Social Media is dangerous

[Memory]

i feel like it's possible and even pleasant to use it if you know how to curate things well (blocklists, chronological timeline only, tracking blockers, ublocking the trending tab and only interacting with friends)
as in yin-yang, there are always good things in the bad things. for twitter, for example, it's the artists, especially japanese
tumblr is still alive despite the 2019 purge, and i feel like it's only gotten better as all the crazy discourse has moved to twitter

During my time in using Twitter, I've tried literally everything to block and mute certain things and limit my interactions to friends only, but even then, I can see my friends discussing about drama in the timeline, and my mutes and blocks don't even work for the most part. That's just my experiences with Twitter, and I would literally use literally anything else other than that bird site.

[Darmodej]

can relate
a lot of my friends are in chiptune and chiptune community is an eternal battleground

[di]

i feel like it's possible and even pleasant to use it if you know how to curate things well (blocklists, chronological timeline only, tracking blockers, ublocking the trending tab and only interacting with friends)

as in yin-yang, there are always good things in the bad things.

So true! There's a lot of great art I found through social media that I wouldn't have found otherwise.

I used to feel exactly as you do, but in my opinion, "curating your feed" is also part of the problem. When we continue using the platform, we become pawns in the polarization + atrocities that these corporations cause. (Ranging from Twitter profiting off of pundits arguing about M&M mascots despite actual problems in the world, to Facebook turning a blind eye to the Rohingya crisis)

We can certainly make social media a "pretty" place by sweeping all that hate and vitriol under the rug.. but it's still festering there underneath, and as long as people keep using the platforms, people keep coming to them.

So as "pretty" as I can make sites like FB, Instagram, & Twitter (for myself), I think I'd rather just not use them altogether. Especially now that I know the small web exists!

HIRAETH, your post from the other day was FIRE! I didn't use Twitter much - I was on the Instagram side of things - but I definitely still feel what you said.

[Cobra!]

I used to feel exactly as you do, but in my opinion, "curating your feed" is also part of the problem. When we continue using the platform, we become pawns in the polarization + atrocities that these corporations cause. (Ranging from Twitter profiting off of pundits arguing about M&M mascots despite actual problems in the world, to Facebook turning a blind eye to the Rohingya crisis)

You know, I could imagine seeing having something curated to me back in the day as a good thing, taking out the bits I don't like, and only being shown stuff I like.

But I guess we need the uninteresting things in life to make the things we really enjoy worth more. Despite having only things that interested me shown on social media, I was never really happy using it. I was bored.

[ellievoyyd]

social media seriously harmed me.
i really think that infinite feeds should be illegal,
they are damaging to peoples health.
i also had the "phantom limb" type experience
it took me MONTHS to stop typing "facebook" into my browser...
seriously...
i would have dissociative episodes and panic attacks...

i know there will never be anything like this,
but i wish that these social media sites and the people who plan
them should stand trial for crimes against humanity -
they have essentially run a MKULTRA style psychological experiment
 on all of humanity just for their own profits...
it is a violation of international law and all common sense...
these companies and the people who made them should really be in prison i think

the scariest part of it too is that facebook, google,
all these companies are literally started by actual dyed in the wool Fascists
for instance peter theil... i would not be surprised if they know fully well
that they are harming people and actually think it is funny to do so
(after all, Zuckerberg himself famously said
"anyone who uses Facebook is a fucking idiot":wink:

specifically also the effect on women and girls -

i noticed to my horror after i transitioned and began identifying as a woman,
my instagram was suddenly full of "reels" or "stories" of random strangers
who were mostly white, thin attractive women.
it almost felt as though it was an intentional tactic of abuse!

it is often for misogynistic, evil men to make women feel insecure
and ugly so that they do not have the confidence to stand up for themselves...
i would not be surprised if Zuckerberg and the toxic misogynists who work for him and his ilk
are fully aware of this even and do it on purpose.
it might sound conspiratorial, but...

yeah... thats my input...

[Cobra!]

I just stumbled across this video that explains how social media negatively effects people who make "content" as well. Definitely worth a watch, though I think he's a bit naive about his predictions near the end.

[Icey!]

I just stumbled across this video that explains how social media negatively effects people who make "content" as well. Definitely worth a watch, though I think he's a bit naive about his predictions near the end.

This gives me hope as a small "content" creator.

[Melooon]

What's interesting I think is its not just social media. My own site went on a transition from being a place I share stuff that I made, to being a site where I was making stuff to share. That was when I realized that for me web development was not about sharing art, the web development was the art. I think we are definitely on the road to a post-content web, where content no longer exists because content is the web.

[Cobra!]

I fear that as long as social media continues on the way it is, that won't happen.
I think either the internet as a whole needs to stray away from social media, or social media platforms need to change drastically to stop keeping their members addicted to them.

