Strangers Responding

I posted requests on Reddit's r/long island and FB's Visit all 50 States.  My wife accepted an abbreviated vacation this summer, with more arduous travel vetoed for now.  We opted to visit Long Island, a three hour car trip.  I had been to various parts many times, though always purposeful.  Weddings, Bar Mitzvah's, Funerals.  Visiting my grandfather's siblings, including an outing onto Rockaway Beach.  Stony Brook as a likely place I might attend.  Tourism only occurred one time when my daughter, who then lived in Queens, suggested Father-Daughter Bonding for Father's Day.  She drove me the full length of the Island's North Shore, a very pleasant afternoon, though a lot of time in the car between my round-trip drive home and the east-west dimension of America's largest island.

This time we go as pure tourists.  No intention of visiting anyone, though I know people who live there.  While residents of Metro NY flock to their beaches, I have suitable beaches readily accessible in my home state.  This time we go to get away from home, seek out places unique to the geography and culture of where we visit.  Museums, history, mansions, unique sites, wineries.  Sources for destinations on The Island abound.  YouTube videos, I Love NY, a variety of agencies to promote local tourism, Trip Advisor.  I looked at all of these.  From them I could stake out the Gilded Mansions repurposed for public use, the distribution of vineyards, enclaves of the nouveau riches of today that might still let a peasant couple gawk from not too close, historical lighthouses, ferry access when an escape might be needed.  Like much data, it comes as a mostly unsorted jumble.  So I asked people who had familiarity on social media platforms, each trusted from prior use.

People responded very quickly, about a dozen each on FB and Reddit.  It made it more of an annotated list, places to give priority when time is limited.  In this era of social media trolls, the generosity and candor of those who responded did not surprise me.  As much as I ration FB, the assigned days to sign on usually bring me to the Visit 50 States site.  I live in an obscure state that people want to cross off their list and in a multistate area where travelers want to check off 4-6 states on their road trip.  If somebody asks what to do nearby, I guide them.  Often they will post with traveler information, where they originate, ages of kids, elderly people in car with them, pets.  I can adapt suggestions to that.  What might a grade schooler like to visit, maybe where kids go on our local school class trips?  Have they ever been on a subway.  Ever seen Amish or Hasidim who live in isolated enclaves?  My familiarity can be very helpful, something a generic YouTube or vlog cannot easily duplicate.  That insight I offered to posters' queries about where I live now and in the past was reciprocated to me that afternoon.  

Reddit, at least when used in my judicious way, has never displayed the toxicity of FB, nor the incessant insertion of advertising or news feeds chosen by an algorithm to make me irate enough to stay logged on.  I ration which days I access and mostly what I access.  People share my interest in Judaism and Jewish cooking.  Many have less experience than me, so I try to be as helpful as possible to people going to the synagogue for the first time or seeking resources to learn more about Judaism.  I have had inquiries about a potholes on the roadways and a library misadventure.  My questions got many informative responses from civil engineers and librarians, as did my request to enhance my few days on Long Island.

If there is a message from this experience, both as benevolent contributor and reciepient, social media need not be the electronic cesspool that users so often encounter, one dominated by trolls and conflict entrepreneurs.  There is business model that capitalizes on exploiting pushing people's buttons, one where some regulation would enhance public experience.  Most users, though, when give the chance, come to these platforms with a measure of good will.  We find people who seek information, reassurance,  guidance through a dilemma, or recovery from an untoward experience.  Strangers, whether with names on FB or avatars or Reddit, reach out when we can.  We want the other people to have good experiences when they visit our places, whether geographic or places of worship, or from the recipes that challenge them in their kitchens.  The users come through on this, creating the expanded communities where people benefit each other.  Nothing demeaning, nothing malicious.  

To get to these generous people, though, you sometimes have to wade through and set aside some of the odious posters, more on FB than Reddit.  Like many people, I read about the downsides of these platforms.  Anti-Semitism, neonazism shielded by anonymity, attacks of people's appearance at vulnerable times in their lives.  I experience very little of this, though enough to exit all platforms for six months, to ration my presence on my return, and to write off of few platforms as places to not enter.  But as a selective tool, people can connect to some very fine people ranging from HS friends who share lives in retirement, experts in various subjects, the people who root for the same teams as you, and people who you will never meet who serve as gracious advisors.  It's a challenge to stay selective and not get rattled by the people you'd rather avoid.  I haven't since my judidious return, and won't meet any of them either.

Not Been Back Yet

New Year's resolutions have never been my approach to personal upgrades.  Not January 1.  Not 1 Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, my Jewish New Year.  Yet this RH enabled a convenient demarcation point.  By tradition, really by Jewish Law, the electronic devices shut down for those Festival days.  I opted to extend my break from social media indefinitely.  Two months have elapsed.  Facebook gone.  Twitter rated X gone.  Reddit restricted to r/Judaism and r/JewishCooking.  Not totally, just the interactive portions.  I share some of what I've written or podcasted onto FB, once to Twitter.  I do not open it to see responses.  If an email, intended to lure my retina back to the screen, suggests a comment of condolence, I check it out.  Perhaps I should also convey sympathy in the right circumstances.  But now past Rosh Chodesh Kislev, or two months beyond RH, I remain free of FB and Twitter.  Reddit Judaism I've returned, always with a timer, always restricting my comments to those that another poster would find helpful.

