Mainstream social media like Meta, Twitter and TikTok are siren song services. They lure you in with connection to your friends and funny videos when in reality they are destroying attention spans and real life connections. They are manipulated by big tech and government. They are being used to racialize and divide us. There is a great book on this called Stolen Focus. In this book they discuss with the data scientists and programmers that made these algorithms and how bad they are on human cognition. The human attention span is now worse than a goldfish. I know this is a big claim but I think it’s credible, but because of social media’s effect on the brain humanity is struggling to solve even its most basic problems. All while people are more lonely than ever.
On top of that, we feel it’s a mistake of small business to allow Facebook and Google Business to be the gatekeepers of business at all. Someone who has never even worked with a company can use Google Business or social media to destroy the reputation of small business for any number of reasons. Small business is just so vital to our communities, why are we letting big tech be the gatekeeper of that? At Mastiff we want to have a direct conversation with our clients and not use Facebook to do it. We will call you, or text you or email you and we want a discussion and an actual relationship. You aren’t a “visitor that needs converted” - our clients are all small companies that have real employees to pay and real work to do. We take it quite seriously that you trust us with your vital technology systems and we don’t view our clients as endless resources to mine. But a partner where we help each other win.
If you want to really be horrified read the book, Reckless People on just how unethical the people behind Facebook actually are.
We do recommend all federated social media platforms that avoid those algorithms. Mastodon being the best. But avoid META, X and TikTok if at all possible. Federated platforms mean that anyone can spin up their own server and no one person owns the site or content. This is the only way social media can avoid the pitfalls META has fallen into. Mastodon is well worth the extra effort to get it set up.
37signals, the makers of Basecamp, started a movement where they encouraged businesses to be Facebook free. To not allow a gatekeeper in between them and their clients. That’s a movement we would like to continue where possible. Mastiff is lucky in that we don’t get clients that way and we don’t really need social media. Some businesses like our dental clients probably must be on social media. We even recommend that some of our clients get ON Facebook because their business simply requires it at the time. But I would still say the end goal should be to not NEED Facebook for your business. Stay as independent as possible, your community needs you.
SOURCES
Time Magazine - You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish