Analysis on the currency pair Steem vs Time, is Steemit worth your Time?
I've been on Steemit for a few months now and I want to share with you some thoughts. I will leave monetary considerations to other users as I guess that's all they talk about when talking about steemit, in this post I will focus on everything else.
So we have been spending hours or days on this platform, this means that everyday we have to withdraw a very precious currency from our account: time. Once you spend it you can't get it back, are we spending our time wisely? Let's see what I received back in return for my time.
Better writing: Since we spend most of our time here writing I guess the first perk is to improve our writing. This may not be a big deal for native English speakers but it is for me since I'm italian. Not only I feel my writing is improving every week but also my writing speed is increased. Now it takes me much less time to construct sentences and it feels more natural and less awkward.
Interact with people: Steemit lacks a messaging system so users have to rely on other services to keep in touch. One popular option for community is to gather in discord servers. Compared to other chats, usually I find community-based servers to be somewhat more focused topic-wise. Ideas flow, you get to discover new users and learn about their personality and sometimes when reading their posts you can almost imagine a distintive voice in your mind. The funny thing is that when you then happen to be in a vocal chat with these users you realize you got their voice completely wrong in your mind, but that's ok, conversation is the gateway for connection and because of steemit we can connect with many people.
A window into human psychology: Let me tell you, everyday I am learning a lot about human behavior on this platform. Maybe it's because of the monetary reward of the posts but users are very emotional. I lost interest in other platforms like facebook because users expose the fake side of their life, they go out of their way to show that everything is awesome and if an alien was to try to learn something about the human race just by looking at out facebook posts they would conclude that we are a dumb race. On steemit is different, at least in some cases, some users try to write interesting content. The initial motivation to write was surely the monetary reward but if I can twist a bit Picasso's words: "if you want to know what you are going to write you have to begin to write". Especially if you happen to be inside a steemit community you soon can learn what motivates people, what bothers them and when they get greedy. Learning how to engange is challenging, hopefully one day we will learn to struck the right chord.
Learning: this one is obvious. I am a curator for @steemstem so I have to read several posts everyday and pay particular attention to them. I hate when users write garbage since they waste my time, but sometimes you find small gems, posts really well structured and engaging and reading those usually make it worth the effort. I would not normally read something about physics or programming let alone math! But users here have to write to engage so they have to write content in a digestible format, so even I can understand what they are talking about and often I even find out I actually like a topic that I was completely ignoring before. I find this very valuable.
Organize my thoughts: Sometimes we have our thoughts swarming in our head like bees around a hive. When I write I have to organize my thoughts, give them structure and this is also helping me in my real life, especially about thinking more clearly, elaborate and convey ideas in a more effective way. More knowledge + better thoughts organization = you become more interesting as a person. At least you will always have something interesting to say and you will instictively try to provide value also in your real-life conversations.
See myself in others: We all have stumbled upon users that really annoy us. Initially I was letting the emotional part of my brain to take over and ruin my day, now I try to rationalize more and when I meet such individuals the first thing I ask myself is: what about myself? Do I behave like that? Sometimes you will find out you would be extremely annoyed if you were to meet another copy of yourself :)
Life is not fair: That's the first lesson that users like me had to learn on steemit from day one. I started by having zero contacts in here and I grew on my own before joining other communities. I used to get mad when I was seeing users writing idiotic post and making hundreds of $ while my posts were making cents. You learn to let go as every thought is like a seed. If you plant the negatives ones soon weed (not "that weed") will fester in your mind.
Overall these are some quite valuable things so yes, I think my time here was well spent. If you then add also monetary rewards and some great connections I made I think it was definitely worth it.
And what was your experience on steemit? Please share it with us and feel free to leave a comment
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Life is not perfect, but it can be quite good. That's why I keep coming here every day. That and the excellent posts I still find here, like yours.
Also, English is not my first language and this is a nice way to get better, even if it is in the written form.
Thank you for your comment, yes even if we don't always realize it, our English improves everyday, the change may be more apparent to people around you rather than yourself.
Well written. Steemit can't be perfect, like anything else in life....
Life isn't supposed to be perfect, only original
Thank you ;)
Better writing and interacting with people is certainly what I hope to get out of this. I've also noticed I can form sentences better (organizing my thoughts). I still have a long way to go in all of these fields.
I love your way of thinking. Its a lot like mine. I hope you're not a copy of me :)
ahahaha if we were to be clones I think we would be arguing with each other all the time ;)
Hi @aboutcoolscience!
I really loved reading your piece, and as an Italian user like you I can certainly relate with many (if not all) the points you make.
I think the boost in our writing confidence and organizing skills is really more valuable than few rewards, even if I do seek a project in the long term.
Have a nice day!
Luca ✌️
Ciao Luca,
I am glad you share the same view :)
I think that writing articles on any topic you previously informed about is the final step to fully understand them.
Good post!!
Hey, @aboutcoolscience !
Fancy seeing you spawn in my feed, casual-like, with your through and through english post, with a paramount question i asked myself multiple times these days that have had on our steemosphere the tantamount effects of an earthquake
- Chances are i am hyperbolating a tad -
The answer to the question if steemit is worth the time, for what is worth to me, is the same as always: if it's a passion , gets you closer to an ideal/vision or gets you in a better state of mind, it's the best investment you can do.
You are right :)
Very well written, it's not just the money but also experience, learning and the community. One other interesting aspect is that every active Steemian can also be viewed as a miner, and past earnings can even gain value if Steem rises. So the time spent is also an investment.
That's true but the ROI it's not just monetary
Dear @aboutcoolscience, I'm Italian like you and I'm going to have a very interesting grow on Steemit. My own beliefs on it are very strong and my mission is to, day by day,meet other people, starting a real and usefully interaction and not only take a look and work only on my blog page but improve my culture, sensibility, life, simply reading contents of other authors. Expanding horizons is my vision because I want to believe that Steemit is not only money, but much more before that.
I'm glad you think like that, it's important to find other reasons other than money to be here, it will make the journey more enjoyable
This was my main reason as well. I never understood Instagram and stupid fake filters. I barely accepted FB. But when I saw Steemit (on FB...) I realized it's basically "the old good internet".
With the enthusiasts, dreamers, people you can bond with even without ever seen them. Because instead of fake photos, you read the text.
It's almost impossible to fake the identity and character for prolonged period of time.
You are 100% correct, here it's difficult to fake it
Good articles will not be lonely