The Ten Social Media Commandments

Or, How to Enjoy Social Media Without Driving Yourself Mad

Me, as your digital Hammurabi

Last week I did something I don’t like: writing an article on short notice in response to someone else’s. To continue this trilogy, we’re now going to do something I’ve never done with my writing.

Look, I know these pieces can be formulaic. I typically base them around some concept about how modern technology affects our world, I’ll explore it, shoehorn in some historical analogy or random concept that is vaguely related, jam in a few 90s pop culture references, and quicker than you can say Cowabunga, admit I don’t really have an answer.

Today, I’m going to give you answers. Specifically, about how to live in the digital world, particularly, social media. Without too lengthy of a preamble, here’s my original article on social media, but, broadly put, I think it’s a potentially good technology, I think the current versions leave a lot to be desired, and I think it can be used beneficially. But to do so, you need to follow my Ten Commandments of Social Media.

1^st Commandment – Thou Shalt Know Your Platform

Being honest, these first three were all one originally, but then I realized I needed ten. Moses didn’t stop at eight, neither did Biggie. But this way does allow me to set the ground rules for this. For our purposes, let’s limit “social media” to American platforms that allow users to create and share content, interact with each other, and are driven by user generated content. Unfortunately, even that definition allows for a lot of room. Anyone remember the app that let you rate beers and share that with others?¹

As such, we need to focus on the heavy hitters. I’ll primarily be referencing Instagram, Facebook, X, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, and maybe some jokes thrown in about LinkedIn. Actually, certainly some jokes thrown in about LinkedIn. I don’t have the room nor the expertise to be exhaustive but you’re smart enough to apply these lessons broadly. So, before you use any social media platform ask yourself this: What is this platform designed for?

Wait, that’s a bad question. Part of the frustration with social media is that everyone wants to be everything, which makes these apps worse. For example, YouTube is the greatest purveyor of video content on Earth, yet it constantly tries to push these dumb TikTokesque shorts. Stop! Instead, I want you to ask: what is this platform good at?

If you want longform content about almost any subject, YouTube is a gold mine. Instagram excels at its core function: people posting photographs. We’ll talk about X later, but it is a great place to peer into intelligent conversations (hold your disbelief). Facebook is theoretically still good for staying in touch with people, but I’m told is quite good at buying things and joining communities. LinkedIn is good for keeping up with people’s career changes or being bored to death by motivational quotes. Any social media app that you’re tempted to use has something it does well. If you treat them all the same, or use all the dreadful features they push, you’re guaranteed a bad time. Understand what the platform is good at, and only use it for that.

2^nd Commandment – Thou Shalt Evaluate If Thou Shalt Benefit

This is weirdly absent from most social media discourse. People don’t want to admit they addictively use something they don’t enjoy. In people’s defense, the failure to ask yourself if you should be on a social network is rooted in their original adoption. We just moved from online journals (like Xanga) to MySpace to Facebook and then kept downloading whatever was hot once we had smart phones. But you don’t need to do that.

I went through this with TikTok. I downloaded it last year. I quite liked it but realized I was never checking it for a simple reason: I don’t crave short video content delivered on my phone. In fact, I almost never watch media on my phone. Why would I? I own a television that cost me far more than I should have spent. I use social media when I’m waiting for the elevator, waiting through commercials on television, or – and let’s be honest here this is where a lot of social media is consumed – using the toilet.² I want to use apps that match that experience, which is why I mainly use Instagram or X. Thus, I deleted TikTok. Which means once you figure out what a platform is good for, decide if that is something that you even want in your life.

3^rd Commandment – Thou Shalt Choose Consumer or Creator

This is another one that is wildly different on each platform. But it’s important to understand that you can only use social media to consume. In fact, it is almost certainly better experienced that way. Yet, due to how we use it in the early days, many feel a need to both consume and create. But that’s foolish. In fact, if you’re not trying to be a professional content creator, you’re probably better off posting less. Think of how excited you are when you see an IG story from That Friend Who Never Posts versus the one who reposts 18 memes daily? As these numbers from Gallup indicate, even on “mass participation” platforms the actual percentage who use them. Is quite small.

