Social Media is dangerous

[wygolvillage]

I really liked reading everyone's thoughts on this topic. Something that I hate about social media that hasn't been mentioned much in this discussion is how fast things become old.

For example, I used to be on Instagram and shared my drawings once in a while. Just one day after I posted something, it's completely forgotten. You have to post regularly to have engagement and if you stop once, it's like you haven't done anything at all. If you want to gain some recognition, you are forced to post constantly, which obviously results in lower quality.

Older posts are also really difficult to find, and you can't even properly search except for tags and usernames. If you want to find someone's first posts, you have to scroll through their entire profile and it can take hours.

On forums like this one, instead, older topics can be found more easily and you can still share you own opinion if you want to, no matter how old the topic is is or how long you've been a member. You aren't penalized if you haven't been active for a while and discussions feel more reasonable and genuine, without all the drama.

I very much agree with this. And this "aging" applies to the internet culture of social media itself rather than just the posts. It feels like jokes, memes, even fandoms, all age incredibly fast. How many times have I seen a fandom pop up for whatever new Netflix show came out, only for that fandom to dissipate weeks later because it's "not relevant anymore"?

I've always hated this kind of thing. I like seeing "old" stuff and I don't like how it's meant to "disappear" over time according to social media. (I wonder how this relates to how many platforms seem to be pivoting towards deleting inactive accounts lately too....  )

[Azure]

i recently deleted almost all of my social medias and YEAH....i experience this so often. so many times i'll pull out my phone and my thumb will automatically hit the space where instagram used to be and instead it will open up into my email app (which is what i replaced it with) and i'll just sit there and stare at it for a few moments before putting it away. it feels so genuinely frustrating, especially since i could have sworn that i didn't frequent social media all THAT often...but i guess i misjudged just how much i was hooked. snapchat was easy to delete, since i really didn't use that one, but with instagram i really do sometimes feel like an addict going through withdrawal. i still have tumblr, but i really don't go on it all that often (i promise!) except to look at fan content sometimes. and i still have discord, which i WANT to delete because i'm honestly not a fan of it, but i have a couple of internet friends who use discord as their main point of contact so i'm stuck with it for now. i've replaced my social media apps with a couple of learning apps and a word search game, which is helping to slowly but surely get me to stop expecting social media that isn't there any longer. i don't think i'll ever use it again in any great capacity. i hate going through withdrawal!

[virtue]

I definitely firmly and loudly agree on this. This is why I prefer to use smaller, chronological-feed services that will run out of things for me to do on it quickly. This way, I am forcibly unable to become addicted. Cohost and Station have been great picks for this. I strongly recommend avoiding any kind of application that serves you instant content via and algorithm. This applies to youtube, twitter, instagram, (tumblr now unfortunately), especially tiktok, and all sorts of other apps. I still suffer from the effects to be honest, but I'm definitely far more capable of just leaving my phone unattended than I once was. If you're like me, to be honest, It's probably worth relegating social media use only to computer time. This makes it a lot harder to be addicted to it.

[DiffydaDude]

I definitely firmly and loudly agree on this. This is why I prefer to use smaller, chronological-feed services that will run out of things for me to do on it quickly. This way, I am forcibly unable to become addicted. Cohost and Station have been great picks for this. I strongly recommend avoiding any kind of application that serves you instant content via and algorithm. This applies to youtube, twitter, instagram, (tumblr now unfortunately), especially tiktok, and all sorts of other apps. I still suffer from the effects to be honest, but I'm definitely far more capable of just leaving my phone unattended than I once was. If you're like me, to be honest, It's probably worth relegating social media use only to computer time. This makes it a lot harder to be addicted to it.

social media is scary but i have a hard time getting off of it. it really super motherfucking sucks

[Fish]

I very much agree with this. And this "aging" applies to the internet culture of social media itself rather than just the posts. It feels like jokes, memes, even fandoms, all age incredibly fast. How many times have I seen a fandom pop up for whatever new Netflix show came out, only for that fandom to dissipate weeks later because it's "not relevant anymore"?

I've always hated this kind of thing. I like seeing "old" stuff and I don't like how it's meant to "disappear" over time according to social media. (I wonder how this relates to how many platforms seem to be pivoting towards deleting inactive accounts lately too....  )

Oof, I get frustrated with this stuff too! I'm not exactly one to ignore the age of a piece of media but sometimes it feels like things on the internet are "old" after just a month. IG with memes it sort of makes sense since they're jokes and a joke can only be funny for so long, but with a lot of streaming exclusive shows its seems like fandoms for them just appear for a second until all the episodes have been binged and everyone moves on to the next thing! 