I miss almost none of this engagement.  FB has a site where travelers through America ask for guidance.  I had become a Top Contributor by recommending places for visitors to prioritize when visiting either my region or places where I have previously lived or traveled.  It does not compensate for the clutter.

On Twitter, many authors whose items I read have established a place to receive feedback.  My comments are limited by word or character counts.  Remarks of others are predictably partisan.  And the author almost never responds.  Email has been a more effective way to prompt exchange, even if only thanks for reading.  Understandably, somebody who writes a key article for a publication with a circulation in the hundreds of thousands will find a very cluttered email box.  Nearly all the authors now no longer disclose their direct contact information.  

Still, two months into this initiative, I feel more in control, as well as physically stronger for other reasons.  FB still sends emails trying to lure my log in.  Many fewer than my first two weeks away.  If it hints of condolence I pursue it.  Otherwise it gets deleted unopened from my email inbox.  This seems to be the best way to avoid the damage that global social media has created.

Electronics Off

For Yom Kippur, I kept the electronics off, as I usually do.  No cell phone.  No laptop.  Not even big screen TV where by now I watch mostly YouTube with a small diversion for selected football, college and Eagles.  YK came out Wednesday to Thursday nights this year.  I had made a commitment to myself to leave the social media off through Sukkot, beginning a few days before.  Due to a glitch I had to return to FB momentarily, only to learn of the passing of friend's mother, a former neighbor and good friend of my mother, who had lived to advanced years.  I made a comment, sent a donation, then turned it off.  Rarely, postings from FB have significance.  They come randomly enough to make me reconsider my absolute hiatus.  Shofar blown, quick snack at synagogue to break the fast, then a more substantial feeding at home.  I opted not to check the electronics other than TV until the next morning.  After more consideration, FB, Reddit, and Twitter to stay fallow.

The following morning, I caught up on email.  Zero messages that needed attention.  Some notices from entities that I subscribe to, a single non-urgent message directed at me personally.  A lot of deletes from places trying to sell me something.  A few from places wanting donations.  Those organizations all had merit.  Some will get a share of my mandatory IRA withdrawal when I do it next month.  A few that should have been forwarded to phishing or spam, but not knowing for sure, they just got deleted.

Not looking at my email for Shabbos and yontif should resume as usual practice, as it once was.  By the afternoon past Yom Kippur, FB was already sending me notices of why I ought to sign back on.  All of it A Friend Posted.  Nada notification of a response to something I posted.  I understand that their financial fortunes depend on subscribers or other forms of suckers reading their personal feeds.  Almost none have the importance of a death notice.  People who really need to reach me have email.  Some think they have texting, though not true.  My text feeds are cluttered with Friends of Obama needing another $50.  Bringing their party, my party in a much more selected form, to even more profound ignominy does not benefit from my financial support.  I have doctors' offices texting me even though I asked on their intake forms not to be notified that way.  The only legitimate purpose for texting me seems to be to my confirm identity when dealing with one of my financial or government institutions, those where I have initiated the contact.

A number of prominent people have given themselves a weekly Sabbath from their smartphones.  Catherine Price wrote about this in her book on controlling omnivailability.  The late Charlie Kirk, for all the divergence of world view that I have with him, though I had not heard of him prior to his assassination, understood the value of a weekly cell phone break.  He chose the Jewish Sabbath.  I don't know why.  I do know why I would choose my Shabbos to set the electronics aside.  And our Festivals last two days.  When they span Thursday-Friday or Sunday-Monday, those electronics-free days extend to three days.  I've done this before.  FOMO never a social media concern.  When I turn email back on, I can expect enticements from FB in my messages.  Three day suspension is not long enough.  Better to commit to weeks.  At least on Reddit r/judaism I am helpful to people and on r/Jewish Cooking I learn things.  FB still has friends that I value sharing some element of their lives.  Twitter in its current form only has destructive value.

Now Jewish year 5786.  I do not do resolutions, either Jewish or secular calendar transitions.  Never more cheerful or tolerant, despite my best intent.  Some things I can do, including control of the electronics.  As yom tovim cluster, keeping the cell phone and email dormant seems part of the observance, along with shabbos.  Social media needs a broader assessment of control, probably in the form of rationing.  Leaving these platforms without access to respect the Jewish Holy Days seems easy.  Fitting them in appropriate places in a setting of limited but not zero merit takes a little more thought.

My YK experience, though, affirms the benefits of defined shut-downs.

