I recently had a friend reach out who asked me about being active on social media as an introvert. Of course, like almost everything introversion/extroversion is a spectrum and not a binary, but I definitely am on the introvert side of the midline. For my own brand of introversion, not universal in any way, hard boundaries and being able to participate in in-depth conversations on my own terms and timeline is everything. While I have been privileged not to have any true nastiness happen to me on social media, I think several skills I have developed as an introvert, such as carefully leaving situations/people who are overtaxing, means that I am quick to block people or topics without explanation. Generally, in real life, I leave the situation carefully with an explanation, but online blocking/leaving is acceptable behavior.
I also find that I am better at written communication, having time to think through my replies in any conversation than needing to react in a quick, verbal manner. This is not to say that all of my social media is carefully thought through, anyone who has followed my tweets and replies during Historians at the Movies (#HATM) knows I share quick takes with lots of typos.
I use a variety of social media to share detailed parts of my personality and others to share a more public persona. The social media platforms I use to share details are private groups with hard boundaries/rules. For example, one Discord group has a hard rule that nothing gets shared outside the group without clear permission. A private Facebook group I am part of around being child-free does not allow any shaming for the reasons someone might be child-free. I find I share more details about my life on these “private” (nothing on social media is truly private) than in my more general feeds. Part of this is that having a specific focus for the discussions means that I do not have to exert emotional energy choosing topics or setting the boundaries for conversations.
These specific channels allow me to be more superficial on my more public social media accounts. This way, my website, and Twitter feed focus more on my career and my Facebook/Instagram are more about my more superficial personal life. Generally, when I am professionally networking I share my Twitter/Website information, and more recently Instagram. For a while, I tried having multiple active Instagram accounts, but that became too complicated.
It also helps to sometimes think of social media participation as a chore, similar to writing. I am writing this blog as part of an online writing retreat run by Lisa Munro, having paid for and placed the retreat on my personal calendar means that I will get the writing done. I also place Historians at the Movies on my calendar when possible, as it makes sure that I have socialization on weekends when I am alone.
Watching my friend transition to using social media as self-promotion made me realize how much of the platforms were designed for introverts and not for extroverts who thrive on immediate reactions and the energy of being with others. I am now curious if newer social media platforms, such as Tik-Tok are better for extroverts. Of course, all current usage of social media needs to the fact in the fact that many of us have been isolated in some way for the past 20 months, and cannot be used as a data set outside of this specific time period, but new social media platforms that better fit the needs of extroverts may be one result of the past almost two years.