Be the Support You Wish You Had: Engage with Your Community!

Sometimes, people interact with others only for personal gain. Scary, right?

We see these kinds of interactions with narcissistic individuals—those who care so deeply for themselves that they disregard the feelings and opinions of others. We also see this with greed driven individuals, or in sweeter words, individuals seeking profit to pull them through a personal situation.

I made the decision to switch to Steemit as my main source of internet interaction a while ago. I wasn’t getting the genuine social engagement I hoped for through other social networks, and was getting a thousand times more drama than I wanted.

While I still post casually on my Instagram account, my facebook presence has almost entirely disappeared. Honestly, if I had cell service at my house I might not even engage with Instagram anymore, preferring to contact friends via text, calls and snail-mail instead of through IG’s messaging system.

When I put thought and personal connection into creating a post, I choose to share it with a community that can benefit from my contributions and can literally support me on my journey.

The engagement on Instagram these days is so rarely genuine. I get lots of comments that were clearly copy-pasted onto every other relatable image, lots of followers who immediately unfollow. Lots of flitting, mindless interactions.

Many posts are either direct ads or hidden from our feed due to the in-depth advertising algorithms. When you can connect with real people, lots of folks choose only to share simplistic miniature word-voms under a picture of their cat followed by a casual thirty tags on whatever-is-trending-at-the-moment.

_{(If that was a perfect description of your instagram, please don’t take it personally)}

Unless you follow very selective accounts, it's likely that your instagram feed won't be bursting with quality content. But the fewer people you follow, the less interactive the platform is—especially as these posts are formatted to be scrolled through quickly, meaning casual users rarely read the full caption.

Designed to share mobile photos, Instagram simply isn’t a system that was created for expansive + in-depth community support.

Recently, with steem value having gone down, we have been seeing groups of users getting less interactive. Posting less, or not even bothering to comment or engage with the users in their feed… Hive account@canadianrenegade just shared a great post right along these lines-- encouraging steemians to keep grinding our blockchain gears and continue to contribute to this community.

How can we grow and find the support we need if we do not interact with our economy and the individuals which make it so unique? Especially in times of need, we need to be aware of the reasons we are here and what we are looking to get out of our social media interactions.

Let’s be honest… what are you spending your time on instead?

_{(Maybe you have legitimate reasons to be off steemit, but I know when I catch myself mindlessly flipping through stories on Instagram I try to consciously snap out of it and put my energy towards actually supporting people, and maybe getting some real support in return.)}

Hungry for more?

Check out my latest posts:

A Life Changing Evolution in Steemit Interaction: A Must Read for All Steemit Users (collab with Hive account@notconvinced)
Alright My Friends, It's Time to Give This Platform a Name! (collab with Hive account@notconvinced)

Choosing Consciousness + Conscience: Be the Change You Wish to See
Real Talk: Releasing Self-Doubt and Victim Mentality
Notes on Language: 'Superiority' in Spiritual Speech

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