Over on the blog iA (from the makers of the iA writing app), there is some lamenting the loss of the rich connected communities of individual bloggers that existed a few years ago.

Individuals used to actually be in control of their creativity.
Using a website or blog as a personal hub, and then networking and cross promoting other bloggers that they connected with.

Now, in order to connect, all our thoughts and ideas and art and photographs and comments and opinions must be first plugged into one of the monolithic social media environments.

Not so long ago it used to be a world wide web.
Today it is Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter.
It all becomes their content. And we are their providers.

The people over at iA feel that the web has pretty much lost its spirit.
It has become manipulative and banal, and we as individuals no longer control the lay of the land. Not even that tiny bit of land we are standing on.

Facebook and Twitter and gmail and google and the rest, do not really want us to connect unless it is through them. And on their terms and conditions.

But the WWW is not deceased. It has just fallen into a stupor. It can still rise up and re-network itself right around (and through) the social media superpowers.

The writers at iA urge us to take up this challenge and start blogging and connecting and linking and sharing all over again.

If you are one of those old or young bloggers, please join in. Drop Facebook, drop Twitter and drop Medium for original thought. Own your traffic. You can use them to engage in discussion. But don’t get lost in there. Write daily. Publish as often as you have something to say. Link to other blogs.

This sounds important to me.
Social media has become one giant corporate controlled dopamine pump.
There you go….A little hit here, a little hit there.
It wants to manipulate your behaviours and velcro your decisions to its own intentions.
Above all it wants wants to own your time. As much of it as it can steal.

I have become pretty disillusioned with Facebook as an environment. Not so much what individual people are posting, but the darker forces that seem to be at work behind the feeds.
Twitter seems to be devolving into just one big argument. Instagram has lost its initial raw photographic charm as we bustle to present our heavily curated perfect lives.
And so it goes….

Re-blogging the web. I for one, feel ready for the challenge.