Checking My Stats

My morning screen sequence begins with a What's New.  Emails first, then FB, blog next, Twitter, Reddit, and Medium Daily Digest.  Who responded to me, or at least acknowledged me? My Stats. As we become accustomed to our place in the social media sphere, most of the Stats have considerable predictability.  Emails largely automated from people wanting their desired share of my money.  Rarely a message directed to me from somebody that I know.  FB will have about three notifications with its red bell, the vast majority Likes of something I had posted or shared.  Twitter I can expect zero.  Reddit does not send me its Lpikes routinely, only when I reach milestones.  Occasionally I will get a notice of somebody who responded to me transferred to my email.  Medium Daily Digest can generate about Ten Views and Four Reads in a typical month.  So for the most part, I present and nobody interacts., 

The little I read on Twitter, a site severely rationed and often put on hiatus for days to weeks at a time, comes from posters with serious followings, Somebody's of name if not facial recognition generated from a position external to Twitter.  While there are now Social Media Influencers with FB and Twitter or TikTok as their entry to fame, I do not know who they are.  I do know who got elected to office, or ran but failed to received a majority vote, who wrote a book, who starred in a movie or TV show, and who has a column in a national periodical.  Those are the people whose stats calculate far in excess of mine.

It is easy to get lured into the false impression that Social Media provides mass entry into the public forum.  True, one can express a thought without having an editor select which of many are worthy of his readers.  But the selectivity of the editor greatly augments the number of readers.  There is something a little degenerate about my few dozen Twitter followers who follow 4000 other Nobody's but only have 40 people following them.

Perhaps the real benefit, maybe even the purpose, is to overwhelm the screens with whatever people may think with no expectation of readership, or even the false illusion of readership.  It reinforces what my teachers tried to convey from the earliest grades, think a problem through, express it with vivid wording, and you will be able to think any problem through.  The beneficiary is the writer, not the reader.  Or a variant of that from my best Rabbi's, you do and say honorable things not for people of the public to admire you but for you to admire you.

So my public impact remains one notch beneath paltry.  My ability to take an idea and run with it is still at a level my teachers hoped it would be, even in the absence of serious interaction.

Try Not to Respond

 

Now off FB, X, and Reddit more than two weeks.  FB notices have passed 100.  Only one moment of FOMO when FB emailed me that a very good friend received a comment from one of the HS popular kids who usually does not comment.  Did I miss a condolence?  That would end my hiatus.  My wife shares that good friend.  She reports that he was engaged in significant travel.  That does not need a response from me.

While the economic business model of social media depends highly on emotional provocation, as does televised media, podcasts, and now political figures, often it is better to stay on the sidelines.  

עֵ֥ת לַֽחֲשׁ֖וֹת וְעֵ֥ת לְדַבֵּֽר  as Kohelet observed.

Sometimes not commenting means don't care, as in the many lures to sell me things that come in my email feed. Sometimes I do care.  Respond and React are not the same.  The political messages intend to provoke my reaction.  Responses need to be more reflective.  And as Conflict Entrepreneurs get more sophisticated, responses also need some rationing.

One making rounds this week from a number of sources is an accusation that if I vote my way instead of their way I don't care about Israel and I am a defective Jew.  Very easy to get into that playground mode of Am Not:Are Too.  But merit as a Jew, unlike merit as an Evangelical Christian Nationalist, is not about how you vote.  It is about a vision for how you would like things to turn out with respectable ways of bringing the vision about.  It is about not having victims. It is about either not making enemies, or at least being very selective about which ones.  The essence of Judaism is about how you treat people.  The Conflict Entrepreneurs really missed the boat.

I vote for the candidates they publicly demean, though unsuccessful taking me with them.  I also eat kosher, observe shabbat, share my treasure in ways that make Israel stronger and make Jewish institutions secure.  I don't steal, either property or the genevas da-as of ideas.

While internal conflict is part of Jewish history, so much so that our Talmud was the first enduring document to include minority positions with their reasoning, disconnecting people usually turns out badly.  

Always respond thoughtfully, but also selectively.

Attracting Me Back

No sign-ons to FB, X, or Reddit for a week.  All but FB has given up on me, or understood my value to them accurately.  FB does its best to entice my return.  The icon on my mobile app reads 32 notifications.  It increases by a few each day.  Reddit has 4, constant since day 2 of my respite.  Twitter has zero.  We do not miss each other.  

FB also sends messages to my email box.  People who I know, people who I care about, have continued posting in my absence.  FOMO, they anticipate.  I must know what these dear people expressed.  I don't think I missed any birthdays.  I don't know when the next FB Friend's birthday arrives.  There are two that I remember this month.  Each worthy of a special day with a generous greeting that likely will not arrive, but also not generate resentment in its absence.

I'm not ready for my Next Act there.  Perhaps when I go on vacation in another two weeks.

Still Unopened

Midweek on social media avoidance.  Still not opened FB, X, Reddit.  My phone apps tell me how many messages await.  FB has 6, same as yesterday, which is only two more than the day before.  They really want we opening this, even sending messages to my email identifying who among my FB Friends has posted something their algorithm as spokesman for their advertisers thinks I should at least look at.  Didn't bite.  Reddit app on my phone lists 4, same as yesterday.  The note in my email when somebody has commented to something I have posted, even sharing that content by email.  Deleted without opening.  X probably doesn't want me to know.  I've taken down  the icons from laptop's home screen.  Have not unistalled the apps from the smartphone.

I do not really feel tempted to peek.

Did Instead

Third full day without signing on to X, FB, or Reddit.  I am accessing my email less, but still more than the three times a day anticipated.  

