Why I'm Stopping Sharing My Videos on Social Media

For the coming month I am experimenting with continuing to make new videos, but not sharing them on Facebook or other social media. In this video I explain how Facebook and other social media sites and apps are designed to keep people on the site or app so the company profits more, and how often, when I share material there, far more dialogue is generated on their site than on my channel itself, and in many cases, far more people get involved than people actually watch my video coming from the place where I shared it.
I think Facebook in particular contributes to mental illness, including depression, and problems with anger, polarization, and disrespectful dialogue. These things are in conflict with the goals and values of my KZbin channel, which are to promote healthy thinking and better mental health, positive thinking, and respectful dialogue.
I encourage people to apply this knowledge to your behavior and choices when using social media. When your friends share material, please (a) actually read the article or watch the video and do not comment or engage with the post if you haven't done so or don't at least definitively plan on doing so (b) if there is an on-page or on-site comment system, comment on the website hosting the material itself, not on Facebook, because by commenting on Facebook instead you are both enriching Facebook and creating an incentive to keep other people on Facebook longer.

[@AnMuiren]

I just discovered while research a possible move to Delaware, find your ideals and thoughts appealing and was said to discover you are not continuing to make KZbin content. I will search to see if you are publishing on another platform. Thank you.

[@AlexZorach]

Thanks. I have not been publishing as much recently, but I still have made some videos, and I may make more again soon. Lately I've been focusing more on a completely unrelated project, bplant.org, which is a website about the ecology of North American plants and ecoregions.

[@sylviaodhner]

I respect your decision and I get why you want to avoid sharing your video on other social media apps. I don't necessarily agree with your suggestion you write in the description "if there is an on-page or on-site comment system, comment on the website hosting the material itself, not on Facebook, because by commenting on Facebook instead you are both enriching Facebook and creating an incentive to keep other people on Facebook longer." I think it's fine if people want to do that, and I think it especially makes sense if the person who shared the content is the person who created it. But otherwise, when someone I know shares something on facebook, I want to engage with the person who shared it especially if it's someone I know and like. So there are a lot of reasons why commenting on the original content wouldn't fulfill that same purpose. When it comes to your videos, this makes sense because you're the one making the videos.

[@AlexZorach]

I think it makes some sense that people might want the comments to be relatively more private, in the case they know the person (Facebook though isn't very private, especially using the setting which which I share most videos.) I still really don't like the effect, and it can be extreme...like there is one video where I have, no exaggeration, 7 main comments and 58 comments in the Facebook thread, 6 likes and 1 reshare...but only 2 main comments and 4 total comments on the KZbin. I have no idea how much time was collectively spent in all that discussion, but it was probably a lot of time...and...I don't like that Facebook is profitting off it and I don't like their values or how the company is run.