And I've fallen behind a day, my apologies.

Tonight's event at the Kadist looks interesting, a discussion of the 'Wages for Facebook' project between curator Christina Linden and one of the project's founders, NYC-based curator, artist, and writer Laurel Ptak. Full disclosure: I do some work for the Kadist, but I can solidly recommend this because Linden is an excellent thinker and speaker, and its important to start to start to think through how we navigate our experience of social media. 

I have many friends who have dropped off of Facebook in recent months and I expect more to follow, for them its is a place where time is lost. For me, it is a highly productive space. When I produce events at our gallery and, at them, see people I don't know I often ask how they found us, and the most common answer is Facebook. The ability to access content separated by one or two degrees from what is produced by our immediate friends is a powerful tool, as is the, if only virtually, expansion of our circle of influence. I always think people with bad social media experiences are doing it wrong, befriending the wrong people, joining the wrong groups, or failing to use simple ad blocking add ons to their browsers. Facebook is a tool, at a fundamental level, and like all tools there are best practices for its use. 

But unlike most tools, Facebook (and social media and google etc.) uses us back. Our attention is monetized, clicks and page views turn into dollars. It is naive to think I’m the best customer for these services; like a person good at banking who never gets fees, I tag along for a free(ish) ride by not clicking ads (or blocking them altogether). But I and anyone using the web, am a number, these companies’ valuations are directly proportional to the scale of their user base.

This or that social media site is not for everybody, and soon enough we'll see people ready to sign-off because they are 'so sick of what Instagram has become' Ever aware that the 'social' of social media is not the same as in real life, we should never the less be careful and avoid cloistering ourselves away from the wider world (which cares about sports and the Oscars or whatever). Our relationship to the internet is in constant flux, its a negotiation of our and these services' responsibilities to each other and the world at large - a discussion/negotiation that needs to be had.