I did my usual activities, those things I would have done anyway without a social media restriction. Up on time, treadmill on time, on-site OLLI session in the morning, Zoom session in the afternoon.  I had a decent lunch.  Made a trip to Trader Joe's for a minimum of things.  I'd have done all of these and still engaged in my usual allotment of social media.

The purpose, though, was to focus on things that had been neglected.  After my OLLI class, I began to tackle the final section of the main bathroom closet.  I did not time the effort.  Some minor sorting.  Things that go to the basement, things that go first level.  Plastic bags are now inside a single plastic bag.  Very little discarded.  Two large bags of health and grooming supplies that will need sorting.  Finished the book I was reading, the third of three in this semi-annual project, the one on a Jewish theme from a bound book.  I began composing an article on Loneliness.  Target 900 words, edited and submitted for publication.  Sometimes you just have to start.  About 300 words, most not worthy of appearing in print for strangers to read.  Really, not that much progress.

I made a list of the Daily Tasks that I am most likely to make excuses to languish.  Most still languish.  I did a good job reading, though.  Tackling two very long articles in The Atlantic, two difficult ones in The Forward.  I would like to comment on one or two of them as Letters.  And I still have time before I make a semi-special supper.  I also feel pretty decent, which will enable me to work some after supper.  

Focus remains a challenge.  There are some articles on how to improve this.  It will take more than just eliminating a common distraction like social media.

Don't Sign On

This is the week for no Social Media.  No Reddit, No Twitter, not even FB.  I checked the March Birthdays, as I would be willing to wish old friends a wonderful special day, but there are none this week. Reddit icon removed from opening screen.  X never on it.  FB stays, as I need some discipline not to open it.  Email stays.

Despite rationing these things, I never set a chess clock or electronic equivalent to measure when I am signed on.  It's likely more time than I would have assessed by unmeasured impression.  I think I can shun this for a week.

So what do I and everyone else crave from these sites?  The designers of these programs know that.  Twitter is basically a wasteland where people of prominence pitch their political opinions.  It is also a place where The Atlantic runs articles that I have read for others to comment upon whether they have read it or not.  It may also be where a lot of lonely people seek the illusion of connection.  I will occasionally get a message that somebody decided to follow me.  I open their profiles, which invariably show them following 4K people, which may not all be real people, but only have 40 people following them.  There seems something desperate about that.  Or at least unlikely to make a lonely person less lonely.

Reddit will be a lot harder to shun this week.  It is a platform where I am helpful to people that I do not know.  I should be helpful to people I do not know.  And the designers notify me of comments based on my posts in my email inbox, which I have started deleting unopened.

FB was fine when I first enrolled fifteen or so years back.  It reconnected me to people from my past.  I acquired some tolerance for people who went on trajectories I would have avoided, or acquired ideologies very much in opposition to mine.  Its program algorithms were pretty effective at picking out things I liked, from my favorite comic strips to places I've been or regret never having been.  But I am overwhelmed by the unwelcome, while the friendships of people from my fondest past have mostly ebbed.  Very little is stimulating.

So without this for a week, or indefinitely might be better, what replaces the time allotted to it, or more accurately,  frittered by it?  Glancing at my whiteboard where my semi-annual projects appear in the left column, I've never denied myself a chance to pursue any because of social media.  Though it has been an interruption at times from what I should have been doing instead.  But sometimes signing on to FB or Reddit is a reward for a noble effort in something on that project list.  There are times when I go out to a park or out to a coffee shop to escape the attraction of my laptop, or even bring the laptop with me for a pre-determined purpose.  I may be able to do more of those things.

First morning off the X, FB, Reddit going OK.  No withdrawal symptoms.  No dramatic urge to migrate to email.  No refocus to my big personal initiates either.  

ReportingThem

For all the rise in Anti-Semitism that has emerged over a few years gradually and over a few months more rapidly, I had not personally encountered any other than more honorable people retweeting a comment made somewhere on their Twitter screens for the purpose of criticizing what they had seen.  I got my first two yesterday.  They occurred on Reddit's r/Judaism, each just a phrase or a sentence.  Neither had any comments.  I selected the Report option, clicked the Hate icon, then submit.  My email contained two messages from u/reddit that the umpire, which I assume is what u/ designates, agreed that company posting policy had been violated.

Neither of these posts had received any comments from the users who engage in r/judaism.  And since the platform provides neutral names to its users to minimize any personal identification, I could not know anything about the poster.  Could be Islamic, could be American Nazi, could just be a conflict entrepreneur.

In the early days of AOL chat, there were Jewish virtual conversations that I would enter.  We would type about our synagogue, what we are making for Seder, where we are from.  Invariably Abdul would sign in, deface our screens with some anti-Israel or even anti-Jewish slogan, likely for the purpose of disruption.  AOL provided an Ignore option which any of us could click to exclude Abdul, but we would all have to exercise that choice.  If anyone wanted to retort Abdul, where invariably some of the people connected to that chat room at the time would, he would stay and post more slogans or individual demeaning comments.  We had no mechanism for AOL to deny him access.