[grubbyfox]

social media is scary but i have a hard time getting off of it. it really super motherfucking sucks

We can help ya if you want! :) Have you checked your phone's screentime log to see your statistics? It's a great way to start grabbing the problem by the horns. I went from 33 hours of screentime in 7 days, to 11 hours the next week, only with like 2-3 adjustments!

[PurpleHello98]

Ugh, "branding."
We have to be professional enough in real life, why did we decide we need to be professional on the web too?

IKR! Sometimes I find myself worrying about my "brand"—if I say this or that on some forum, how will it affect my brand? I think in this case, I often use it as a sort of synonym for reputation, but a) I find it sad both that "brand" and "reputation" are so similar and that people have started caring so much about their "brand", and b) it's my personal freaking Web-site—what brand? It's not like I'm some influencer who's worried about whether proclaiming some hot take will get people riled up against me and damage my livelihood or whatever, I just have a personal Web-site. I think this is something left over from my social media days, where the discussions were a lot less meaningful and nuanced than they tend to be over on this side of the Net. Not to say that this side is perfect at all that—I have an unpleasant story or two—but it's certainly way better.

[wygolvillage]

Figured I'd say this here: as I planned, I have officially quit Tumblr, which was my only social media apart from Discord, if that counts  Definitely a hard decision but I'm glad I've finally done it.

[DiffydaDude]

Figured I'd say this here: as I planned, I have officially quit Tumblr, which was my only social media apart from Discord, if that counts  Definitely a hard decision but I'm glad I've finally done it.

I wish it was easier for me to quit Discord 

[nintendowii99]

I feel so strongly about this topic and have been working on actively quitting social media since early 2022. I'm sure to those of you who have succeeded and deleted your accounts it feels silly to hear this is something I've been working on for 2 years now. 

My biggest problems are with Instagram and reddit. I am a photographer, and I use instagram as a way to share my photos. This is something I have intensely grappled with for years now, because I feel like this has forced me to become a "brand." I don't know what is better for my mental health: keeping my instagram use "professional" in a sense and only posting detached photos, or completely shifting gears and making it a personal account. I don't want to just delete it all together because I rely on it to keep up with community events, tattoo artists, and just random things, like job listings, volunteer opportunities, etc. In fact, most of the accounts I follow are not people, but local nonprofit groups near me. I've tried using RSS feeds or just visiting their websites, but a lot of them are small orgs whose websites barely even function as "sites" and are basically just a canva flyer with a link to their social media. Last year I got very frustrated with the platform because I attempted to cull my followers/following to try to make my account smaller and less "public," but ended up getting my account locked, almost permanently, for doing so.

I also use reddit a lot. I wish there were more niche forums, because if there were, I wouldn't feel the need to use reddit as much. However, something I've done that has helped slow my use of the site is be very intentional about the subreddits that I join. Instead of joining major subreddits with millions of members, I only join small, niche ones that are related to a specific interest I have. I also have a read-only mentality, which helps stop silly internet squabbles. At one point, I was using discord as a replacement for reddit. This helped a bit, but often felt less like interesting information/photos/cool stuff and more like I was the awkward third wheel of an established friend group. Besides, discord has its own problems as well.

I suppose I do also use Facebook, but very sparingly, and mainly just because it's an easy way to keep up with my mom (who is essentially addicted to the site) and because my job requires that I use it.

I have tried many times to completely leave social media, but often find real, tangible reasons to return. I feel like 5 years ago the "FOMO" that social media created was just missing out on what friends are up to or seeing peoples silly instagram photos. Nowadays, the "FOMO" is so much more real, because not being on social media can mean missing out on a job, a cool concert/event, or making meaningful connections in your community. I miss the days where organizations had real websites full of details and not just carrd links in their bios. I miss when there was real community with your neighbors.

Whenever I go on a social media hiatus, the thing I notice the most is the silence. I do often find myself opening up my phone, staring at nothing, then closing it again. The world feels so much emptier and sadly lonelier. I know that followers is obviously not the same as real-world friends, but when the rest of the world is finding their communities through sites that you are not a part of, there is a true and felt loneliness to that.

