Faffing Friday Edition #31

It's a very slim FF this week and you'll understand why

what the actual fuck

Does anyone else fill a bit discombobulated this week?

A bit out of sorts with the world and where you fit in it at the moment?

It feels like it’s an effin’ great time if you’re a white middle aged tech billionaire or the Leader of the Free World {not writing the dickhead’s name}.

For everyone else it’s a weird time where many of us are thinking

‘WTAF is going on right now?’

This off kilter feeling always makes me ask myself -

‘What am I doing that’s bringing me joy?’

One thing that definitely isn’t bringing me joy is feeling controlled on social media platforms.

It’s actually not a feeling.

We ARE being controlled.

Controlled and forcing us to becoming addicted to spending more time on our phones, on these platforms and then being served hate and misinformation at every scroll. The men who control these platforms really don’t like women or indeed anyone that’s not like them - white, male and rich.

Puffed up and full of self importance and ego.

This week I’ve felt like shutting everything down.

This heavily tech driven world we find ourselves in has been designed to have us all either emptying our pockets and filling their bank accounts or hating on one another.

Now it’s making me more unhappy than it’s feeding my own dopamine call.

But then I think about all the connections I’ve made because of the platform that is nothing to do with who owns and controls them.

I read a great LinkedIn post yesterday morning which really got me thinking ..I’m sharing some of Andy’s very insightful words here …

“Today the majority of ways we connect with others online are free but come at a cost. Our privacy is diminished, data exploited, attention subverted and creativity homogenised. A few individuals make huge profits and the rest of us pay the price. The issues that cause Trump's * re-election or Brexit are societal. But they are amplified by algorithmically controlled social media and the tech founders who run them.”

Leaving these platforms is hard. It signifies a loss of connection to friends, family and communities. The goal should be to disempower tech oligarchs while giving users back choice and control. Removing some aspects of their power over us isn't enough. We need to build a more resilient internet and a digital commons.

Hold those thoughts for a minute. Aren’t they spot on?

*I didn’t want to write ‘his’ name btw but it’s in the quote so I just decided to cross it out because I can - this is MY space.

And it’s my space until I feel it’s not.

I just have to decide what my space is doing. I’m not saying I’m shutting Facebook and Instagram down. I shut my personal Twitter/X down over a year ago and shut our business ones down just before Christmas.

I’m having a big, big think.

I hope sometimes you all find what I write for you interesting and informative and sometimes entertaining with the odd belly laugh to boot.

That’s why I’m thinking about where I fit and what I’m doing.

I love writing and I love community.

I might run a little survey next week and find out what your thoughts are. Do you think you’d spend 5 minutes on something like that for me? I hope so.

Anyway, by the time the early UK birds amongst you are reading this I should be on my way to Northumbria University in Newcastle. I’ve been invited to speak about Digital Footprints and AI Ethics for Business. I love this stuff!

Although, Storm Éowyn is currently brewing with an amber weather warning and looking already like some trains cancelled. Wish me luck 💨

Signing out with lots of love,