AJ the Irish Lass' Ramblings

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Heck, yes! I’m aware of no less than two incidents that happened in the past week alone involving that very thing. There are many different factors that affect peoples’ interaction with social media platforms, and some people read too much into how others interact with their content. Here are some observations I’ve made:

Algorithms & Other Factors Affect What Posts People See in Their Feeds

Only those who work for the companies that run the social media platforms in question really understand how these algorithms work. Individual users can also somewhat influence what they see by subscribing or not subscribing to friends/followers’ posts, unfollowing or blocking certain pages/accounts, or otherwise taking negative actions against posts they prefer not to see. In short, there shouldn’t be an automatic assumption that people aren’t responding to posts out of some type of malice.

Working People Might Only Be on For Short Spurts in Between Other Tasks

Not everyone works in a setting where they have unlimited access to the Internet for purely personal reasons. Social media activities, in particular, can affect employees’ productivity to where some companies restrict or even prohibit using social media at work. The latest viral video or most other updates probably aren’t important enough to justify someone losing a job over.

Self-Employed/WAH Does NOT Mean Schedule Freedom

A lot of people naturally assume that a person who freelances or does some other job at home can check their social media accounts continuously. This is often not the case since some employers do track tasks completed using an interface that makes checking other sites at the same time impossible. Also, many freelancers limit how much they use social media during work hours to work more productively.

Many People Have Large Enough Friends Lists That Reading Each Post, From Each Person, Every Day is Impossible

Trying to keep up with every post from your whole friend list, especially if it numbers over 300 or so, is like to herding cats. Everyone posts at different frequencies, at different times. Keeping the fact that everyone has different time demands and different numbers of people they’re following puts things into perspective.

Helpful Tips

• Don’t get yourself drawn into arguments with someone else about whether they’re using social media too much or you’re using it too little – these types of tiffs don’t help anybody
• Stick to your schedule and don’t guilt-trip yourself into placing social media activities ahead of work and family obligations – sharing and tagging options come in handy when you’re on very different schedules
• Don’t apologize for not reading every single social media post – consider making suggestions about how they can share in a way that encourages more interaction, such as setting up a group or page the public can interact with

It’s not the end of the world if someone doesn’t always read another’s social media posts, but human interaction suffers when it becomes an issue of contention. Taking the high ground by cutting out needless drama makes our interactions with each other better.