Is Social Media Doing You Dirty? Apply the CUE Test.
In a recent episode of the Uncanny Valley podcast about quitting social media, Lauren Goode talked about a framework she applies to see if the time she’s spending on social media is serving her well. From the transcript:
I have been toying with this idea of a framework for a while as I’ve thought about social media and how to manage it and how I actually really would love to get off social media. I came up with this acronym, CUE: community, utility and education. Bear with me here. The C, community, is what you just described, Mike.
Here is what Mike described:
I really feel like the community aspect is the thing that makes it healthy. When I know that I can open an app and find all of my people, that makes me happy and it makes me want to open the app. I think probably the best illustration of that is the experience that we’ve all had where you’re live tweeting something, right? You’re watching a television show, or you’re watching some event happening and you have your phone in your hand and you are posting and you’re replying to other people’s posts, and you’re faving things and you’re reposting re-xing, re-skeeting things, and it adds to the experience. It enhances the experience. It makes it feel like you’re hanging out with your friends while you’re doing this thing together, even if you’re all alone. To me, that’s a good, healthy thing that social media can provide.
Ok, back to CUE:
Utility, it could be something like messaging, which is also a part of community too, but it could be something kind of simple like you’re messaging to get an address or you’re checking the weather, that’s a utility, right? Then there’s education. You’re actually using the apps to learn something real and true and valid that you would not have learned otherwise. I think once you get into the, “I’m not using this as a utility or for education, it’s not serving me in any way, it’s not a tool, it’s not building community, it’s fraying community, and I’m just doom scrolling,” then you’re outside of the CUE. You need to log off.
I like this framework, but I feel like there’s something missing. Another E for entertainment? It’s OK to log on to Instagram to watch skateboard tricks and capybara soaking in citrus-infused baths and people finally succeeding in throwing a CD into a thin slot from across the room. But when it stops being entertaining and starts to feel compulsive, like gambling or pressing a button to get a treat, then it’s time to stop.
Whether it’s CUE or CUEE, the important part is thinking about your social media use, how it makes you feel (both in the moment and afterwards), what needs or desires it’s filling in your life, and what it might be taking away from you (or taking you away from). And then, hopefully, taking steps so that social media sparks joy instead of inciting dread or dispensing numbness.
Personally, I’ve scaled way back on my Instagram usage in the past month (focusing mainly on the community aspect when I do use it) and have stopped using Facebook & Threads. I’ve been using Bluesky a ton for work…it’s been essential in tracking what’s going on and who’s doing the best reporting and contextualization on the coup.
What’s your relationship to social media like these days?
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I hadn't been on any network for a while. I had deleted Twitter. Never did Facebook or Instagram—are they really any better? I'm on Mastodon a lot. Lots of technology talk (open source, privacy, decentralization), non-US perspectives, the state of things. I don't have a Bluesky account, but I follow a number of Bluesky users (that I followed on Twitter 2016–2020) via RSS in Feedbin. I've been cross-posting from Micro.blog to Mastodon too.
I've been close to making a post about this elsewhere.
Recently, the social media I've been enjoying the most is Marco Polo. I was invited by two of my close friends who use it almost like their own mini-podcast. Essentially, the 3 of us, in a group, consistently share 10–20 minute long messages to each other where we talk about what is going on in our lives or what we're thinking about and respond to previous videos and the questions asked.
Early on, I felt a pressure to "watch" their full 20-minute long video and I didn't enjoy it — but with time I've come to put on my headphones and fold laundry or clean my office while they talk and it has become a resounding joy in my life. I peek at the phone if they're doing show-and-tell, but it's usually more of an audio thing so it works out nicely.
I've come to enjoy this so much that this app is now one of the few notifications I allow on my phone.
Part of why I like it is that it allows you to connect with people anytime, but very much at my own pace. We usually all respond within a day or two and that's nice. It keeps us all feeling close, which I appreciate now more than ever.
