Dealing with people who do use social media?

[BlazingCobaltX]

I definitely agree. For me, one of the main difficulties is that my favourite musical groups are all k-pop, and I feel like k-pop especially is really bad about very seldom having proper home pages and just having social media instead. The only proper site for my favourite group, Verivery, for example, is a small-ish site, which is only in Japanese and has no newsletter/RSS feed/whatever to get updates beyond checking back however often and hoping my browser's translation add-on works. And the site doesn't cover a lot of news pertaining to the group anyways, so I either have to scroll through my Twitter feed on my old account or hope the Discord chatroom I'm in starts buzzing about it.

I feel you on this. When I left Twitter and Instagram (the latter temporarily) I voluntarily said goodbye to updates on the kpop things I followed, because the whole infrastructure of (international) kpop fandom rests on social media. It is a huge flaw and I don't think every user of kpop Twitter is equally aware of how easy it is to lose valuable information about artists forever.

While it felt very refreshing to be away from Instagram for a few weeks, it is impossible as it has become the main place to keep in touch with friends and friendly contacts. In a sense, social media posting has taken away the need to contact people individually and catch up with each other. Like it has become too much of an effort to make personal contact, and one-way broadcasts of our life updates are sufficient enough. It's a bit bleak, thinking about it now.

[cursedcalendar]

i'm a bit confused about something in the original post.

isn't this forum a source of social media...?

[Melooon]

isn't this forum a source of social media...?

You're right, a forum is totally a very small social media site; but generally, when people say social media (like I did in this thread) they are referring to large-scale corporate-run social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc). Platforms like that usually involve things like account-walled info, data harvesting/monetization and designs that force user engagement. All those things create a space that many people here want to avoid or generally find unpleasant.

The issue is not with information being posted on a social/multi-user website; it's with it being locked into a particular kind of corporate product and therefore forcing people to use that product even if they don't wanna use it.

[cursedcalendar]

You're right, a forum is totally a very small social media site; but generally, when people say social media (like I did in this thread) they are referring to large-scale corporate-run social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc). Platforms like that usually involve things like account-walled info, data harvesting/monetization and designs that force user engagement. All those things create a space that many people here want to avoid or generally find unpleasant.

The issue is not with information being posted on a social/multi-user website; it's with it being locked into a particular kind of corporate product and therefore forcing people to use that product even if they don't wanna use it.

ohhhhhhh i see!
thanks for clarifying! 

[nintendowii99]

I deal with this issue a lot. Social media is just the way a lot of information and news is spread nowadays. Facebook in particular is often used as an alternative to websites or newsletters, or even as an alternative to personal communication. I've worked many jobs where we were required to join facebook groups/pages as that was how information was spread to all of the employees (because communicating in person is too difficult, I suppose).

Instagram and facebook are commonly used in my communities as a way to spread information about job listings, internships, events, etc. It makes it difficult to balance social media use, or feel fully comfortable with tuning out completely. People often talk about "FOMO" when deleting their social medias. I think several years ago the "FOMO" was easier to ignore because it was usually just photos from friends or memes. Nowadays, the "FOMO" feels much more real because not being on social media can mean not knowing about an amazing job posting, an interesting event happening in your community, or more. In other words, not tuning in can have an impact in your physical and material life, perhaps even alter the course of your life. Last year I took a 6 month break from social media, and by coincidence, on the day I checked instagram again I saw a listing for an internship at my dream organization. They only gave 2 weeks for people to apply, and if they had posted this even a month earlier I would have completely missed it.

Of course, there are ways to counteract this, but it is getting more difficult as time continues and people/orgs/groups move away from websites and more towards social media. Something that has worked for me is doing structured social media time specifically for finding out about events and happenings. I check social media (only FB and IG) once a month and write down everything that interests me and put it on a calendar. After that, I delete the apps again. It's not perfect, and I do wish I could just completely tune out, but this is whats working for me and helping me create balance.

[alexela64]

Something that has worked for me is doing structured social media time specifically for finding out about events and happenings.

