2025/2/16 Sunday
Notes from my stream of consciousness writing #151
- My girlfriend noticed that on Instagram I saw her story but did not “like” it. Long ago, I’ve deleted Instagram and replaced it with DFinsta (DF stands for distraction-free) and I don’t see stories on my home screen. I only see stories among the people I’m messaging in the messenger page. I think checking who saw your story and who liked it is toxic. It’s exactly one of the things I hate about Instagram. I feel like, if you post something, you shouldn’t be able to know who saw it or who liked it, and you should only see comments. That’s the way YouTube works. You don’t see who liked it or who saw it, you only see comments. There’s so much more peace of mind because then it doesn’t matter who saw it or who “liked” it.
- Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work and other bestsellers, said not to waste time on interacting with posts from your friends. Don’t hit that like button. Instead, reach out to your close friends for a call or quality in-person time. In fact, better not to see any posts from your friends at all and just hear about it directly from them.
- My uncle said that social media is a useful tool for keeping in touch with tertiary friends. Friends that you’re not super close with but friends that you’re on good terms with and hardly see. You can see what they’ve been up to (although you can’t really tell how they’re doing because you have no idea what’s going on inside of a person regardless of outward happy appearances). My question is, is it even worth keeping “in touch” with tertiary friends? I haven’t done that and I’m just fine, meeting a few friends in person once in a while is all I’ve needed.