxed several times by the antivax crowd on twitter. It's not nice at all and in the end, the police had to get involved for her own protection (and her children).


I can't see how this is sustainable in the longterm, the way social media is now.


EDIT: Re sales, the figure I've heard is to knock two zeros (at least) off your followers, and that's the max sales you'll get on a release day as a result of followers.
 
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Unless you enjoy Twitter, use it as a one-to-many broadcast.

* Announce publications, blog posts, appearances, etc.
* Keep a Private list of people you want to be able to engage with or be sure to see their Tweets.

You should absolutely own and control the Twitter (and Facebook) Username derived from the name on your books.

And always always always have a wall between Private you and Public Persona you.
 

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I can't see how this is sustainable in the longterm, the way social media is now.

Before social media, we had IRC (Internet Relay Chat). It's been around since the 1980s. Many left for social media sites. In the 90s, at its maximum popularity, we had over 100,000 users on a network I used most. There were 100s of networks, and each had their own share of users. Each had their advertisers, attackers, and people who loved getting into fights (just like Twitter). People brought out the blessed/spoiled/privileged rhetoric way too often. Throw enough crap and anybody, and something will stick (to the attackers). Thankfully, we had active staff that quashed public displays of this in IRC channels. You don't get that, real-time-quashing element on Twitter.

I'd imagine Twitter, FB, and the like, will die off like IRC did (in popularity), just like MySpace.... Who knows what the next variants will be called, but they will attract the masses. Many people live virtual lives and avoid social interactions in real life. Arguing online, behind anonymity, is how they socialize. Some people get deviant when anonymity is present. They blame the victimized party for their deviance.

I still use IRC. YouTube comment sections are my only other social media use today.... I'll use Twitter when I get my blog up, but only to add blurbs of posts I make to my blog (to, hopefully, draw more traffic to my blog, where I have more control of UX).
 

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lol, I met my husband on IRC. Good times.

I thought, initially, that social media might be a good place for autistic people. But seeing how much the women in my aspergers group worry and stress over miscommunication woes, and seeing how little interest most people on social media have in finding common ground or extending empathy, I have revised that opinion. It can still be good for those groups, but extreme caution is required.

AW, I hope you dont mind me asking--Do you change handles etc for new books?
 
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mewellsmfu

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I had social media accounts when I wrote professional nonfiction. But I closed every single one of those down, including my personal FB account. It was becoming less a way to keep up with friends and family and more a letterbox for wacko pseudoscience links from gullible friends who never bothered to check their sources. I finally realized it was all a time suck and shut that down, too. I stay in touch with those I want to stay in touch with and let the rest go. I have never looked back.

But yeah, I had to have a professional presence and sometimes I drew attention from some truly disturbed individuals. It stressed me out and I haven't missed it.

I'd never go back.
 

Fuchsia Groan

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I have two Twitter accounts, one for my job and one for writing, but I seldom post anymore. Harlequin, I hear you on the anxiety. At one point, it got out of control for me, which is why I scaled back. That was when my book was recently out and people would tag me with reviews, which was generally wonderful, but I did become disturbingly dependent on my feed and sensitive to any strife that happened on Twitter. (It did not help that my therapist is a person with zero social media experience, so I would try to explain the source of my anxieties and she would have no clue what I meant. :) )

I read my feed before I tweet (to test the waters, make sure I'm not promoting when something awful just happened, for instance) and read each tweet several times before I post it. I tweet very blandly. :)

We get lectures at work about not tweeting politically; it's more of a concern if you report hard news (I don't), but journalists in general tend to be careful about showing bias. On the other side, I follow some tweeting writers who express the belief that if you are not tweeting politically, you are part of the problem. I respect their position, and I often like their tweets, but I care about my job, and not just because I need a salary.

Instagram is the platform I prefer now, especially the Bookstagram community; I like posting pics of my current read. But I'm not very active and don't have a significant number of followers. FB I avoid except to message with friends who only want to use that platform.
 
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