I do the same thing!
As much as it sucks, a lot of the local anarchist/punk groups in my area use instagram as a main channel for communication about events. Every week I take time on a Sunday to comb my following for events/opportunities. Other than that, I have all Instagram notifications turned off and the app hidden, so it's basically not there unless I access it.
The issue, though, is that I hate the feeling of having Instagram on my phone. The fact that i know i will have to check it is really annoying. No matter how i try to connect with organizations through other channels, there just does not seem to be a more efficient alternative, or even one at all.... i wish more punks knew about web design *sigh*

[ttaxyy]

With how massive social media has become, and how it has pretty much taken over our everyday life, it's inevitable to meet people who care too much about you being part of one of those sites. This christmas, for example, I wasn't able to connect to my cousins and siblings because they kept referencing popular posts or memes that I had no idea about. Though that's just a petty thing...
Anyway, yeah it sucks when an event's or store's info is most updated on their social media and their website (if they have one at all) is out of date. Though I mean, I get it's more accessible for people starting a business. It's a fast and easy (and free?) way of showing your creations out there. Personally I'm debating on making a twitter ( ) because I opened commissions, and I don't have many contacts. But it goes against myself so I'm trying to look for alternatives.
In the end I guess we just need to keep pushing for different ways to contact people (e-mail)?

[starbreaker]

With how massive social media has become, and how it has pretty much taken over our everyday life, it's inevitable to meet people who care too much about you being part of one of those sites. This christmas, for example, I wasn't able to connect to my cousins and siblings because they kept referencing popular posts or memes that I had no idea about. Though that's just a petty thing...

This is the nice thing about being one of those middle-aged American dudes who have no friends. /s

It doesn't matter to me what people use because I probably won't talk to them anyway. If they want to get in touch, they can damned well email me.

[xero333]

Good topic. Where I'm from, I have a similar sort of issue. I live in quite a small community. There is often various events and things going on throughout any given month, but literally the only place any of this is ever advertised is on the local Facebook group. I haven't used FB for around 5 years and will never go back, so I do feel like I'm missing out a lot on when/where certain events will be.

As this is a small community, there is still word of mouth, but a lot of the time I don't hear about something until it's already happened, which is really frustrating.

I have thought about creating a "what's on" website just for my local community, where people can post any and all events that are happening, but when I think about it, the only person who benefits is me because I'm not on FB. Most people will just continue to post this stuff there and I can't see the older folks wanting to jump ship to a different website to post them.

The only social media I use is Instagram. My profile is private and I only accept people I really know and want to share things with. Any really personal pics like family etc, I post as a story that's only up for 24 hours, and I've changed the settings so these can't be shared. I was off Instagram for years, but recently signed back up again as friends often send me links to stuff on there that I can't access unless I sign up. I do enjoy it but try to limit my usage.

[vashti]

I think FOMO is what keeps people on social media & what you experienced is a natural extension of that. Maybe this is an overly simple solution, but I'm just not bothered by it; I like living under a rock. What's going on? I have no clue, unless someone tells me or texts me about it. A shop I'm interested in only does sales through Instagram? Too bad for them, they're not getting my business. Someone asks for my social media? If they have an actual interest in talking to me they can have my number, otherwise I'm not going to bother with it. Maybe this is "missing out," but this makes my life feel peaceful. I like not knowing what's going on.

The only thing that keeps me in the loop is Youtube, where artists I like announce when they're touring, but even then, I have Youtube deleted off of my phone most of the time, because again, unless I want to watch something specific, it's a waste of time to me.

I think people in general recognize that reliance on social media is a problem, because I don't get any push back for not using social media. If I'm ever asked why I don't have social media, I just say that it's a waste of time & less screen time means more time for my hobbies. No one ever really disagrees with me. Maybe it makes me less approachable, but it is what it is. This isn't something that I'll compromise on, at least not for the time being.

But yeah, I have no advice beyond enjoying the peace of not having social media. I think it's an increasingly rare blessing.

[MarcieBee]

I've been totally off social media for a few weeks now, and it's been really good for me! But I am missing out on trends and current events, to an extent. The best example I have is the trailer for the new Megamind movie/TV series. my friends who are all still very active or overactive on sites like Twitter and Instagram have been talking for days about how bad the trailer looks, and if it weren't for them I wouldn't have even known there was a new Megamind movie or anything. And is that really something I'm going to miss, the constant loop of Twitter discourse?

On a similar note, I was watching some videos by Kurtis Conner on YouTube last night talking about subjects like "WaterTok" and "Looksmaxxing," which are completely insane niches on TikTok that if it weren't for those videos I would've never known about. All those videos did was make me mad, and I think that was the point, it's rage-bait. My day would've been better if I hadn't watched those videos, but the worry that I was missing out on a big trend forced my hand. If the main things I see about the platforms I left are rage-bait and constant anger, then maybe I should've left sooner. If it's really important, I'll read about it in the news.