So I want to preface that this isn't about twitter or any one social media network in specific. It definitely isn't about cohost, a place I've only been on for about a day and that just seems to be a place wherem'st posts, with no ambition about being the next big mainstream thing.
I also think it's worth mentioning that I have a very hard time with Social™. Too much of it all at once gets overwhelming. I cap out on twitter at somewhere just a little over a hundred follows or so, which, I gather, is pretty low compared to most people.
But a thought I keep having is that I haven't really seen a social site ever try to do anything that even remotely mimics actual human social behaviour. If you think about it for a second, it's actually a really weird and unnatural construct to have an absolutely flat binarymodel of social relationships, where you're either following someone and see absolutely everything they post or share, or you're not, and you don't.
In offline space, we have a more continuous gradient of familiarity - from close friends and/or family (question mark?) that you share almost everything with to coworkers or acquaintances you might have some interesting things in common with, to people you only know through things they produce or do, and have a more transactional than personal relationship with.
I think it's a little weird and strange and often overwhelming when we model all of those different types of relationships under the model of following or not following, where you're either drinking from the firehose of absolutely every item everyone posts or shares, always, forever.
Algorithms don't solve this because they fundamentally don't understand human models of social closeness and besides, are almost always designed to keep you glued to your feeds and maximize engagement which is the opposite of what we want. They're fundamentally not under your control which undermines the entire premise of being able to define your own social boundaries.
I don't think I really have an answer for any of this. It's just something looping through my meat brain a lot that I don't think I've ever seen a good answer to.
addendum:
I think this is in no small part rooted in the poisoned idea that more is always better, and that number to up is always a good thing. More followers, more reach, more interactions. It's not great.
