#thursdayvibes Changes are coming to the blog. But that is nothing new. The blog has never stopped evolving from the original JoeFaraceBlogs I created with Apple’s iWeb software to the various iterations it has taken over the years. And it’s going to be changing again. Not so much in physical format, although I would like to make some minor changes if I can afford to make them but in content. You will see that happen gradually over the next several weeks and months. So if you notice that one of you favorite features is no longer where it once appeared, there’s a reason for that and all will be revealed,as they say, “in the fullness of time.”
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
The most beautiful people wear their hearts on their sleeves and their souls in their smiles.—Marc Anthony
I’ll admit to having a love/hate relationship with social media. I was attracted to using social media to communicate with readers of my book and magazine articles to inform them about posts on this and my car photography website/blog. But it doesn’t seems to have done that good a job with that because, according to site analytics, most of my readers come from search engines. If you disagree with that statement and find you would prefer that I use certain social media platforms, please click Contact and tell me about it. In the meantime, there’s this…
According to FencedAI, Too much usage of social media apps can lead to mental health issues such as anxiety disorder and depression. If you spend several hours on social media, it could adversely affect your mood and state of well-being
A study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania asked 143 students about Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. Each was surveyed to assess their mood and well being at the start of the study and were monitored to assess their level of social media use. There were two groups, with a control group asked to maintain their normal level of social media use, while the other was asked to limit their social media time to 10 minutes per platform per day.
Findings published in the Journal Of Social And Clinical Psychology, showed participants who limited their use on the sites showed significant reductions in loneliness and depression over three weeks compared to the control group. Both groups showed significant decreases in anxiety and fear of missing out, which the researchers say could be due to the participants’ increased level of self-monitoring.
A UK study by the Royal Society for Public Health and Young Health Movement showed that when surveying 1,500 people aged 14 to 24, they found Instagram had the most negative effects on body image, sleep and fear of missing out and mental health overall. Instagram and Snapchat “are very image-focused and it appears they may be driving feelings of inadequacy and anxiety in young people.”
I stopped using Facebook several years ago, mostly because of trolls. I stopping using it fo six months before cancelling my account and during that time Facebook decided to create fake posts for me, like “Here I am at the Denver Boat Show.” I didn’t make that post and didn’t even know that landlocked Colorado even had a boat show. As to Twitter, I found that as more and more of my followers left, I decided to join then and left that social media months ago.
And to prove that I’m not a Luddite, you can find me on Instagram, at least for now. As the overuse of video and emphasis on influencers diminishes it’s usefulness a place for photographers to hang out, this seems part of a trend to make all social media, all things to all people and, to me anyway, makes it less likely that I will continue using it. Threads? Who knows what the rest of the year might bring. But the changes to this site and blog? They are a’coming…