24
votes
Are you still using social media?
What platforms do you use? What do you think you get out of using them?
For context, this video is what sparked me to ask this question here.
What platforms do you use? What do you think you get out of using them?
For context, this video is what sparked me to ask this question here.
My journey of reducing my social media usage started with an essay I heard about in an Adam Curtis documentary. Reading the essay inspired me to attempt to outright quit social media. I found myself thinking if this is something if that someone felt about internet spaces three decades ago, then maybe there is something fundamentally flawed about the medium, and that the only way to win was not to play. This attempt lasted maybe a day or two, but how I felt those few days made me realize social media is our generation's form of smoking.
I wanted to go over every social media platform I've used, ranked by how bad I think they are.
1. Instagram Reels
In general I think short form video is the most insidious form of content there is. I would find myself wasting over an hour every few days searching for the next dopamine hit through the algorithmic lottery, and at the end of the session all I got out was one or two memes to share, maybe an interesting fact or two and a vague sense that I'm wasting my life.
2. X
Using X wasn't all that bad at the start, it made me feel "in the know", having access to people thoughts on a plethora of subjects. Eventually the flaws of the platform did become apparent to me, character limits promote the sharing of lazy and nuance-less ideas, the same twitter "influencers" with a blue check mark popping up on every post, and a clear sense that the algorithm was trying to promote political bias in every subject matter for the sake of engagement. Quitting X was harder on me than Instagram. For the first few weeks, I felt a lot of anxiety about all the things I wouldn't know about, but eventually I accepted that the majority of that information would either reach me through slower means or wasn't that important to begin with.
3. Reddit
I started using it a bit after when subreddits were introduced, back when r/funny was actually funny. Like many people here know, the culture of reddit was miles apart from what it is now. It was a platform perfectly catered to my techy interests, and while it did have its fair share of power users, they were no where near as problematic as on twitter (I miss unidan). Nowadays the front page is outright awful, and I only use it keep in touch with some hobby communities I'm interested it. I'm still trying to use it less, but like X, the feeling of being out of the loop is so discomforting I've yet to fully kick the habit.
4. YouTube
YouTube is the only "social media" platform I can never see myself avoiding. Between video essays, podcasts, education resources, and low-commitment entertainment I've found YouTube to provide a ton of value as a service, while having little pressure to use the "social" part of the social media platform. As a side note I've found YouTube shorts are an even worse platform for short form video, I genuinely contemplate my existence every time I've accidentally fell down that rabbit hole.
5. Discord
My only gripe with discord is the platform replacing forums, and the abhorrent privacy violation. Unfortunately though most of my gaming pals communicate though discord so I keep an account. The lack of algorithmically driven content is a big plus. It feels a lot like gaming has become the virtual "third space" for a lot of my generation, so I do think the value the platform provides positive value, despite the spying.
6. Tildes
The only platform that makes me think good social media is possible. I read on here more than I post, largely in part because I know if I say I'm not well versed in, someone smarter than me on the subject will (thankfully) point out the flaws. The obscurity of the site also seems to act as a filter for low-effort content.
I use Tildes where I get discussion, reddit where I get information in niche areas, discord where I mostly ignore them, Facebook because some family remain, and tiktok/bluesky where I am entertained and learn stuff but don't really participate.
Pretty much the answer is no. I spend a roughly 30 to 45 minutes a day on social media, here and discuit are the limit.
I have found that my mental health suffers with too much social media and avoiding just makes me plain happier.
I avoid newspapers and news outlets for the same reason, I just don't need the stress
...does "using the tildes minecraft server as a very inefficient discord channnel" count?
Otherwise, not really...
I'm not active on many sites. I come to Tildes to get snippets of information that might otherwise pass by unnoticed, and I watch Youtube videos with very few interactions on that platform. In fact, I'm almost never signed in when I'm at Youtube, and only do so to like a video, or on rare occasions, leave a comment.
There is one small community on Discord where I read and leave comments. It's usually about Mamamoo, so that's a very niche subject.
And I have a tiny group of friends on a private server. We've known each other for more than twenty years.
