Let the substance lead the way

Scrolling Twitter or Instagram, a vague sense of unease begins to build up.

The medium is designed to be frustrating. It provides a little bit of information and evokes a little bit of emotion, but rarely enough to make you change. Rarely enough to inspire you.

A couple factors conspire to make browsing timelines not suited to doing something with what we read and watch.

Most people scrolling on their phone often do it in a less than ideal state of mind. Even if the information is useful, a tired mind will not make use of it.

Most people scrolling the timeline also aren’t looking for long-form formats that would deepen their understanding. They are looking for easy distractions. A swatch of colors, sounds, and letters that will help them forget the dreary reality of life but for a moment.

Next, a lot of people post selfish things. Likes are like tiny nudges towards narcissism, and so many people fall into the trap of thinking that other people care.

The contentification of art has led people to do mindlessly. To regurgitate what they’ve consumed without digesting it, instead of communicating with a generous and genuine intention in mind.

And then there’s the fact that the design of the timeline doesn’t encourage reflection and careful consideration of each post. Why invest some actual effort when there’s always another post around the corner. Why face the possibility of having to do something substantial with the information when you can just ‘like’ something?

As an aside, ‘liking’ is strange. You read something interesting and instead of pondering it, or acting on it, or messaging the person who wrote it, you like it. What does it mean to ‘like something’? It’s an empty placeholder for action. An action without substance.

All of these factors conspire to ensure that only rarely does a message resonate. And of those messages that do resonate, many are written to do so on a superficial level: to elicit a bit of emotion that will lead people to follow an account. It’s a communication indended to get RTs, not to change anything.

And so, the point is simple: the feed is terrible for the application of information. It’s a format that is designed in a way that promotes passivity, inaction, and low commitment to any particular course of action. Yet, it can still be useful with the right attitude.

Abandon the feed-first approach. Do the substance-first approach.

For consumption, skim the feed, support the people who are doing something interesting, but fundamentally search for better sources of information: books, long-form podcasts or videos,… The feed is but an index of ideas.

For production, create something of substance, and then share it. Don’t create with sole intent of growing one’s account. Don’t let yourself be constrained by character counts and pre-existing formats. Let the substance dictate the format and length, not arbitrary limits of characters and posting frequency.

Make things as long as they need to be to do what you meant them to do.

Write an article instead of a tweet because the article will have enough context and weight that it actually does something. Or shoot a longer video. Or record a podcast. Let the substance lead the way.

The feed is but an index. It’s a sign post. You wouldn’t want to spend your life reading signposts.