I'm starting to think that the hyper-engagement of fighting over every $CANDIDATE, $CAUSE, and $OUTRAGE is going to drive people away from Social Media.

I started doing blackouts on Twitter and Facebook every time some major news event occurs because I just don't want to hear about it. And the one thing that I have noticed is a slow consolidation of my Facebook feed to just a narrow slice of hyper-engaged people who post multiple times a day about whatever the latest outrage is -- the broader spectrum of users haven't deleted their accounts, but most on my "Friends" list haven't posted in years. I suspect a lot of my friends are disengaged from the platform precisely because they have zero interest in fighting their loud, opinionated relatives of opposing political sides.

I miss the days where everyone was just avatars, nick-names, personalities. It still seems odd to me to be expected to mix my virtual and real identities, since the "internet culture" when I got online insisted that you do not share your real-life identity* and Facebook came along and turned that entirely upside down.

*It was common practice on some of the bulletin boards that I frequented in the late nineties for users to maintain multiple accounts under different nicknames and personas, and even have conversations with themselves.