Mukilteo Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

I want to tell you about a fun experiment I pulled off the other day, but first I have to explain why I’m a hypocrite.

I don’t care for social media. Or, to make it simpler, I don’t like Facebook.

It’s not just Facebook, of course. When I first heard the term, in fact, I was participating in a form of social media known as blogging. An earlier form was email, in the heyday of forwarded jokes and (always) hoaxes.

And I was onboard and optimistic at the start, visions of utopian digital landscapes dancing in my head, free from gatekeepers. We’d discuss issues, trivial and important,...