Threads is a relatively new social media platform, and I have to admit that it is interesting. I joined in early July 2023, and have been using it to share photos that frankly I’ve never shared anywhere else, before. Because among other things, I have a bubbling stream of photo ideas to share, my interactions on Threads is motivating me dig into my archive and revisit photos I’ve lost touch with. I love the feeling of opening Lightroom classic and finding a photo I hadn’t looked at in months, maybe a year or more, and then finally settling in and editing it. I love the memories that arise while editing, and also enjoy the process of refining my personal approach to the craft: I don’t want to over saturate, add elements that weren’t present or use heavy filters that shortcut the process. As a red-green color blind human, I have to really lean in on RGBs and slider values to determine the color spacing in my photos. I actually love cropping the most, because it forces me to consider the subject, context and framing. It’s my art and I don’t get paid for it. I just love making it.
I can assure you, I really enjoyed capturing this photo, and felt the feelings when I revisited it to edit and share. Yurts hit differently.
But if I take a step back, what am I really doing with these edits…and more importantly, why am I wanting to post these on any social media? I get the gnawing feeling that while Threads Photography is mostly a positive sharing community, it can also lead to mental health issues pretty quickly once that dopamine factory starts churning.
I’m keenly aware of dopamine hits and social media, and I began turning that off almost 4 years ago when I fully deleted my Facebook account. Then a year later I deleted twitter when I found out I had colorectal cancer — I just didn’t need that shit in my life (pardon the pun). I tried Vero when it first launched and then very quickly deleted it; same with mastodon. I observed that all of those platforms, in their own way, contributed to my own feelings of depression. They created a strong addiction to my screens, and left me feeling guilty because of how much time I wasted on them, knowingly.
Now that there’s this new platform called Threads presenting a really robust community of outdoor photographers, I’m excited by the opportunity to create a timeline of photos that I’ve captured over the years. But at what cost? Will I honestly, truly make an impact using the platform? What does that actually look like? Or will I find myself, as I recently did several days ago, feeling downtrodden and marginally depressed that my photos weren’t getting me the “reach” I desired.
Ehhh…WTF, why do I care about reach? It’s ridiculous. I shouldn’t because I am not interested in empty followers… but at the same time I just wrongly associated likes with value — as in maybe my photos weren’t of value to others solely because they didn’t get the same number of likes or even comments as I was expecting or hoping. I’ll probably have people telling me that “those things don’t matter” and “be like me, I just share for fun”. Well, I get that, but I am human and well aware that I’m unable to manage social media so perfectly as you are, bub. And I bet dollars to donuts that you really do care, or you wouldn’t want to share to a community of usernames you’ve probably never met in person and most likely never will.
A platform like Threads, all shiny and new and filled with (mostly) positive spinning interactions can (and does) have a dark underbelly that will be exposed. I keep asking myself: What’s in it for me? Trading my photos for likes? Honestly? Is this really what I want to do in this period of my life?
Here’s something I’d absolutely love to be doing with my life, on a regular basis. Washington Coast.
But, what else would I do instead? I’ve got this blog here at terraVisto, but it’s not the same, man. Blogging is a massively richer platform for sharing imagery as galleries or single photos within long form stories. I can frame it, I can add color to it, and I can wrap a story around the imagery in a meaningful way that short form tweets/threads/posts could never meet. It’s just not that instant gratification! I used to be totally ok with blogging, in fact I was happy to go back to the older days where a blog was the (only) thing to do. I feel comfort in that. But my blog doesn’t necessarily prompt me to dive into my archive on a daily basis and scratch that itch of tackling the 1,517 or so odd photos I’ve tagged as “editMe” in LR Classic.
I do know that while I get gratification from sharing, and seeing people interact with my imagery, the flip side is that I also observe myself physically reacting with anxiety and depression when I don’t get a response, or, when that photo I truly cherish just doesn’t pique the interest of others. But let’s be honest here. It’s really a fight against the algorithm.
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with social media since the days of MySpace. I love how social media connects. And I also also hate how it connects. These algorithms, these nameless, faceless arbiters of what information your brain gets to process, and who gets to see what you share… they feel slimy to me. If you go back to the purpose of the social media platform: we are the product. That’s why it is free. But in order to use it, we have to submit ourselves to its algorithm, and keep on scrolling, spending our minutes inside its walls so that we get pre-conditioned for when the big shoe falls: advertising.
Because advertising is definitely what’s going to happen to Threads. Get users hooked by building a critical mass of “followers”, let users feel the dopamine hit which keeps them coming back for more (and more) dopamine hits, then hit users with a light sprinkle of advertisements in a way that pokes yet doesn’t poke too hard. The ads annoy, but only slightly. Six months later, there are now many more adverts that users have to jump through in order to see the content that they were used to seeing, but still, its not that bad because now all of those adverts are targeted to align with their avatar’s preference. Nothing to see here (except advertisements), keep scrolling and collecting dopamine.
I see this all coming down the line, and I’ve felt how my heart responds when the dopamine hits drop in cadence. Given the time of year right now (December), I definitely don’t want to carry over the unhealthy habits of 2023 into 2024. I want a clean break, but also want to maintain some connection to the few who actually interact with me.
I think the next step here is to fall back to this blog and stay the course, occasionally writing about my photos and adventures. I’ve deleted the Threads app on my phone and don’t plan to add it again in the future. I do keep the web version of Threads logged in on my laptop/iPad if I feel like sharing, but it’s at least 2 extra steps outside the magnetic sphere of “I’m bored, lemme check my phone”, so that’s positive. Bonus: it doesn’t send me notifications!
There’s no need to stare at your phone when a crackling fire is present. Idaho.
I’m going to stick to editing whenever I can and revisiting old photos on a geography-by-geography (yes I’m a total nerd about managing my Lightroom collections by geographic location) basis. This will have to do for now, until I can a) manage my relationship with social media in a more healthy way ¹, or b) the mythical photo-art-adventure app comes out that doesn’t leverage dopamine neural pathways to keep users engaged.
Thanks for reading!
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¹ Personally, I am in the process of doing the hard work to become more adept at witnessing my thoughts instead of reacting to them, which is really building mental strength to watch these social media interactions happen without letting my emotions rule, or my thoughts/samskaras drive my responses. But I’m just not there yet. Do I use Threads as a “trainer” giving me numerous “reps” to get to the promised land of artfully not giving a shit and letting things go? Or do I say “Now is not the right time” and stop using it, finding a different way to evolve my abilities over a longer period of time.