[virtue]

I really liked reading everyone's thoughts on this topic. Something that I hate about social media that hasn't been mentioned much in this discussion is how fast things become old.

For example, I used to be on Instagram and shared my drawings once in a while. Just one day after I posted something, it's completely forgotten. You have to post regularly to have engagement and if you stop once, it's like you haven't done anything at all. If you want to gain some recognition, you are forced to post constantly, which obviously results in lower quality.

Older posts are also really difficult to find, and you can't even properly search except for tags and usernames. If you want to find someone's first posts, you have to scroll through their entire profile and it can take hours.

On forums like this one, instead, older topics can be found more easily and you can still share you own opinion if you want to, no matter how old the topic is is or how long you've been a member. You aren't penalized if you haven't been active for a while and discussions feel more reasonable and genuine, without all the drama.

I think this is largely an inherent flaw with social media that is really under-recognized. Even better social media like mastodon and cohost that explicitly use chronological feeds are MORE susceptible to the problem. But I think this is largely an issue with how we're using social media. For scrolling!! Cohost strongly discourages using it like a contemporary social media by eradicating metrics which helps a lot, but the biggest problem is that people are trying to use social media as an art archive instead of a website, and it just does NOT work that way. Please make websites people!

[Memory]

I was reading a post on Gemini about someone who has deleted all of their social media apps on their phone, and mentioned how they kept looking at the screen afterwards, expecting to be able to scroll through a timeline.

I did the same thing with my iPad, and had experienced the same thing. It almost felt like withdrawal. I literally stared on my iPad screen, looking for something, anything, to take up my time and have that dopamine rush.

Afterwards, though, I felt like I had time to actually time to play games, read magazines and watch films. Days feel a lot longer now, too. I actually feel a lot happier.

It's made me realise how dangerous and detrimental social media can be to your mental health, and it's a wonder why it isn't discussed more.

That's not to say Social Media is all bad, just mostly. I think Twitter is good as someone who makes games and wants to write stories and make films, as a tool to help garner attention towards projects, but overall I think social media does way more harm than good. What are your thoughts?

Has anyone else done this? How did it go for you?

I halfway did the same (???) I used to use twitter , Instagram , facebook all the mainstream stuff . Now I use tumblr, discord, pin, and scratch. I use scratch mostly for an online community there I'm a part of , tumblr for casual blogging every now and then , pin for images , and discord for long-distance friendships. It's odd because I feel so much more peaceful and I don't feel obligated to 'update my followers' I just blog and code for fun .

[Cobra!]

I halfway did the same (???) I used to use twitter , Instagram , facebook all the mainstream stuff . Now I use tumblr, discord, pin, and scratch. I use scratch mostly for an online community there I'm a part of , tumblr for casual blogging every now and then , pin for images , and discord for long-distance friendships. It's odd because I feel so much more peaceful and I don't feel obligated to 'update my followers' I just blog and code for fun .

Scratch? As in the game engine?

[Memory]

Scratch? As in the game engine?

Yes.

[prismatic]

i'm kinda glad that my only social media is twitter, and the only reason i really keep that around is that i follow a lot of artists for commissions and art enjoyment. there are some... depressing things that pop up on my feed, as a result of keeping up with politics and the world around me, but i feel it prudent to be "in the know" than bury my head in the sand and pretend everything is fine when it isn't. at the same time, i realise how unhealthy it is to be doomscrolling in social media, so i do take breaks off of it and do something else if it gets to be too much.

i guess bluesky also counts, but that's essentially my gaming account exclusively for like, final fantasy xiv and pokemon things. so it's pleasant scrolling, really.

but that's essentially it. unless forums also count as a form of "social media", then i'm not really planning on partaking in any other forms of it. it's all way too much to keep up with and i feel it's rather unhealthy more often than not, even if one does their absolute best to curate their spaces. all of the conflict, rage-baiting, engagement farming.. all of it is so draining and it really brings out the worst in people which in turns worsens mental health for those who have to see that on their feed so frequently :c

i also think it's, as a whole, made a lot of people so much more unkind and hostile towards one another. now, bigoted people have always existed prior to social media's "uprising", i'm not naive to that fact, at least. but their voices have become so prevalent and amplified over the past couple of years that it's rather overwhelming. sometimes it's nice to have secluded spaces to mentally zone out and recover from all of that negativity, y'know?