Reddit, and some of the other platforms, can deny access.  But to do that requires another consumer of the service taking the initiative to make a report, then a process from which an employee of the platform makes a decision on whether company standards have been violated.  Not a lot different than our highways where people can drive in all sorts of hazardous ways, limited only by getting caught, something that happens a relatively small fraction of the time.  Our police have tried to randomize this with sobriety check roadblocks, radar traps, red light photo cameras.  The IRS monitors tax cheats with random audits.  But our electronic platforms really don't seem to have a better mechanism than depending on annoyed legitimate users turning in troublesome posters as individuals.  It's not a good way to clean up the enjoyment these platforms are intended to generate.  Or maybe they do have automated screening devices.  Or maybe they pay people to log onto places that have hateful posters for their version of the random audit.  Whatever the mechanism, it does not seem to be as sophisticated as it should be.

Viewpoint Fatigued

I'm newsed out. I'm shuled out. Opinioned out. Not yet crossed over the line to Jewed out, but I can see that line not very far off. And the Iggles season endured too long.  I kinda know what Trump is about and who supports him.  I can tell who marches with a fist in the air while shouting a slogan for the disappearance of Israel.  And I know who refutes them and how they respond.  And I can tell who wants to manipulate me in some way.  I don't even have to go to Twitter for that.  The notices from my shul where the Influencers think I should comply with what they want me to do come to my email a few times a week.

I got the hang of this by now.  And I'm really not receptive to the next post on Twitter or even the FB politically oriented pitch, despite their being generated by some of the dearest people you can hope to know or the finest friends you can hope to have.                        

To make this more unbearable, somebody who attended lectures at a university that wouldn't let me attend took classes on how to keep me glued to my screen by selecting what to toss my way.  Eventually they are no longer right.  It moves from engagement to the rejection of the very engagement that the expert with the algorithm thinks I might most like to have.

Part of the limitation may be that very little of this is truly interactive.  My forty years as an active physician had me interviewing people multiple times a day, whether patients at the bedside or in the exam room, nurses on the in-patient units, residents sharing the care, or consultants who come to help out.  Art Linkletter knew that Kids Say the Darndest Things.  So do patients. So do people at committee tables. Often their comments or questions are not what I anticipated.  Yet each situation intentionally included me in the dialog.  And it is a dialog.  It is a back and forth of ideas that can take unplanned directions.  It is sometimes having more expertise, sometimes upgrading my ability, since I started with less knowledge or experience than my partner.  And because the directions shift within seconds, at least in my medical world as new information is piled atop what was there before, there is something engaging about it.

Our screens really don't have that.  On Twitter, properly now rated X, where I have had the good fortune to avoid the truly viral toxins, I can comment to people of public prominence and accomplishment, but it is never on their agenda to respond to me, and for the most part they don't.  Had I made the same comment in a public seminar, they would have to respond.  Indeed, my Senators and Congressional representatives have done just that live and in person.  I know not to pose a question whose answer I can anticipate.  

On FB I know most of the people.  I've seen some of them live since enrolling on the service in 2009.  They are very different live.  While I admire the things that interest them as individuals, be it science, their trips, their fondness for restaurants, coping with Covid, their interests in cooking, even their political stances which often differ from mine, the screen is not interactive.  They can figure out from my messages that I time my week to shabbos, like cooking dinner, and analyze a professional report expertly, and am part of the sports fabric of my hometown, they really don't quite know how my mind works, nor do I have a good grasp of any of theirs.

Of the places where I express myself, the most suitable may be Reddit in is various subdivisions.  People sometimes come to pitch their agendas, but they often come seeking guidance, and this is generously offered.  I do not know what question will be posed on r/Judaism tomorrow.  I do know that when I open my Twitter screen, there will be attacks from the Left, from the Right, the retired CEO of AJC who I thoroughly admire professionally will tell me the same facts too many times, the Opinion Editor of The Forward, which I read daily, will have comments not very different from the usual comments, somebody will call Trump a criminal, which I think he is, and somebody will respond how the Trumpists brought America closer to its potential.  I just don't want to be there, and I really don't have to.

Interestingly, my shul has started inviting me to do stuff worth doing, though it is not the Influencers who took that initiative.  They still run Nominating Committees who populate the Board with Vacant since Nobody could offer more insight than me.  So while I am excluded, I presume by intent by Influencers, from the creative elements, I have more of a niche that bypasses the Gatekeepers.

What none of these forums, not synagogue, not Social Media in its various formats, has been able to do is what David Brooks in his most recent book regarded as the essence of personal interaction.  That is the ability to get people who want to tell Their Story to tell it.  That is the essence of medicine which may be why I found my time there so captivating.  To a large extent, it is the essence of Jewish Scripture, yet squashed in the name of Leadership, both in Torah to some extent, and in our Jewish institutions by design.

Our social media, X, FB, Reddit, all attract millions.  But they don't really have millions.  They have one person replicated a million times who makes a comment to a poster who really was not somebody who accomplished anything on X but may have accomplished quite a lot external to X by the position they hold in Journalism, elected office, or some other form of celebrity, where they already have a forum to promote Their Story.  The rest of need a forum to tell ours.  And X, FB, Reddit, and my shul all seem not quite up to this challenge.

I'm screened out.  I'm shuled out.  I need people to tell me the Darndest Things.

Controlling Social Media Time

Social Media needs some personal restraint.  For a lot of people it has become destructive, a time sink that bypasses more substantive achievements that people could have, myself among them.  Yet its popularity, even when toxic or because of that toxic element, continues.  It is alluring.  Nobody really needs Adderall or Ritalin to pay attention, as attention is not needed.  A Tweet requires conservation of words, which means you can read a lot of them in a short time.  And as we keep our device and tablet screens in our visual focus, these programs assure us that there are other people on the other side.  We used to have other people at the Mall, and probably still do at the workplace.  The stadium may have tens of thousands of people, but they are not interactive with us.  The electronics match us to people who respond in an era when, even in the workplace, the cubicles and factory floors keep responses intermittent at best.

I am not on all platforms.  I never signed up for TikTok, which at least one state tried to ban.  A site restricted to physicians called Sermo wore out its welcome.  I don't miss it.  The WhatsApp app has been downloaded to my smartphone.  I never open it.

So my daily cyberspace surf sessions really begin with four, all with their own overlaps and their own uniqueness:

1. Email
2. Facebook
3. Reddit
4. Twitter, now rated X

Each morning I go to all four, though not in the same sequence.  Any notifications from each, from the most trivial Like to the usual email updates of places where my subscription is intentional.  No message?  Move on.  More typically, I just admire myself momentarily for having posted something yesterday that caused a reaction in somebody else.

Then I move to my daily blog to begin composing the next entry. And my daily five crosswords come next.

But the discipline to do things that advance me yield to things that get my brain to release endorphins and enkephalins.  So at the very least succumb to the social media in a defensible way.  

Email enables me to conduct my personal business.  Its delete trash can makes it easy to clear.  By now I can recognize phishing and move it to spam.  That winnows the messages to notices of articles related to my professional activity, a writing group I subscribe to and periodically post what I have written, notices from reputable publications where I am also a subscriber or participant.  Requests to do a Torah reading arrive that way, along with notices of my synagogue's activities.  Clutter easily managed.  And there are times when I need to send somebody else a message.  Virtually no politically generated thought takes place in this forum.  

Facebook lives off its more glorious past.  Like many of my era, HS Class of '69, the lure of reconnecting with old chums, most in limbo for forty years, had endless merit.  We learned of each other's careers, families, geography, personal and political views, in a short summary, where their adult lives took them.  My HS had its bullies, but not a lot, and learning how to cope with them made most of us antifragile, fully capable of swimming through our personal circumstances.  While everyone on our contact list was designated Friend, we found gradients of friends to be the reality.  As we learn about people of our past nearing the completion of their careers, grandparents or at least empty nesters, the people we connected to as electronic friends were often very divergent from the people we had hung out with, shared classroom space with, or went to USY with as teens.  Was never close to the Cheerleader types then or now.  Found myself attracted to people whose posts and reactions displayed kindness.  Unfortunately, Facebook became Meta, algorithms ruled, and advertising made stockholders rich.  Those several dozen sources of electronic banter and sharing parts of our current lives dwindled to about fifteen, all admirable people if not the fifteen that I would have selected to continue from my original list of a hundred or so if free of algorithms.  But with those fifteen, we still share interests.  I like seeing places that they visit as they visit them.  Parents have died during that interval, with abundant messages of condolence.  Birthday greetings are conveyed by thoughtful reminders.  In order to get to the people, I have to endure a feed of twenty commercial, political, ideological, and otherwise disruptive messages.  And I have acquired my own Likes.  Pictures of cats, whether cute kitty or awesome tiger, can get a Like.  And I have my teams.  The algorithms figured out which ones they are.  So FB needs the time on it rationed, the responses mostly limited to messages to people I know personally who have made their own contribution, and maybe a swipe at a coach of one of my teams when they falter.  And as unsolicited faux news appears, I am generous with its remove procedure.  They ask you why.  "I find it offensive" needs to be added to the options.

Reddit enables me to think.  I subscribe to r/Judaism and r/Jewish cooking.  Unsubscribed to r/my  home state due to some unwelcome responses to one of my rare posts.  And usually I allow my initial screen to just be HOME with whatever the company thinks I should see.  There are thousands of subjects.  Everyone is anonymous with an avatar.  It also seems to be moderated, as trolls and overt nastiness is rare.  For r/Judaism I am a serious contributor.  People present dilemmas from anti-Semitic experiences to how to engage more to other queries more suitable to Dear Therapist.  My range of knowledge, my experience with synagogues and organizations, and my advanced age that has lived through how the Judaism of today got that way is helpful to scores of other people, Jewish and not.  Since my satisfaction as a contributor does not depend on keeping score with Likes, I can be at that site a very long time.  While often rewarding, I could and should be doing other things instead.

And finally, Twitter, that cesspool of toxic applications of the English language.  Its only redeeming feature is that people of major accomplishment, whether celebrities, elected officials, thinkers of the upper tier, have all established their base there.  While they travel in spheres other than mine, I am not likely to meet any of them.  But they let me into their electronic space where I can have my say if I keep to the rationed number of characters.  And it has helped my expressions.  When I exceed my allotment, I have to edit the response to make it more compact.  An unexpected benefit. People have been harmed by engaging too seriously, but if I really want is not friendship but access to ideas from people of public presence, that will suffice.  Harm to me is unlikely.

Sites I either neglect or reject are much larger that the four in which I engage. In another century, our endogenous CNS pleasure chemicals came from opium dens where people escaped from anything else they could be doing instead.  We have that now, more with X than with any of the others.  Except it is not really the escape from engagement but its illusion.  I keep a daily task list, created each evening, reviewed each morning, referenced periodically through the day until I compose a new one the next evening.  Engagement with old friends is on the list, FB being the best way to do that.  Many of these tasks, the writing and learning in particular, are also best done on screens, though my mind acting solo with what is presented or with what I create.  Engagement is better done selectively, even if helpful to others, as my contributions to r/Judaism often are.  Put your own mask on first.  Advance my own brain, environment, face to face encounters first.  And some rationed time for 

1. Email
2. Facebook
3. Reddit
4. Twitter, now rated X

Not Signing In

Commitment to myself.  For two days I will not sign in to any social media.  No FB, No Reddit, most of all no Twitter.  Perhaps permanently no Twitter.  Not sure I'd call KevinMD social media.  It's really more of a magazine with essays, More like The Atlantic than like FB.

I've done Day 1.  Almost opened FB inadvertently as it is next to my email icon, but didn't read anything there, other than to note I had two unread notifications.

Not opening these expands my discretionary time considerably.  I cannot say I used the opportunity as well as I could have, though for the most part I have not felt all that well.  I went out for coffee while I worked at what could be a very good piece on my response to loneliness that seems to be catching up with me.  Went to Shop-Rite.  Bought a birthday card.  Probably still would have done these things even with sneaking onto the social media sinks.  And I do feel a little deprived.

See how the second day goes.

No Notifications

My latest initiative to re-established fixed sleep and wake times has gotten me up and to my screen a little earlier than I had been.  Some coffee, some dishwashing, retrieve newspaper for my wife, then to the keyboard, after I review the Daily Task List.  I'm perhaps a little ahead of those fixed to their social media.  Check email first most days.  No new messages that I didn't already expect most days.  The usual predictable weekly broadcast from my synagogue on Friday, from subscriptions that maintain, some places that think they can get me to donate.  No messages from any people today, and most days.  With this comes responses to r/Judaism comments I might have made the day before.  None today either.  No notifications on FB this morning.  Zero notifications on Twitter.  All opened and closed quickly.

That generates a lot of time that can be allocated to other things, more enduring things.  Twitter basically offers soundbites from people of public prominence, a chance for the nebbishes that most of us are to tell what we think to somebody who would ignore us in person.  Then again, our nebbish ancestors have been writing letters to the White House since there was a White House.  No reason to ever sign onto Twitter.  Reddit and FB have different purposes.  For Reddit, as for most of what I write, I put my thoughts out there and leave them there for others to read, but don't care what anyone does with them.  I never engage in online conversation, though there is some back and forth from other posters.  I also almost never open a comment that contains a link to another article.  I can search the news myself for what I want to read.

FB offers the most complexity.  When I enrolled in 2009, its lure was the ability to connect to people I once knew forty years before who had lived their adult lives with jobs, families, and hobbies.  That might still be its attraction, though much of that has disappeared.  So have the posts from public figures, most of which find Twitter more useful.  Of the last 20 entries on my feed, three come from people I know, six come from entities to which I subscribe, and 11, or the majority, are from unsolicited sources, quotes, animal pictures, publications to which I do not subscribe.  And the three friends, only on a real remnant of my childhood group, do not require any response.  Not a total wasteland but also not the best way to focus my day.

So No Notifications today from anything that I feel obligated to check.  And that's the best score.

Expressing Myself

Might I seriously consider reconnecting to Twitter?   Or Sermo?  Social media has gotten some justified negative assessments, from time sink, which it is for sure, to swamp of the toxic, to transporting our perfectly agile minds to echo chambers where they can languish.  All true.  But their popularity rests in an inherent desire for people to express what they think in an environment of no personal risk.  Can't do that at work.  Can't just say what we think of our Rabbi or Pastor in an open forum.  Can do that on Twitter.

To construct my day yesterday, I extracted a subset of my Daily Task List to identify how I would like to express my thoughts during that single day.

1. Add to text in the book I committed myself to writing
2. Comment to an author my thoughts on her book
3. Comment on an editorial from The Forward
4. Comment on an article from a subscription that is about to expire without renewal
5. Write a blog entry
6. Comment on a KevinMD essay of my choosing
7. Begin an article on physician retirement that a site invited me to do
8. Finish my article on misuse of synagogue seating during our Holy Days
9. Start my comments on my congregation's Rabbinical future
10. Add my thoughts to r/Judaism on Reddit

Ten worthy forums where I have thoughts.  Ten where I don't particularly care what any reader would find objectionable.  I completed five, worked on two others, saved the other three for a concentrated effort not that far into the future.

