Social media
The global town square is dead
While the digital town square never truly existed, the centralised social web is making way for connecting specialised communities instead
"Twitter" by chriscorneschi is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 
For a while there, Twitter did feel like a town square.
This wasn’t because most people were on it. Indeed from a numbers perspective, many other networks competed or even dwarfed the number of active Twitter users at any given time. Twitter was important because it was given validity via traditional media networks, which gave it a level of importance around overall public opinion that it probably didn’t deserve.
Trending topics were given mainstream coverage, even when it wasn’t clear just how many users were actually posting about said topics at any given time. They became an easy way for those with an agenda (positive or negative) to push their narrative to an audience wider than those who simply saw it on Twitter; as long as they could get it on the trending list.
This accelerated an already growing trend of posting extreme viewpoints for attention; because social networks were always tuned for maximum attention and not reasonable discussion. That trend then migrated into a media industry hit by revenues moving away from their industry & desperate for new income streams to hold up a crumbling business model.
While all this was happening without Twitter anyway, its real time nature became a central point for an industry looking for answers to a disruption they didn’t plan for.
For a lot of us, when you heard that something was going on and you wanted the latest information about it; you no longer turned on the news, you jumped on Twitter. This is what gave the service its perception of a global town square.
However, even before the events of the past few years; things were changing.
The use of Twitter by Donald Trump to help give him the exposure (amplified through traditional news networks) to enough people disenchanted with the status quo of politics to hand him the Presidency, followed by the mental overload of the pandemic in 2020; left many mentally exhausted, disenchanted at the societal effects of this globally connected world, and reviewing their use of social media & need to be constantly aware of everything going on in this world.
Combined with an increasing concern over the power a few Tech companies had over the global discussion and increased threats of regulation as a result; a move away from centralisation was already underway.
The Musk effect
In the same way that Twitter accelerated the move towards the centralised social web; Musk’s purchase of Twitter & actions since have accelerated the move away from it.
While some are still hoping the replicate its reach and influence such as Meta’s Threads service; other services which have been active for many years as an alternative to the centralised giants have seen massive growth; most notably Mastodon.
I’m not going to get into Mastodon, the Fediverse or the ActivityPub protocol here. Just know that Mastodon is a collection of thousands of small, generally community run, servers where it’s possible to communicate with each other regardless of server; however you generally interact the most within your server community.
With each community able to manage their own needs, there’s no centralised set of rules or social norms; but each is catered for their own audience.
While Mastodon is one example of a Twitter-like yet decentralised social web; the reality is beyond the technical implementations of each, people are now moving towards services where they prefer to interact like minded individuals with similar interests instead of joining a single service looking for the “global” view.
Reddit maybe the front page of the internet for some, but a lot of its value is in the variety of communities based on specific interests or locations. Discord has also grown in popularity over the years; initially as a gaming communications platform but then expanding to cater for interests of all types.
While Reddit and Discord might appear similar to the single centralised social model; their primary usage is more aligned to connecting like-minded people in smaller communities instead of connecting everyone to what is perceived to be the global community.
The future
While I don’t know if there will be another Twitter-like service that will have the same unifying influence; I believe that there won’t be one anytime soon.
What we are seeing is a correction of the oversharing, global attention-seeking social usage that the world undertook as we got our first taste of true global connectivity through the prevalence of mobile technology and effectively unlimited connectivity.
I think there is always a desire to connect with the world; but I think the focus of our online social efforts is moving towards quality over quantity. To connect locally; whether that’s based on location, or through common interests.
Taking control: What I use to try and be more intentional with my phone usage
First, this is not a post to brag about how I’ve cracked the distraction pull of the smartphone and turned it into a productivity machine.
Like many of you, I’ve battled with my phone taking too much of my focus and not utilising the tools available to improve my workflow. I also believe being in control of your phone use is something that needs to be constantly worked on and not something to be “solved”.
With that in mind, I have spent a good part of a few years looking at ways to improve the use of my smartphone in order to serve me and not control me. The below is a list of things I do at the moment of writing this in early 2024.
While I have an iPhone at the moment, and this guide may feature iPhone specific apps; I’ll try and outline Android options for suggestions where I can. My last Android phone was the Galaxy S23 Ultra, so I’m familiar with modern Android and its capabilities. However, as with everything in technology it moves fast. So there maybe something I’ve missed in regard to Android here.
Alright, let start with what I feel is actually the biggest distraction of phones that many people don’t admit to: work apps.
Truly disconnecting from the work environment
The modern always connected world has somehow translated into the always connected workplace. The whole growth of the Blackberry organisation was built on constant connectivity to the office (I lived that for a short while).
