Loose Threads And What's Next

It's only been a couple of weeks since Instagram launched Threads, its Twitter-equivalent, and already it seems like people have tired of it. Engagement is down, and I find myself checking it less and less frequently. It has its good points -- "Twitter without the Nazis" is a good thing -- but not launching with a chronological feed leaves it unsatisfying, with a lot of randomly timed posts from random users, many of whom I don't follow or wish to follow, instead of what I'd like to see, which is the latest from users I want to follow. None of this makes me want to spend more time back on Twitter, but it's not making me spend a lot of time with Threads, either.

Hold on... less time on Twitter, not too much time on Threads. Lemme add that together. Hey, look, less time on social media!

That'll work for me.

The obvious, trite thing to say is that we all spend too much time on social media, but it's true. Even if it's hacky to joke about how everyone walks around with their noses in their phones, everyone DOES have their noses in their phones. If Twitter has been trashed with neo-blue checks, Threads is inadequate and a little too "positive" and not newsy enough, and BlueSky is... you know, I don't use BlueSky because I haven't gotten an invite code yet, but I imagine it's Threads with fewer users. Whatever. All I know is that I'm spending less time on social media, even as I will, of course, have plenty of time to do so after August 15th. Other than trying to go back and acknowledge all the well-wishers on Facebook (if I haven't responded to yours, sorry, it's all been a little head-spinning), I've been trying to cut back and do other things with my time.

Which is to say, things change. Media consumption changes. That's what happened to radio -- other stuff came along, some people decided that the other stuff was better, some decided that they didn't need what radio was providing, some considered what radio was providing was insufficient or not good enough. Podcasting goes through that, too -- you listen to a show for a while, you find other shows you like better, you forget the first one. It happens. Once it does happen, it's hard to undo. Or maybe your personal schedule changes and you just don't have the time for radio, or podcasts, or social media or TV or personal hygiene. Maybe you should keep up with the latter, but as for the rest, that's show biz. Them's the breaks. C'est la vie.

So you move on. You move on from Twitter and Threads, you move on from radio, you move on from podcasting, you go do something else. Whatever you move on to might be better, or it might disappoint, in which case you move on again. Change can be intimidating, but it can be positive and exciting. If, to pick a time at random, 28 years ago, someone had described to you what you'd be doing with your time in 2023, you wouldn't even have recognized it. If you could see five or ten years into the future from now, you might not recognize that, either. Will we be using the same social media? Will we be TikToking or Threading or tweeting in 2033? Will radio still be the same? (I'm assuming it'll exist.) Will podcasting be a mass medium or niche? Will there be any print newspapers left in existence? Will it be 150 degrees with 90% humidity?

We don't know, but it'll be interesting to see what happens. Maybe I'll be writing about it someplace. You never know.

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It's business as usual, sort of, at All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics show prep page. Click here for that, and you can also follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics and find every story individually linked to the appropriate item. Still got a few weeks of that left.

You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well, and that'll work for Threads as well. And I'm on Mastodon at @pmsimon@c.im.

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As for the elephant in the room, I'll address the demise of this place shortly. Still got some columns to go.

Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor (until August 15th, that is)
AllAccess.com
perry@pmsimon.com
Twitter @pmsimon
Instagram (and Threads) @pmsimon
Mastodon @pmsimon@c.im