Successfully Suffering on LinkedIn

I get exhausted reading LinkedIn. While this wasn't always the case, there's no pretending otherwise now. I don't think it will get better, either.

Most social networks enable a sort of voyeurism, and LinkedIn is no different. It allows each of us to peek through the largely curtainless windows of people’s professional (and, increasingly, private) homes. Like other social networks, LinkedIn’s attention-based model is fueled by the fires of our own desires.

The endless scroll of new job announcements and “thought leadership” is a constant subtle nudge to believe in a fundamentally flawed syllogism:

1. People who post on LinkedIn are successful
2. I want to be more successful
3. The more I read LinkedIn and the more I act like those people, the more successful I will be

Like some bizarre teleportation device (think Bill and Ted’s phone booth, only larger, with chairs), the activity stream drops us in front of the windows of our family, our colleagues, and, quite often, complete strangers. In alerting us to the things these people felt were important enough to share, the algorithm fulfills another function. The scroll coaxes us, gently but surely, to compare.

• Oh look, Jane has a new job at Google. Should I be looking for a new job? Am I in the right job, for the right company?
• Oh look, Max got a promotion to Senior VP. Am I on the right track? Do I have the right title? Am I getting paid well enough?
• Hey, Alex liked that post by Ray Dalio. Am I following the “right” people? Will following this advice help me be more “successful”?

More recently, as we have all emerged from a world changed by COVID-19, the platform has become home to emotive, even heart-wrenching posts that break the metaphorical fourth wall of work. Whereas LinkedIn was once almost exclusively bereft of personal stories, it is now the place to acknowledge our wholeness as human beings. Whereas once there was hustle porn, we now have remarkably and shockingly open expressions of our human frailty and how we face adversity. These stories now dominate the scroll. To be “successful” apparently, one must publicly vanquish one’s demons, face one’s grief, or pay attention to one’s children/pets/parents in broad daylight. These stories all start the same: a person falls and gets banged up. The only difference is the ending. In some, the person majestically rises, aglow with her/his new superpowers. In others, s/he remains down and takes time off. Look at me. I did it. Here is how you should feel.

Don’t get me wrong. I sympathize—and, in some cases, empathize—with the extraordinary challenges that so many have had to face, especially these past few years. I know people who will read this who have faced (or are still facing) monstrous situations. In no way am I trying to diminish your experience. I am in awe of how resilient you are. I also fully believe that we hire whole people who, as we all do, have their ups and downs. And new jobs are genuinely exciting. That’s not the point, though.

Each passing article, post, or announcement—however excited, humbled, or honored the person may be—exhorts us to nail our flag to the mast. Each entreaty and cautionary tale, whether told plainly and objectively or embellished to please the algorithm, becomes another thread in the deftly woven narrative that nudges us to believe that this is what successful people do, and therefore, implicitly, this is what I should do. Until the algorithm whisks us to a new destination where we are confronted with a snapshot from yet another person’s life. The ride is a roller-coaster of joyous ups and ever-more frequently violent downs.

As consumers of the LinkedIn product, we would do well to read even these stories critically. Who is this person who is giving me advice? What beliefs are they intrinsically asking me to ascribe to? Why are they asking me to ascribe to them? Do THEIR dreams make sense for me? Is this what I really want?

Whether these articles and posts appeal to you is a personal matter. I am not judging their worth. What I am saying is that this platform functions on the assumption that our expanded networks and the people we follow are good models, and we should keep pace with what they do. That, friends, is an assumption we should all challenge.

LinkedIn exhausts me because, like nearly all social media, it has become a place where value is in short supply. The signal-to-noise ratio is abysmally low. That's not to say all of you produce terrible content! It's just how the algorithm works. It's not a bug; it's a feature.

I’ve started to try to dig my way out of this, though it has not been easy—not least because I am easily led astray by the Internet. In a world where most of our digital experiences are an endless scroll, I find it increasingly important to curate both the quantity and the quality of my inputs. Letting someone in the door requires me to ask two questions: whom do I trust, and why?

I find it even more important to know what I want, and what I don’t want—and this I need to define for myself. The likelihood of me finding information that improves my life, grants me greater self-awareness, or helps me understand what motivates me in the scroll is quite low. I’ve been doing a fair amount of deeper reading recently of authors whose words resonate with me. (Luke Burgis’ book Wanting has been one of the most eye-opening books I have ever read.)

I don’t really have the answers here. I just know that there is a journey that I am on that is leading me to vastly reduce the low-value inputs in my life and spend time on meatier things. I’m interested to hear what anyone else has to say on the matter.