[lime360]

I am sorry if I ruined the conversation but does anyone else have friends irl? I have one.

[Version]

Some months ago I wrote a small article about disinformation and radicalization on social media. It's a bit to big for a reply, so here it is.

[manpaint]

The worst thing about social media is that it gets you even if you are well aware of the danger.

A month ago, I ended up in a situation where I had to spent most day of my week watching YouTube on my Switch to kill time. I thought I was well prepared and could protect myself from the algorithm. I was wrong.

I almost got depression from watching video suggested by the algorithm. As soon as I could get back home, I sealed the console away in a closet.

Do not underestimate the power of social media.

[tarocchilla]

Hi omg i read trough all this super long thread and i agree with a lot that has been said but i just wanted to add my personal 2 cents (sorry if i am repeating something) ...

• First of all, i think that even if you are not personally affected by social media (even tough i think everyone is) it's still good to delete them, why? because they are an inherently unethical platform, selling people's data, using human weaknesses to make them addicted to your platform, constantly trying to shove ads down people's throat, not paying content creators while making millions off them, etc. is very bad behaviour and i don't even think it should be legal honestly
• Post interactions are non-interactions: like evryone on this planet, i like my stuff to be seen... but honestly, i'd rather have one comment from someone who actually enjoys my work then thousands of likes, and social media really encourages superficial intearctions, if you are doomscrolling opening up a comment section would halt that! and a like is just two taps .
• All the content is extremley sanitized...don't get me wrong, i think some stuff shouldn't have a place on the internet (like, actual crimes for example) but now all popuar social media platforms try to market as being super family friendly, activley trying to silence edgyer people or people who dare to post a singular female nipple!!! And they they call themselves freedom of speech platforms?
• This might sound a bit like a tinfoil hat theory, but hear me out: social media is trying to redirect our anger, from being socially useful to just...making an angry twitter thread. I don't think twitter threads are completley useless, but is a governement going to listen to a twitter thread or to people doing protests/acts of civil disobedience etc...
• People are just making "content" ...it makes me really sad, because there are really amazing artists that are burned out for constantly having to pump out low quality content to plese the platform. (i really love the video that has been linked in this thread, for the sake of making my bulletlist cool i'll quote it below)
• As a person with ADHD i feel terribly exploited! once i was doomscrolling and i found a post that said something like "of course everyone on social media has ADHD, it's like a dopamine slot machine!" and that was a bit of a wakeup call to me: my attention is a precious resource, and i was using all of it on there! i felt so exploited!
• Content gets old fast, news, art, etc. get buried in a week or less...how are things supposed to be appreciated like that?

All that said, i still have my social media accounts because i want to see all the cool artists i can't support other ways, but i am seeing them trough rss readers and nitter for example...and i still have postst there because i haven't managed to move all my backlog from there yet

[ggnonicon]

social media seriously harmed me.
i really think that infinite feeds should be illegal,
they are damaging to peoples health.
i also had the "phantom limb" type experience
it took me MONTHS to stop typing "facebook" into my browser...
seriously...
i would have dissociative episodes and panic attacks...

Same. Even to this day every now and again i open my browser and type in 'facebook' despite not having used it for several years now. I also get dissociative episodes and panic attacks bc of social media... I tried many times to just keep one "type" and try my hand at it bc my friends kept responding with comments that I just 'wasnt using it right' or was 'taking it too seriously' or some other flaw that was my fault, but like if i have to be perfectly sane to enjoy whatever it is someone is peddling then idk if i can get behind it. I even tried to be really into discord for a while but I just felt crazy all the time. Now i only really use my personal discord w IRL friends on it, and the melonland forum.

Should mention that I lived w some people that were callouty in my Social Media days and in a way I protected myself by living w them and participating in their opinion-having but I eventually came under scrutiny and dipped before it could get big. Its really the one thing I've ever regretted in my life, and I've done lots of dumb shit.

[Memory]

I wonder how much of the retro web revival is actually also built around the same psychological mechanisms, just less obvious. We still live in the same society that rewards all the toxic things after all, and it shapes us.

Like, are we all just kidding ourselves here? Isn't a significant part of our participation in the retro web subconsciously driven by yearning for recognition and belonging to in-groups like yesterweb or melonland, and becoming a well known site/user/person? Isn't one of the reasons we dislike mainstream social media the fact that we don't stand out enough due to the oversaturation of content, and migrate here for the potential of becoming prominent in a niche? I can't tell, I don't trust my own judgement.

And if that's so, is that even something bad and undesirable, or a healthy natural byproduct of being creative, wanting validation, acclaim and approval? Is attention not a good thing? Is perhaps the vilification of attention and validation seeking behaviour the real scourge social media inflicts?