Probably should make a similar list every day, and keep score on how well I do each day.

r/Judaism

Forget how I got introduced to Reddit.  It must have been through another article about how Jews collected to a designated topic published in The Forward or JTA.  I signed on and have been a regular contributor.  I don't know if there are trolls.  There don't seem to be, though I rarely read any of the comments that other responders make to the original post.  They gave me a handle, which I use.  And by now I have established a pattern of what I will and will not address.  A lot of posts come with a link to some other article, usually a reputable one from a respected source, though I scroll past these.  I want to read what the posters present, not what somebody else created that they want to convey.

Most of the participants are far younger than me.  They have themes that young people solicit advice to address.  Many are exploring Judaism for the first time, either as potential converts, people raised in secular homes, or people invited to a synagogue for the first time.  Others want background information, looking for basic sources for new entrants or those rediscovering to get their bearings.  Young guys know the internet sites.  I know the classic books.

There's some culture to exchange, notes on cuisine.  There's also some pilpul which I usually scroll past.  Unfortunately, internet anti-Semitism impacts most of them a lot more than it does me as a late life rather successful Jew with far less future uncertainty than most of them anticipate.

Most of all, it gives me a chance to be helpful to somebody I don't know in an electronic environment that appears considerably more respectful than most.

Still Not Logged Back In

Day 4.  I'm still not logged back in to any Social Media.  FB placed some lures via email but I didn't bite.  Reddit went from my email inbox to Spam unopened.  While the intent of my shunning Social Media has been to recoup some opportunity losses, I'm not yet certain that has happened.  Easy crosswords have become the new go-to time sink.   I would have found treadmill time anyway, because that may be the closest I get to Flow.  My gardens are mostly planted.  I've been giving better attention to really going overseas for my upcoming anniversary, though I probably would not have to carve these efforts out of  the Social Media time sink either.  Writing, which is what I really wanted to do with this time, and which I had done in the form of thoughtful responses, has not flourished at all.

What I really seem to do better are those petty chores of housekeeping, breathing outdoors air while sitting quietly on a county park bench, letting my mind wander, keeping up with the dishes, setting short amounts of fixed times to tidy my bedroom or exchange seasonal clothing, driving not very far like I did during the height of Covid-19 closures for the purpose of not being in my house at my keyboards.

The allure of logging back in and typing the contents of my mind to ho-hum readers or giving response opportunities to trolls has not entirely dissipated.  Much like ex-smokers who often describe themselves as smokers who aren't smoking now, the resistance of the default action of logging in has become part of the achievement.  And unlike the abstinent alcoholic who cannot return to drinking in a controlled way, my purposeful return has been planned in advance.  Just not yet.

Did Instead

Success.  Went the whole day without opening FB or any other social media.  I got to make some comments via email for a committee question that was posed, but that's legitimated business.  And I didn't open anything other than FB either.  

While I compensate for my inattention by using a countdown timer for many tasks, I do not really know how much time was actually spending on FB et al., though the spies who log my activity do.  As I opened my email the following day, I had invitations subtle and direct telling me something was waiting for me on FB and Reddit.  One notice deleted, the other filed to Spam.

However, time is a constant.  If I am not scrolling and responding, I have to be doing something else.  I went to a park three short times, where I could relax in a breeze while my mind wanders.  Dishes all done.  Winter clothing all put away.  Laundry all done.  Mailbox repair completed once and for all.  Learned some of my next Torah portion.  Social media sinks my mind, but its absence really did not enhance my mind.  I did pleasurable stuff instead, though not taxing stuff.  At least not yet.

It remains my intent to not log on anywhere for a week, with predesignated exceptions for Mother's Day and to convey my next KevinMD article's publication when that happens.  I missed the mindlessness slightly the first day but did not take the bait to return even though it arrived promptly by algorithm.  It also remains my intent to use that alternative time on things that matter a whole lot more than touring the Metaverse.

Controlling the Social Media

Put a weeklong ban in place.  FB restricted to Mother's Day evening, which I limited, and if my article to KevinMD appears, that will be announced.  I checked in advance for birthdays.  None this week that I must acknowledge.  No Reddit, which is the site I like most.  Bari Weiss is really an echo chamber.  Let my subscription lapse, ignore this week.  Twitter long gone and not missed.  KevinMD is technically Social Media, but I have a weekly quota and there is nothing toxic about that site, though responses to posts have been pretty minimal.  A problem for Dr. Kevin to correct.  

That's new-found time.  Yesterday for Mother's Day, it got absorbed making dinner.  Today, probably some cleanup and laundry.  Getting tired of Big Screen TV in My Space.  In some ways the time sink of reading and responding has been a distraction from my twelve semi-annual projects, that excuse to do something easy or emotional instead of activities that are difficult with periods of frustration.  I will likely do the challenging stuff like writing, gardening, space upgrading, and expanding my in-person presence once I tie myself to the mast so I cannot go to Reddit instead.

Run of Evens

Facebook Roulette has largely established itself as my most successful mechanism for controlling the time sink of social media.  Odds, I'm a participant, Evens I check messages and greet people for their birthdays.  Other social media have come under control.  Twitter essentially gone, Bari Weiss and KevinMD have redeeming intellectual value without becoming excessive, Reddit Judaism enjoyable and controlled.  I really didn't know how FB would turn out until this week when the first thing in the morning spin came up an even number for several consecutive days.  I followed my rule.  I don't miss not being there.