Seth Haines's Blog, page 4

National Recovery Month and 2 Ways to Participate

It’s been an insane two weeks, but I’m back today with some big news. Read along.

Welcome to National Recovery Month

It’s September, which means it’s National Recovery Month, a month the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration uses to raise awareness around issues of recovery and to celebrate ...

QAnon, Radicalization, and the Cult of Personality (A Social Media Post)

“More than once I should have lost my soul to radicalism if it had been the originality it was mistaken for by its young converts.”

― Robert Frost

1. QAnon and the Phenomenon of Radicalization

Addiction, algorithms, the commodification of attention, the collection of data—these are only the base issues with social media and the rise of influencer culture. What happens when the algorithms direct you to darker vortexes, when they grab your attention, lead you into more fringe addictions? What hap...

The TikTok Heist (It's All About the Data)

The social networks have us right where they want us. Addicted as we are, plugged in as we are, we feed data to the beast—product searches, social media preferences, movie picks, book reviews, the bars and restaurants we frequent, vacation destinations, music preferences, sexual preferences, political preferences, animal preferences, any old preference. They eat our data, devour it, store it away like fat for the winter. They use that data to create unique user profiles. And what do they do with...

The Social Media Groove (And an Update on the Experiment)

I’m continuing my series on Social Media and the Influencer™ Culture and how it’s disrupting our society. It’s turned us all into idea machines, into personal marketeers. It’s incentivized us to gain (F)ollowers and build (I)fluence by playing to the darker emotions—anger, fear, pride, lust, and the like. It’s created a culture of denial, and it’s led too many of us to believe that good ideas and deep work can’t be pushed forward without using the social media apparatus. In all of this, it’s cr...

The Response of a Social Media Addict

Denial As an Indicator of Addiction

As I’ve written this series on social media and the ways we attempt to use it to increase influence (and drive sales), I’ve heard from some of you. Particularly, two writers and a musician’s wife have reached out and shared their own opinions about the highs and lows of using social media to promote work. These creators—blessed be the creators—recognize the truth: social media can provide viable means of connecting with others, though that connection often come...

Today's Exercise: Learn The Arguments Against Social Media

On Tuesday, I shared the implicit formula of social media, how we compete for more followers and command more attention so we can influence social, political, and economic decisions. The systems—Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever—have trained us to pull people into their platforms. And once the people find themselves in the feeds, they’re sitting ducks, ready to be mind-hacked.

Trying to understand this sort of mind-hacking, I’ve turned to a variety of thinkers, social media skeptics...

If I Only I Could Make You Angry Or Afraid: How to Win Followers and Influence People

I’m continuing my series on social media, influencers, and the impact of personal mass communication. Last week, so many of you reached out via email and shared your amazing insight. Though I can’t respond to all, I read each one. Thanks.

The Implicit Formula

We are a people awash in opinion. With the proliferation of social media, writers, pundits, politicians, and the average Joe have been avatarized, turned into digital talking heads. And for some--those in the publishing industry, for instance...

The Problem With Influencer Culture Is...

Yesterday, I asked you to share your thoughts about the modern social media landscape. Wowzers… did you ever! I received so many emails in response that I simply cannot respond to all of them. Rest assured, I’m getting to them slowly but surely.

Today’s piece is long but important. Please stick with it.

The Distribution Problem

I am the son of a literature teacher. A damned fine one at that.

Susan Haines is a bona fide language lover, a National Board Certified, former department chair who passed ...

Resisting the Media

Down With the Influencers

I cut my last series short for a variety of reasons. Chief among them were these: I’d made my point; the sermonizing tone of the series was tiring me; the series was beginning to feel tedious and emotionally unappealing. There was another reason, though, an inkling of sorts. Something was gnawing at the edges of my brain, but I couldn’t seem to slow down long enough to scratch it out on paper. Two nights ago, it came to me.

In a dream, I found myself at a seventeenth-cen...

The Last Word on Politics (For a While)

The One Thing in Politics: A Final Word

This notion of chasing the ultimate good in politics (the One Thing) is not so simple. I’m no Pollyanna, and I have a pretty firm understanding of the complexities of the geopolitical world. A communicator by trade, I have some grasp of the war of words constantly waged by both the right-facing media and the left-facing media. I see the manipulations and know just how much it complicates the vote. I wish it weren’t so.

I’m closing this series out today becau...