And that's it. Definite no's to X and Reddit.
I am forced to interact with certain social media and I hate it. WhatsApp is my family's primary mode of communication; my local government/physical community nearly exclusively uses Facebook despite my formal written complaint; Teams/Slack are mandatory for work
List of ones I actively avoid: twitter/X, Bluesky, tiktok IG snap, Reddit, WeChat, Little Red Book, -verse
List of ones I use for content without engagement: Discord, YouTube, Discuit (memes)
Where I do spend inordinate amounts of time: Tildes, and Google chat going back to Gmail 2gb invite days with highschool friends.
Here, obviously. The really not much else. I have old accounts on the usual suspects like Facebook and Reddit but I don't use them, I don't even have the apps.
I'll watch youtube videos but not engage with comments or anything.
I have discord but only for my private servers and updates from niche games or something, I don't actually chat.
If I'm looking for content I've been making myself read, and it's been a difficult transition. But a welcome one. I love books, but the garbage content we have readily available online these days are such a low hanging fruit. Luckily I've weaned myself off and used them less and less.
I'll be clear, I would actually fucking love good social media. I thought early Facebook, MySpace and Bebo were the bomb because you were friends with... Your friends. It just got garbage really fast.
I do browse text-based update posts on reddit (specifically, I bookmarked a search result page for posts with "update" in the title), but don't browse it normally anymore. Haven't been to r/all or the home page for years now.
Beyond that, I mainly use Tildes and Discord. I watch a lot of Youtube, but I honestly forget most(?) people consider it social media. I mainly watch it on TVs, so I guess I subconsciously put it in the same category as cable or streaming. I leave comments now and then, but that's fairly rare since I have to get out my phone.
I also have a Tumblr I barely ever check, and have been thinking about getting more active on it for essentially marketing purposes. It's a good platform for sharing creative writing.
Also have Bluesky and Twitter/X accounts that I never use. I hang onto the Twitter solely to be able to see accounts in chronological order because some people will only update there. Genuinely no clue why I even bothered making it in the first place, I never used it "normally".
I used to enjoy /r/BestOfRedditorUpdates , but in recent years they feel too much like story making / karma farming / AI training
I spend most of my time on Reddit calling out AI written stories in the BOR, AITAH, and so on subs. It's an uphill, fruitless battle. At this point, I'm reasonably convinced Reddit itself (as a corporation, not as an AI entity... yet) is contracting out to have a lot of the AI stories written. I think they use baity stories to increase engagement to make the website more appealing to advertisers and investors.
Oh, it's definitely full of fake posts. Some people have even picked up on telltale signs of specific writers. I personally give most posts the benefit of the doubt more than most because it'd suck for someone to be actually dealing with something awful and have to waste time/energy dealing with accusations it's faked, but... Yeah, lots of fake stuff.
The fun part of the "title:update" search is that I can see some actual real-world drama that aren't just karma farming. I have seen so much video game drama from game-breaking updates...
Social? No. Media? Absolutely. Yeah, I have Threads and scroll that religiously, but not because I got friends there. Every single one of my regulars could disappear and I doubt I'd even notice for a while. Same with Instagram. I used to be very active there and had online friends, but over time you just sorta drift apart. I still scroll the stupid videos though, but I also used to read cheezburger and digg back in the day. Everything changes, everything stays the same.
I dunno if I'd count Tildes as social media, but I do like you guys. Seems one of the few remaining places on the internet where you can just sort of... be.
Aside from Tildes:
There's not really anything of the Algorithm about my media consumption these days, and I'm so much healthier for it.
I don't count Tildes or the other internet forum I'm on as social media.
I use Youtube and occasionally comment on videos, generally watching about an hour of it a day on a second screen or more often, ignoring whatever furniture refinishing video my wife has put on.
I deleted Facebook...probably 15+ years ago now, never used TikTok, Instagram, Twitter or anything else. I guess I have Discord, which I jump onto once a month or so to voice chat with my friends and play a game.