If you want to be a content creator, go for it. Get an account on whatever you think will best serve what you want to put out there and get to work. If you want to just reply to other people or comment on others’ work, do that instead. If you want to just silently browse, embrace that lifestyle. And, again, this is how pricing should work on social media. I refuse to believe LinkedIn wouldn’t be better if you had to pay to post made up inspirational stories.

But if you don’t want to be a creator, embrace privacy. Don’t worry about creating the image of you having some idealized life. Keep it mysterious, that’s much cooler. In fact, posting on social media is inherently uncool, it’s tryhard behavior. Which is fine if you’re a tryhard. If your teenagers don’t get this, force them to watch The Dollars Trilogy, or at least a video about it on YouTube. This dude is infinitely cooler than all social media influencers combined, and no one knows his name.

4^th Commandment – Thou Shalt Earnestly Curate

A great problem with social media – and with life generally – is people want the maximum return with the minimum effort. That does not work. Social media, to have value, must be tended like a garden. Now that you know what you want out of a platform, you must curate that platform to suit that goal.

For example, let’s say you want to become more stylish in how you dress. Go and start an Instagram account just for this purpose. Then begin following accounts that match how you would like to look (don’t worry about following too many, the next commandment addresses this). Begin liking their posts, which will signal to the algorithm to give you more of this. Then go to YouTube and subscribe to channels that address this issue, like and watch their content. Perhaps you may also want to join a Facebook Group on the relevant topic, sign up for a subreddit, or follow similar accounts on X.

Great, now you’re cooking. Of course, the algorithm will still say “hey, are you interested in this thing you’re not interested in?” and you just tell it no. Again, you wouldn’t not tend to a plant – he types while looking to the almost nearly dead palm tree on his left. Treat social media similarly. If your passion is baseball, you can consume baseball content. Or comic books. Or anime. Or terrible  Whatever. If I want to start cooking more of a particular cuisine or style or diet, the first thing I do is load up my social media with accounts about that. I remember when you needed to go to the library and search. Now, about 10 minutes’ worth of work creates a self-perpetuating and growing ability to have endless content on any subject. Just do that! Stop eating whatever the algorithm feeds you, stop having a messy feed because you don’t know what you want, and stop using social media wrong. And if you’re worried about too much bad content?

5^th Commandment – Thou Shalt Ruthlessly Purge

The problem with the algo – other than the far larger problems I’ve discussed – is it can be kind of stupid. Whereas Twitter’s For You tab was as terrible as your LinkedIn feed, X’s is good enough it’s become how I use the app. The problem is that sometimes it gets dumb. One night it randomly decided I was a big fan of Arsenal, which I assure you, I am not.

I said to hold your disbelief about my praise of X from earlier but unleash it now. Yes, it’s actually very beneficial if used properly. It is a platform that delivers the musings of some of the smartest people in the world. The problem is that you need to sift through near endless amounts of raw sewage to do so. I find the trade worth it, you may not, which is fair and your right by virtue of possessing free will. But one thing I’ve done is gotten good at sewage wading. And that is because I ruthlessly purge. If I don’t like something on my timeline, I tell the algorithm. Every time. I don’t go in for rage bait, I just move on.

Is it perfect? No. It often thinks I’m swinging wildly between political affiliations because my problem isn’t the position but how stupidly it’s presented. But it works for me.

Our problem with purging is that we imported real world norms. It’s rude to mute your college roommate who endlessly posts about politics or unfollow your co-worker who won’t stop posting pictures of their kids. Weirdly, people find it rude to block strangers. But this isn’t the real world, it’s the internet. You’re creating content! I don’t find it rude when people don’t read my newsletter. It’s not rude to not watch a television show or movie or read a book or listen to a song. It’s not rude for me to block people the moment I decide they are not going to help my goal, which is to make me smarter. The guy who says “could of” is never going to have anything interesting to say, so just block him. And don’t feel guilty, never feel bad about curating your online world.³

6^th Commandment – Thou Shalt Limit Thy Time

This seems obvious but it needs to be said. Limit your time. For example, I only access YouTube through my television. I only access X and Instagram through my phone and I have screen time limits set on them. You can do such a thing. Take personal responsibility.⁴ Social media – unless you’re a creator – is more enjoyable up until a certain tipping point where it becomes less enjoyable. In part because if you’ve followed my other commandments, you’re consuming the highest quality content. The longer you spend the worse it gets. Think of social media as a giant cookie.

