If you have quit social media, what was your last straw?

[fawn]

Mine was a gradual stray away, and I think similar to most people's reasons.

Around 7 years ago I started streaming on Twitch casually and I absolutely adored it. I'm chronically ill and unemployed so it can be hard for me to find hobbies that I can endure for long periods of time physically, but once I discovered streaming I was live for 8 hours a day 5 days a week with Stardew Valley. The experience sort of started going downhill after I hit affiliate status and made more connections on the site, though. That thing that I hate, the whole mentality shift of "I can make money off this so now I have to be the best at it and continue to make money off it" got it's claws into me. It's not as bad as it once was, thankfully, but my streams were a huge portion of my income for a long time, so when I took a break for mental health purposes and then returned to basically zero community, I was pretty disappointed despite understanding the logic behind it. I still stream occasionally now, but the many other negative experiences I've had within streaming communities and my gaming burnout, AND my fatigue make it a once in a blue moon kind of situation.

As soon as my brain allowed me to make that disconnect from Twitch, everything else just sort of fell in to place with it. I have zero interest in Instagram, I'm from the generation that used a lot of Facebook until we all got the ick from it and I haven't thought about using it in years. The most I'm active on is Discord, and I consider that less a social media myself and more just another version of forums since I cater the spaces I'm in to have that slow-paced, relaxed vibe.

I recently joined SpaceHey (I discovered it and joined while I was waiting for my account to be approved over here, actually) and I think it's pretty neat but I also feel like I'm going to fall off from that, too. Either that or do a friend list culling lol, I'm an adult so only really accept friend requests from adults in these spaces but even that hasn't stopped the high school-eque vibes and drama my eyes are witness to on the Bulletins over there. Not that people shouldn't have an outlet for these kinds of things, but it's no longer in my interest to consume the woes of the average internet user without meaningful discussion. I realise I probably sound like a bit of an ass here, so I feel the need to point out that in the same years of me distancing myself from social media, I've done a lot of healing and growth with my mental health, and I'm now extremely picky about what I will tolerate and read/consume on a regular basis, and you should be too reader!

Combine these social experiences with the influx of AI, my age getting higher so nostalgia creeping in alongside it, the monetisation monetisation monetisation.. corporations.. branding.. nothing is authentic anymore we are trapped let us OUT.. yeah I just kind of reached a breaking point and found my way here :')

This was my most rambly post on here yet, but it's why these forums are so special to me. I would rather sit and spend ten minutes pondering a question that actually interests me, and then read through the responses to that and formulate my own response, rather than a one and done sentence interaction that leaves me and the other user with nothing.

[ValyceNegative]

I've never been a fan of social media since conception and I started campaigning against it around the time Facebook substituted MySpace (so we're talking way back!) because I couldn't fathom it asked for real name and addresses to be put on the frontpage instead of nicknames. That went beyond every principle I knew about the net: real life stuff staying separated from virtual life, first and foremost.

I begrudgingly joined a few of these sites around 10 years ago to open a public "page" (are they called pages? I dunno) to advertise my comicbooks updates and convention appeareances to attending audience, since for a good period of time FB and Insta were the easiest way to reach nerd culture in Italy. As soon as my presence gained enough traction to advertise on its own terms I left those enviroinments abandoned- I pushed my website as much as I could as a means to stay updated with what I do, so I hope people simply surfs it instead of looking me up on socials. Of course I don't expect everyone to have made the change, but I do know at least a portion of those people does search my site instead since I sometimes get comments on it, or starts the conversation bt saying "oh, I've read-" then mentions something I've only written in my updates log over there. It's good :3

Not very related to classic social media spaces but sorta like it, since DeviantArt could feel like a "social" for artists, the last straw that made me say "that's it, I'm buying a domain" was when they axed all CSS customization features. I remember they announced it right while I was finishing decorating my homepage, and it might have been late 2020? Early 2021? Along those lines because my domain purchase after that was rather immediate. XD

[nintendowii99]

I actually had a pretty large Instagram account for a while, but over time I just got sick of feeling performative. So I deleted it and remade an account just for friends. I also went through my Facebook and unfriended anyone I didn't consider a real-life friend.

