View Topic

I was reading this article about someone who disconnected from social media for a year. The article was mostly about the impact on his business, but one of the things he said was that being away from social media lowered his anxiety and improved his mental health. Weighing the pros and cons, at the end of the year he ultimately decided to permanently leave Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and rejoin only LinkedIn.

Do you use social media? If so, what do you get out of it? Have you ever considered leaving it? Technically I have a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but I almost never use them.

I think Facebook is one of the worst things to ever happen to humanity, the way that it intentionally pushes content that moves people to the extreme ends of a topic and manipulates their emotions to be fearful and angry. I've thought of it deleting it, but it's my only remaining connection with some people...mostly people I haven't talked to in years, but I guess it's the idea that I could reach out to them if I wanted to. I have a Twitter, but it never went anywhere and I don't use it. I do check into Instagram once every few weeks when I get the email to remind me to. It's not so bad because I'm only following a few people and there isn't so much noise, but I don't post anything to it. Oh yeah, and I have LinkedIn, mostly because my workplace uses LinkedIn Learn.

What are your thoughts here?

I feel like we've had this sort of thread several times now but here's my current thoughts.

I use Facebook mostly for meme groups, and also some university campus community pages. I use Instagram to keep up with people and also for campus things. (As the younger generation doesn't use Facebook anymore, campus things have shifted off of Facebook, which is a shame since Facebook has a very good dedicated events platform. It was probably prolonged by upperclassmen onboarding underclassmen onto Facebook, but COVID basically cut that off and probably acted as the death knell for much of what's on Facebook.) I technically have a LinkedIn which I occasionally update but I don't use it.

I use reddit for news, random interest things, stories, photos, various fandoms, etc. I occasionally go on Twitter to see what my favorite YouTubers are saying, mostly, especially when they're building hype for something (eg Hermitcraft Season 9 was gradually revealed earlier today to be starting this Saturday). I watch lots and lots of YouTube.

I use Messenger as the main texting platform. iMessage with a few close friends and family. WeChat for my grandma. Discord for random online communities, my DnD group, opening support tickets with my Minecraft server host, etc. Slack for clubs, work, etc. Snapchat is dead and I haven't used it in a year or two.

Social media is important to who I am and what I do; I probably wouldn't leave these behind.

@taulover: We probably have, but it never hurts to re-evaluate our relationship with social media.

That's a lot of social networks to keep up with! How do you manage to keep up with it all...doesn't it take a lot of time?

I use Reddit for video games and other hobby/work subs. I'm subbed to like 10 people on Youtube for let's plays with no social gimmicks or facecams. I have LinkedIn and constantly wonder why. That's about it. I quit Facebook 7-8 years ago and I never got onto any other.

I try to limit discussion of politics or local events nowadays. I avoid the general Reddit subs. It's just not enjoyable anymore. Lots of people are extremely neurotic, they're afraid of their shadows and lash out at anything. They also tend to veer strangely ultra-individualistic. You can see it in the politics subs but also in the "life stories" subs like amitheasshole where people push "you're not entitled to anything" often to the extreme. It's like these people haven't had to live in a society before.

Besides, the conversation is never really interesting. Take Canadian politics. r/canada actually has automod posts that warn people to stay civil when a thread appears to be about Quebec or Alberta because these provinces just get absolutely shredded. Quebec because they're (we're) racist, xenophobic bastards with a hate-on for Muslims and/or a nanny state that sucks on federation bucks and Alberta because they're ultraconservative rednecks who got lucky hitting the oil jackpot without deserving it. As a Quebecer myself I gave up trying to explain or debate anything because it's just buried by tired arguments debunked 100 times and outright lies. Funny part is, depending on who you're speaking to, r/canada is either an alt-right sub or a communist junkyard, but Quebec and Alberta are utter trash except for Quebecers and Albertans, who actually _do not_ band together, choosing to also consider each other trash. It's just a full on constant shredding orgy on the villain du jour.

Finally, the Reddit formula makes what's popular more visible so oftentimes the top comment in the general subs is either lame or junk and no one corrects until waaaay later in the chain. On more specialized subs this is less a problem because more people know what's up.

@taulover: We probably have, but it never hurts to re-evaluate our relationship with social media.

That's a lot of social networks to keep up with! How do you manage to keep up with it all...doesn't it take a lot of time?

It's fairly well-integrated into everything else I do in my life, so it doesn't really feel that way.

I use Reddit and Youtube, but I guess I don't consider them social networks for me because it never occurs to me to post anything to them. I watch videos on Youtube and listen to music from there, and look at stuff on Reddit, so I just use them like a normal website.

To be honest, I have a good relationship with social media. I like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, it entertains me when I get bored.
I use messenger because all of my family uses it.
I don't use twitter, and never will...

I happened on another article about how to better use LinkedIn. Then I remembered that in the article I posted in the OP, the only social network the author there ended up returning to was LinkedIn, so I'm thinking maybe there's something to LinkedIn that I missed.

It's been a few years since I really did anything with it other than taking courses for work, but maybe I'll dedicate some time and look through it again.

@Alturismo: Why won't you ever use Twitter? Is there something about it specifically that you don't like?

@Alturismo: Why won't you ever use Twitter? Is there something about it specifically that you don't like?

I'd rather not say...

I used to be on Twitter Facebook and Insta but I've completely left Twitter and Insta. Twitter I will never return to I got abused thru Twitter. Facebook I only keep around to post cute anime girls. I guess discord is a social media and I am in like several discord communities