Social Media as a Community Bulletin Board

The constant itch to check Instagram. You know the feeling.

The urge to peek at your notifications, see what your views are like, check for new comments, or spy on who’s been watching your stories.

If you post things to the internet regularly, chances are it’s become second nature by now. I know it has for me. Instagram has turned into my default home page of the Internet — the thing I check first thing in the morning, after every meeting, and basically any time I have a few spare seconds. It’s almost unconscious.

Recently, I thought:

What if I started treating Instagram more like a neighborhood bulletin board?

You know, the kind that sits outside a coffee shop or at the entrance of a park.

People don’t exactly gather around bulletin boards, waiting for reactions. They walk up, post their flyer, glance at the other notices to see if anything stands out, and then they leave. They move on, because they know people are either going to see it, or they won’t.

When I framed it this way, my relentless refreshing seemed quite silly. Imagine loitering around a real-life bulletin board just to see who interacts with your poster. Only total creeps do that.

Henceforth — no more lurking! This is the new vibe:

Who’s in?

Lets’s chat about it in the comments 👇