“Isn’t the weather being all weathery?” I hear you cry as you toss aside your arctic-worthy puffa jacket and reveal your tan lines for the third time today, whilst colleagues simultaneously feel the radiators and pop some #factor50 on.
The weather being changeable is a sure sign it’s equinox-o’clock and time for another social update!
So, what’s happened? Well, Instagram’s boss layout has taken a bit of a turn. The imagery-based social network we all know and love has often prided itself on simplicity – refusing (in its infancy) to add stuff it didn’t feel was necessary. Facebook took it over, however, and Facebook likes adding things. Especially things that could give Facebook more money and power. This turned the ‘gram into a busy platform full of features, and with that came ways of extracting money from users, via sponsored posts/stories etc. And so the original bosses Systrom and Krieger didn’t like that idea. So they left.
Maybe they just don’t like Facebook any more – a bit like a lot of social media managers recently, after a tweak to the notifications system meant that those of us with a few Facebook Pages under our app started getting more updates than the parent of a toddler repeating ‘mum’/’dad’ ad infinitum.
Did this affect you too? Is your phone really warm now too? Have you switched off notifications too? Are you rocking in a corner whilst your phone buzzes around the floor draining it’s battery too?
Have you been so peeved that you’ve thrown your phone into a nearby river and then had to dive in and swim against a strong tide trying desperately to get to it before it surpasses the lab-tested water permeability too?
We’ve been inundated by people asking us to help them remove these notifications.
If you’re ok about not knowing *every tiny little thing* that’s happened then, generally, it’s best to do it on the app itself – click the three dots on the right-hand side of the notification and turn off/disable notifications from that Page. And then get a towel, you’ll get pneumonia after diving into that river.
You can then use your social media time to enjoy the networks, and enjoy things like memes. But be careful, or you might inadvertently giggle at something which has been deemed sexist by a Swedish advertising watchdog – like the ‘distracted boyfriend meme‘. Let me know your thoughts on that one.
Whilst we talk about memes let’s talk about Twitter, where a lot of memes go to live after Reddit’s seen them, shared them, and got bored of them. Over on Twitter, it seems people don’t like the algorithmic timeline and have put pressure on Twitter to go chronologically. Like the old days.
Now that sounds ok if you follow around 12 accounts but most people follow more. A lot more. And so part of me suspects this is Twitter giving people what they *think* they want so they can then turn around a few months later and go – “See? SEEE? We knew you did not actually want to see absolutely EVERYTHING.”
A bit like that demanding toddler constantly asking for something mad like a helicopter, so you buy it a helicopter and it ends up discovering how hard it is to use and much it costs to run and then it cries because it wasn’t the Budgie-esque delight they hoped it would be and the parents can then gloat ‘SEEEEE??’.
*cover image: S.Depolo
