Since Twitter imploded, I am ecstatic that a lot of the wonderful people I have met online have followed me out. It gives me even less reason to think about going back, but I’ve seen some bubbling thoughts about returning. What social network you choose to use shouldn’t be this hard, but I do know why there are these lingering doubts, and it’s mainly to do with FOMO.
The Fear Of Missing Out is a powerful motivator.
There are a few unsolvable questions in my life. What iPhone will I actually use? Which read it later service is the best one? Will I ever stop changing notes apps and actually write some notes? Perhaps the biggest ones revolve around social media. I haven’t been happy with my usage of it for years, but still as yet can’t find a solution.
This is frankly a ridiculous issue to have, but my feeling on Social Media boil down to my relationship with Twitter.
Several people still point to my older post on how I post to my blog using automation. Unfortunately, some of these Shortcuts no longer work or can be done better, so I decided to update them. Here’s all the Shortcuts I use to publish and use micro.blog to help you automate your life.
Micro.blog Post Search I love linking my posts together and making sure I reference and expand on previous thoughts.
Well, first things first. I am not really moving my Mastodon account to micro.blog in the technical sense but rather forwarding everything, but if you’re reading this you want to do the same. Thankfully, the process is pretty easy, and you won’t need much knowledge to do it.
The reason I wanted to do this, is that I can follow Mastodon accounts (or any other ActivityPub service) from inside micro.blog and didn’t see the point using two apps to do the same things.
When I see what some people pay for a blog, I gasp. I mean, I get it, I want to publish things as much as the next person, and I admire the dedication, but the costs some people stand to write on the internet makes my eyes water. I wonder if these types of costs are what stop more people having a blog?
It’s no secret I think everyone should have a blog, they should write about whatever it that they want to write about if only to get it out of themselves.
Due to the billionaire baby, I’ve been thinking far too much about social media. I can see no end to the news coverage of Twitter or the various escapades on Elmo, and other platforms are just revolving conversations of the same. Mastodon feels like you’re spending time with a begrudged ex that won’t talk about anything else. As such, those topics bleed through into my thoughts, into my writing and seemingly into every part of my life.
There are many things I am taking away from my 30 days no Twitter experiment. The feelings of worry that have all but disappeared are a by product of not being plugged into the attention economy, but I’m still not convinced I am getting the best possible results. My attachment to Mastodon has meant that I am still consuming the internet in bite sized chunks and far too often.
There is no doubt that my new favourite place to hang out is a really nice place to be.
I still can’t decide where I want to put my time. Do I follow mastodon users on Micro.blog or follow micro.blog users on Mastodon? At the minute I’m doing both, and thankfully it’s straightforward to find any ActivityPub users on Micro.blog. Even easier with the handy Shortcut!
Grab it [here](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/7b13dc07c9004fde9c2988fc4f1ebcc2) All you have to do is find the user’s account and run the Shortcut. You need to highlight the user’s account address in Safari and share the webpage to the Shortcut.
The cost of living crisis in the UK has been getting progressively worse for the last few months and is destined to continue that way. Price increases to gas and electric, coupled with corporate greed, has seen food costs rocket upwards with dramatic effect.
I am thankful to not be in a financial position where this will kill me, but the constant worry about money is really starting to take its toll.
I needed some time out this afternoon, so went for a walk in the woods with my trusty x100v. I’ve never been one for woodland photography, but love a nice walk in nature. I tried to take a range of photos as the colours are still hanging on from autumn, but judging by the images that actually came out, you would think I had been mushroom hunting.