One of the things I’ve focused on in the past few years is making sure I’m leaving work stuff during my work hours and not letting it take up mental space during my private time. This isn’t always possible for some, but for many I suspect they involuntarily give work items more mind share outside of work than it deserves.
Do you ever open up your work email or chat app while out of work just out of habit? Do you convince yourself you need to keep up on things in order to be prepared the following work day? Some apps have some controls built in that can be configured to help here. Microsoft’s Teams and Outlook apps have a Quiet times function to silence all notifications during certain time periods.
At the moment, what I have found works for me is completely blocking work apps outside of my work hours via an app called ScreenZen.
Setting up blocking on ScreenZen
ScreenZen is a free app on the iOS App Store & Google Play Store for Android. I have only had experience with how it works on iPhone, so I will be only referencing that version. I’m also not associated with the app at all, just a fan of a free useful application
On iOS, ScreenZen leverages Apple’s built in Screen Time and Downtime features; but expands the capabilities to be far more powerful. As an example, while Downtime allows you to set time limits for certain apps and block access after that limit is reached; the block is trivially easy to bypass via a simple input of your Screen Time passcode.
ScreenZen on the other hand allows you to implement Strict Blocks on specific apps, in specific time periods. In the below screenshot, I have setup ScreenZen to block my work apps completely both outside of business hours and on weekends.
There’s no easy bypass of the block without going into ScreenZen itself to adjust. In addition, ScreenZen allows you to hide a blocked app completely; so you won’t be able to even find the app in the app list or Spotlight search! Out of sight, out of mind. Using an app when it hits a scheduled block time? Bam, no warnings just kicked straight out of the app. This is a good thing, a firm reminder that it’s time to stop.
Don’t want to block apps completely, ScreenZen also allows you to simply set timers upon opening the app to be more mindful and think about it before opening them as well as implementing time limits before prompting you again to avoid endless doom scrolling.
For Android users, it is well worth trying to see if it’s just as effective on there. Hopefully it utilises and expands Android’s Digital Wellbeing features in a similar way. However Android does have a few built in services that may help here.
One is a focus mode within Digital Wellbeing. Originally designed to block distracting apps and focus on work, I did use it to block work apps and focus on life pretty effectively. Android also has a pretty robust Work Profile functionality which effectively separates work and personal apps and allows you to turn off the Work Profile at specific times.
Certain manufacturers of Android phones have also built their own digital management features into their devices; with Samsung’s Modes and Routines allowing for a wide range of customisations for how apps and services work on your phone based on time or location.
What about social media apps?
Of course, all of the functionality above can be used to manage social media apps as well. This is a balance I’m still working out as I genuinely enjoy some of the discussions on some social services, but I also identify that it occasionally consumes more of my time and energy than I would like.
While there are services that manage my use, my main tool for social media is actually removing the app from my phone and limiting my social usage to the personal laptop wherever possible.
I deleted the Twitter app long before I closed my account completely. Threads by Meta is quickly taking over that mantle, so I occasionally delete the app if it gets too much. Instagram is pretty much always uninstalled except when I’m on holidays etc.
Another option is to use built in app functionality to limit the dopamine parts of the service. As an example, YouTube (secretly a very effective social network) is a far more controlled experience once you turn off Watch History. No more recommended video spirals, no more random Shorts, still have access to all your subscriptions and manual searching for videos you are actually looking for at the time.
A few other tips to help
Being mindful of notifications and defaulting to ‘No’
Notifications are designed to hijack your attention. But with every app wanting notification access, our attention is being hijacked constantly. This advice isn’t new if you’ve been looking at mindful phone usage and digital minimalism but it’s still worth repeating: turn off all unnecessary notifications. This includes trimming down the notifications that go to your Smartwatch if you have one.
My default mode now for all new apps installed is simple; notifications are always disabled by default. If I find an app where I would like notifications to come through, I will enable but then tweak the notification settings in the app and phone settings to ensure the notifications are working for me and not the app.
Simplify first. Don’t get caught up in being “productive”
My final tip for you is avoiding an easy trap if you start looking at being mindful of your phone usage online. You will quickly end up down a spiral of productivity porn full of references to PKMs, second brains, to-do apps, calendar apps etc all promising to help you improve your productivity.
If you want to head down that path, that’s something for you to decide. However, even if you do I would highly recommend simplifying your phone usage first before you start heading down the productivity minefield.
Productivity wise what works for me? Well it’s actually not trying to do too much productivity stuff on my phone unless I want too.
I use Apple’s calendar and reminders app and share some calendars and lists with my wife to organise basic household activities and items. I personally use Logseq for note taking and Drafts for quick references, but neither are some sort of knowledge management systems to improve my workflow or build a second brain; they are just tools I get use from.