I did use Reddit, up until the 2023 exodus and I do occasionally go back and look at specific subreddits. I comment maybe a few times a year, usually just to help people with any problems they may encounter and occasionally ask a question I might have about a tabletop wargame I play.
i think this is the correct definition of social media. tildes, reddit, discord, etc are not social media at all.
Why not? Because they're pseudonymous?
What about X/Bluesky?
social media is about the individual where forums are about the discussion. X and Bluesky are still social media.
I am pretty much “low contact” with most social media.
I would prefer no contact, but since I have too many international friends I feel like removing social media accounts completely is equivalent to losing contact with them.
So yeah. I am a little bit everywhere. Facebook/Insta for my Asian and American friends, WhatsApp Telegram for Europe, Discord for gamers, and some Signal for those who bother. Most of them are muted anyway.
Gotta kick the Reddit habit since I only go to AITA anyway.
And I have my YouTube habits sorta under control with RSS feeds anyway.
At this point, Tildes is all I use and I lurk a lot more than I contribute.
I have deleted my Facebook, Insta and Twitter accounts as well as Bluesky. I don't think I have had anything else.
I used to use Reddit a lot and migrated here during the API nonsense. I still occasionally browse Reddit at work not logged in to kill time, but it is noticeably worse.
Aside from Reddit, I don't miss social media and I don't miss Reddit in its current form. I gradually got to the point where I deleted accounts. I guess Facebook was the hardest for me. I joined when it was "the Facebook" and had a ton of people I knew. That said, I realized I never spoke to most of those people and Facebook was unrecognizable to me. I probably stopped using it 5-6 years before I deleted my account.
Zero regrets. I don't know what positives people get out of it anymore, but I sure see the negatives. My wife still complains about randoms she fights with on the internet but she is also convinced that she needs social media for her business. I know she would be happier without it but I can't get her to drop it. Not worrying about what random people think or trying to come up with post ideas is freeing and superior. In my opinion anyways, to each their own.
Stopped using Facebook long ago. Last Instagram post was a year ago. Never really got into Twitter in the first place.
I'm still on reddit, but way less since they killed 3rd party apps a whike back.
My youtube has probably gone up. About a year ago I started seriously posting videos and have had some small success, so a fair bit of my free time goes into making videos for youtuvr
I use:
Facebook - Primarily as a Messenger app. It really is the easiest, smoothest messenger with reasonable adoption in my social group. This is mostly on my phone, but from time to time, I open Facebook in on a PC to message someone, and I catch myself scrolling, and it usually takes about three minutes before I'm like, "this is reddit but worse," and closing it.
Reddit - I mostly end up on Reddit from search results. There are very few places, for example, that provide the answer to the best crop rotation in Stardew Valley. Niche subreddits really are the place for information on the internet these days. I could just use ChatGPT to mine Reddit, but is that any better?
Tildes - Check daily. Comment infrequently. Read most of.
FARK - Check daily. Does FARK count as social media? Or a news aggregate with a comment section? I've been using FARK since 2002. I've been gifted TotalFARK a few times, but I've never paid for it. In the end, it's not much different from Reddit, but I don't feel as monetized chatting there.
Tiktok - You'll have to rip it out of my cold, dead hands. I unapologetically enjoy Tiktok. I've got my feed curated to give me exactly what I want. I get anti-AI/AI doomsday news, leftist discourse/propaganda, good storytelling, and urban planning. To be frank, I'm alright with the echo chambers Tiktok is building for me. Outside of TT, I get my information from a wide variety of sources, and it's nice to sometimes go to an app that does thorough deep dives into topics deeply interesting to me. When I've got the time, I'm going to throw a list under this comment of ten videos I get via Tiktok at random. Honestly, I don't care that I might be getting fed Chinese propaganda.
I recently started using instagram again, but only for men's style / fashion and F1 stuff. You can get a pure timeline with https://www.instagram.com/?variant=following -- otherwise I wouldn't bother or I'd set up some sort of scraping system.
I don't use facebook but I have a few folks who use messenger. Marketplace is fun to browse... and I think there are some escorts 'selling clothes' that are just veiled backpage ads.
reddit, discord, irc, usenet, tildes.... these are not social media.