Question 548: Facebook or Instagram (and why…)
It’s no secret I’m not a Facebook fan. After the 2016 election, I unfriended everyone except my writing partners, and the only reason I kept the account is because Tim and I share a writers’ page on there. I never close the door on editing another anthology with him, should the opportunity arise.
Please note, I didn’t unfriend everyone because of the people whose views differ from mine, including friends and family members who voted for Trump. I didn’t want to read anyone’s views on politics after that election. If I want that, I go to Twitter in very limited doses, mostly to find out what people are talking about, then I go elsewhere to get a more in-depth story.
The only thing I miss about Facebook is the posts of my nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and grand-nephews. Most of them ended up on Instagram, where I’d already had an account.
As for Instagram, even though I know it’s owned by Facebook, which I have distanced myself from even further over the last four years, it’s about people’s photos and not about their text. Some of the accounts I follow are very political, but I only follow the ones that won’t agitate me. I think I probably got an Instagram account because Aaron had one, and he introduced me to the app.
What I most enjoy are the photographic glimpses into their lives that people provide. The stuff that bores some people doesn’t bore me. I like their animals, their meals, their homes, what they see on any given day, their art, their kids, their music (both what they compose and what they listen to), the books they read, the places they travel, their lives. I like the visuals and appreciate their willingness to share. Plus I have fun with my own account on Instagram. I practically stopped using my camera when I was taking several hundred rescue animal photos a week, so the phone camera became a quick and easy way for me to record what I’m doing. The same way this blog has served as a kind of memoir since 2004, Instagram has provided a visual memoir since 2012.
I think this is my first Instagram post on April 14, 2012, Pixie and Penny on our bed at The Compound.