At the end of this, I realized that I only wanted to keep in contact with like 15 people. I didn't need to use a social media for that, I could just...talk to them or hang out with them.

[Daryl Sun]

The first "last straw" for me was reading the articles on Privacy Guides (formerly Privacy Tools) about how social media slurps up data for purposes not intended by users. I deleted most of my social media accounts after that.

For Tumblr specifically, it was when it got bought by Automattic. Not that there was anything wrong with the company at the time, but I felt that such a professional organization wouldn't be able to handle the chaotic Tumblr community right.

Recently, the "last straw" for me when it comes to social media is realizing that I haven't used them in a long time and I won't use them again further in the future. I'm quite happy creating and posting stuff on my blog nowadays.

Currently, the only social media I have right now is Facebook for family and work obligations, Bluesky for following certain accounts, Mastodon for quick updates and cross-posting my blog posts, and YouTube for one specific future purpose.

[mothpanic]

I think my final reason for deciding to quit social media is a bit sillier than most. Id gotten rid of a few apps at the time and was somewhat struggling to keep them off my phone and debating whether it'd be worth it.

tumblr, one of the very few non-algorithmic social media sites left (and so presumably one of the better ones), once showed me a post that irrationally pissed me off, to the point I was staring at the screen with my jaw slack scrolling through 3 pages of the most hideous take Id ever seen. my current vocabulary can't describe how abysmally shit this opinion was. my tolerance for anything annoying was already low, and that post more than pushed me over the edge. I decided to put actual effort into curating my time spent online, and found that my mental health immediately skyrocketed because of it. Im pretty much used to my privacy being nonexistent online, it's what Ive grown up with, so unfortunately this is what it took. a bit funny in hindsight.

since then Ive blocked everything on my phone (except for reddit - I need to ask questions there) and just recently I blocked tumblr from my aptop. I haven't actually deleted any accounts, but if Im just doing this for my health, I don't think it's necessary. not being too active in any communities before taking the leap probably made things much easier for me too.

'positive vibes only' online, are mostly because there's been a weird pattern of me hoping to go into a genuinely supportive place, only to be ostracised, and then later in heaps of drama.

this has also annoyed me for a while. the sorta positivity that I see online gives me the same uncanny valley feeling as brands using self-care to market their products, y'know? it feels fake, especially when I keep seeing this happen peripherally. sorry you have to get into stuff like that, and glad you're out.

[dietcokeorchoke]

There's a lot of really good points here, and a lot of the replies under this post have said things I've been feeling but haven't quite been able to push myself to get off social media    Especially feeling the need to monetize things taking away from my ability to create for myself. I appreciate what everyone on this thread has had to say, because it finally helped me make the decision to get off facebook completely. I'm a little reluctant still to leave reddit, just because it is the most active community of scene/emo stuff and I'm super into that. :( but i think i can limit my redditing to ONLY scene and adjacent communities and see if that works for me 

Honestly though, one of the biggest issues with social media is algorithms. I'm super susceptible to them even when I think I'm not, and it pulls me into these depressing rabbit holes. I guess you tend to see whatever you click on/interact with the most, but there's a part of me that can't help clicking even when i know better  i've been using tumblr again, and at least my personal feed has chilled out from the hostile and guilt-tripping chaos it was when i was a teenager, but i'm ready to leave it behind in a heartbeat.

[drmollytov]

I was lying on the couch one day, endlessly scrolling Reddit. It was the only social media account I had left, and I'd pruned the list of subreddits I followed down to about a dozen. So I was just scrolling a bunch of posts I'd already seen.

...And I thought, "I'd rather be scrubbing the bathtub right now. Bathtub grime is finite, and at least when I get done I'll have a clean bathtub."

So I got up and scrubbed the bathtub. And it was much more satisfying than Reddit ever was. I deleted my account later that evening.