There are tumblr bloggers who obfuscate their communication by hiding entire posts in tags. My colleague, Molly Templeton introduced me to what she calls “delete culture”—the act of removing social media posts from the Internet that are no longer relevant to the exact moment you are in.
She’s shown me Instagram users who limit their accounts to a carefully curated collection of nine photographs that fit in the above-the-scroll grid. We’ve seen super-long Twitter conversations disappear the moment a TV show’s credits roll. This is not the way users are supposed to behave. You cannot data mine deletion. This is the opposite of permanence. I think there’s a lot to learn from these behaviors that are less about meeting consumer needs and more about respecting the human desire to be understood.
I did an interview with psfk about Internet culture and everybodyatonce and we touched on all the things we obsess about like folks who hide their communication from the rest of the internet. (h/t mememolly)
Related: I’m speaking at PSFK2015 this year. Come through if you’re around!
(via kenyatta)