7^th Commandment – Remember the Fallacy of Arguing on the Internet

Next week is largely about arguing on the internet, so I’ll leave this brief: in the entire history of the internet, no one has ever won an argument. I don’t care if Facebook, or YouTube comments sections, or especially X and Reddit are designed to facilitate arguments. You will lose. Because everyone loses. You can have healthy debates, but arguments are always a waste, and no social media platform (except perhaps Substack!) is setup for debates.

8^th Commandment – Honor Thy Anonymity

I’m loathed to praise Zoomers, but they get this so much better than we do. I have the same Twitter and Instagram accounts I’ve had – under my real name – for years. I never check the former and I spend 30 seconds checking the latter. It’s not because I say or do anything controversial – I just want the freedom to say what I want. I also want the freedom to curate the way I want. I check to see what my friends are up to, then I switch to my finsta to look at pictures of men’s clothing, nice landscapes, and food. If you try and serve two masters, you will fail.

9^th Commandment – To Thine Own Self Be True⁵

This is perhaps the most important one, and where our discussion will get uncomfortable. At the end of the day, you need to only be using things that you get value from. If you’re not having fun using Reddit, delete your account. If X is making you angry, remove the app from your phone. If Instagram gets you anxious, long press it and the solution is clear. If you find yourself using LinkedIn, longpress and the solution will present itself.

The thing about technology is that no matter what it is, humans probably survived for a very long time without it, and for most of them, we did pretty well. Social media has been around for less time than the Hacky Sack, and you probably do fine without that one.

Some technologies bend society to their will, for example, the automobile. Which makes opting out more difficult. And to some degree social media has done this, such as government entities only putting things on X or Facebook. So, if you can’t opt out entirely for that, there’s no excuse to not opt out for everything but that.

It’s generally a funny thing about the world how much we do that we don’t need to do. There are very few things you actually need to do in life. Social media is probably not one of those things.

If you genuinely need to be on social media – which almost invariably means it will be somehow related to earning a living – then it is incumbent on you to make that experience as productive and painless as possible. But otherwise, if you are not getting value from it, just delete it. If we’re going to attack social media for what it does wrong – as I’ve done this week, last week, and will do next week – we also need to accept our own responsibility to either use it right or not use it at all.

10^th Commandment – Thou Shalt Subscribe, Like, Comment, and Share to Technopoptimism

The most important one. If you’re not doing this, what even is the point? So please make sure you’re subscribed, like this post, comment on it – even if just to tell me how great I am⁶ - and share it with someone you care about.

If you follow these commandments, your social media experience will improve, even if that means ending it. And I urge you to do so now, because what has been happening – and is accelerating – is a quiet revolution in how social media (and the internet in general) operates. It’s one we don’t talk about, but it’s making it worse and will force it to either build those better networks I keep discussing or, well, it’ll die. But we’ll cover that next week.

1. It sounds like I’m ragging on it, but it’s more that the craft beer thing went from craze to niche. I believe this is part of the future of social media: niche based platforms.

2. This is exclusively where LinkedIn is used.

3. The exception is when X decides I’m really into cat videos. I’m not. I’m not anti-cat, but I’m a dog guy. But I can’t bring myself to dislike – certainly not block! – such accounts until it gets overwhelming. And I feel guilty for it.

4. I have a whole article on this because yes, I know it’s more complicated, but this is already long. Did you only want five commandments?

5. Do you like how I switched from the King James Bible to Shakespeare because the English is similar?

6. Especially if just to tell me how great I am.