I've always had ambivalence about my social media use (I agree with your sentiment that there's nothing wrong with finding entertainment in it), and have in recent years felt like my attention span has been completely annihilated by the TikTok-ification of content. Since Meta's updates to their terms last month, I've been trying to find alternatives to the algorithmic scroll and have been heartened to find others doing the same. I loved John West's post "Be the algorithm you want to see in the world" about reverting back to RSS readers and The Verge's article on Timeline apps like Tapestry. I've been spending the last week on a rabbit hole of the DIY web and have been adding any faves to Reeder. Rediscovering that there's still magic on the internet outside of the walled gardens has been really gratifying and I've found my brain feeling more satiated and stimulated than numbed. (Your site has also helped tremendously during this insane time!)
I deleted my Meta accounts after the inaugural parade of billionaires. Bluesky is my remaining social media account and I'm quite happy with it.
I will miss my collection of photos on Instagram, though. That had become my sole creative outlet online. I now have more incentive to relearn how to host my own website and photo gallery.
Same! Instagram over the years had become my primary creative outlet and I still enjoy the simplicity of taking photos/videos and uploading them quickly. I experimented with creating an "alt-stagram" hosted on Wordpress a few years ago and recently started posting on it in earnest again.
I think the problem with "Entertainment" (and this is me just spitballing and offering some critique, not saying you're wrong) is that we used to have curated entertainment.
I think while seeing someone skateboard or do a funny dance really well is entertaining, it also feels like those creators are taking something from me in a way because they beat the algorithm to show up on my feed, beating out someone I actually follow or another creator that has good content but the wrong hashtags or whatever.
That's why RSS (which I don't see as social media really) feels like a better way to consume entertainment than through apps like TikTok or Threads. I know that I'm missing out on some great videos, but that's where newsletters like Garbage Day or blogs like yours come in. It's part of why I'm sad that you're focusing on political content now, though I do think it's a great service and I'm not asking or even wanting you to change. But where others turn to social media for the breaks they need, it was blogs like yours that always turned up the best entertainment for me.
you can't mention this and not link it!
I'm still on Instagram, but I have it so locked down that for me it still fills the CUEE criteria. My account is private, the people I follow are people I know or people who provide education or entertainment in some way, and I only look at the "Following" feed, so I don't see the ads and random algorithmic crap that are in the normal feed. If they hadn't added the "Following" feed, I'd likely have been gone a couple years ago.
I'm on WhatsApp for the community aspect -- there's a chat with the neighbours in my development and one for the parents at my kid's school. Also because it seems to be the main messaging service people use when I leave North America.
I've tried Bluesky as a replacement for the educational hole Twitter left in my reading, but at this point I'm finding that my Bluesky feed is mostly redundant to my media reading otherwise, so I haven't been going that often. But sometimes there are good re-whatevers or threads there. I feel no need to be on Threads.
I'm on LinkedIn because it still seems to be a professional requirement, but I almost never read the feed or post because it's so performative. Its feed is also so weird -- once in a while I see something at the top of the feed and then I mindlessly scroll, but it doesn't take long before the stale / performative feel overwhelms me.
I left Facebook in 2016, because the community it had provided (friends from grad school who all got on when Facebook was still limited to students at particular schools, so that dates me!) had left. Many of them were working in tech and saw the dangers of Facebook. I haven't missed it.
Overall, I feel like there was this brief period where social media opened the world up quite a bit and I could reconnect with people I hadn't seen in many years; my community got quite big. But the pendulum has swung back and I realized there was a reason why I hadn't seen those people in many years. Now social media for me is mostly useful for enhancing real-life connections or for reading politics / entertainment.
I try to keep my political life separate from social media. In my opinion, that's where the misery began. People got lost in their bubble, stopped reflecting, and eventually simply became consumers of various propaganda. Whether well-intentioned or not. Political life should take place at the ballot box, at demonstrations, in volunteer work, or neighborhood projects. It needs to be real. We must take on real responsibility again.
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