How do you use social media?

[grovyle]

Being pretty new to the web revival scene, something that I struggle very much with is the part of me that feels the need to use social media vs the part of me that misses the old internet. I miss choosing when to engage with the internet when smartphones weren't much of a thing, but I also have become pretty reliant on social media for other stuff.

I think (/know because of other topics on this forum) that this is a pretty common feeling among people my age, and am extremely curious as to how you, more versed in this web revival stuff than I am, currently use social media.

My current social media use looks like this:

• Left twitter like a year ago after the infamous purchase. It was hard at first because it was my most used social media, I felt lonely at times and there were lots of thoughts that I didn't know where to put for a while, but I don't miss it at all now.
• Have used tumblr for 10 years, have curated my environment there enough that it doesn't heavily impact anything in my life. I log in, look at pretty pictures and funny posts, and log out.
• Have facebook installed on my phone because we had to use it for some uni stuff, but it's become pretty useless now so I might uninstall it soon and just go on the web version when I need something from there. I don't post anything, don't share anything, and haven't changed my profile pic in 7 years. I also have a timer set for 15 mins of facebook a day, and then the app blocks itself.
• Instagram is my main problem. I have two accounts: one personal, in which I follow pretty much everyone I know and mute everyone I'm not friends with, but I still spend a considerable time there that I could spend doing literally anything else. I enjoy uploading stories and/or posts, but have felt discouraged the past few months because not even my friends interact with them much. Reels are the bane of my existence. And then I have an account that I like to call an archive, where I upload a picture of everything I read/play/watch with a little review, to help visualize and make a nice round up at the end of the year. Not an influencer account by all means, with less than 200 followers, and no community built there at all (I just upload the post and then switch accounts again), but the main reason why I still have the app installed. I've been thinking of replacing this account with a website or a blog, but I'm still not sure, as I'm not very good at HTML and I think not many people would be interested on that. I have a timer set for an hour of instagram a day, and then the app blocks itself.

And then there are some things that some people might count as social media, like youtube, which I like using and am normal about and have no problems with. And goodreads which kinda sucks because it's owned by Amazon, but I haven't liked any of the alternatives that have come out yet because I tend to read/own rare-ish books that aren't in every data base.

Anyway, as I said before I'm just curious, and hoping to learn a thing or two from y'all 

[pinkvampyr]

while a lot of people's approach to the web revival is to give up new social media altogether, I don't think that should have to be the case for everyone, especially because new social media DOES have its uses (making it easier to stay in contact with people, letting your content reach a wider audience, etc.) I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping some attachment to new social media while also diving into the indie web and web revival scene. it's unfair to expect everyone just be able to completely unplug from that world.

of course that's also entirely reliant on what you feel is best for yourself, I'm kinda similar to you I think, i deleted my main Twitter and im on indefinite hiatus from Tumblr, I mainly just lurk and to look at cool pictures and funny posts. anything more in depth than that is bad for my mental health, but I also recognize that at some point I might really start to miss the level of interaction I had on social media, so I'm giving myself the freedom to  return if I want to (although with much more self awareness and care).

as for starting a site or blog, if your desire is to completely move away from Instagram but retain your following, you could always make a post telling everyone that you're switching to another site, so they know where to go, it might lose you some people admittedly, but it won't be as if you disappeared. if you don't mind using Instagram a bit you can make posts alerting people of new reviews you put up on your blog, maybe with a picture of the book and a bit of teaser text! having an archive of all your reviews in one place could be a big bonus too.

wrt not knowing HTML, I guess the question is are you interested in learning or not? if you are there are plenty of resources you can find here and around the indie web to learn, if not, there are people who have premade blog templates so you can have your own site with minimal knowledge needed, OR you could use a blogging website like WordPress or something similar! I'm using smol.pub for my blog but it's definitely much more minimalistic.

I don't know if this helps at all but I thought I'd put in my two cents anyway 😅

[wangobangy]

I kinda dropped most social media cold turkey simply because I wasn't being social with anyone and no one was being social with me. I used to like Instagram as a way to just put my thoughts down but I took up journaling in place of that. The only social media that I still have is Twitter (which I use mostly for news about bands/game devs/game publishers that I like to keep up with) and tumblr which I have used for 10 years and have always enjoyed because of their lack of algorithm and the tumblr themes. Other than that, I suppose I have a few other socials that aren't really socials to me like Letterboxd, where I can log, rate, and review movies, last.fm to keep track of my music listening, and Discord which is where all my friends chat.

I've looked at the old social media pages again recently out of curiosity and it just feels so... bad(?) and I don't enjoy it there. Maybe it's because my account was abandoned for a long time but my Instagram feed was full of stuff that I didn't want to see from people that I don't follow. And the merge with Facebook was weird to me too, and I was worried that my Instagram posts were showing up on my Facebook.

After I saw how bad social media has become, I have no problem staying away from it. I have found alternatives to what I did on those old social medias on my own, and it's much more enjoyable. If I could drop it all together someday that would be nice. 

[brisray]

I'd go with the website idea. Making a website isn't that hard once you realize what's going on, and places like Neocities make it as easy as they can.

If you write something you're particualarly pleased with you can write something about it on whatever social media you decide to keep and point people to the page.

I'm pretty disappointed with all social media, new or old. About the only one I still use personally is Facebook, and that's mostly to do with how many people use it. I'm always interested in what my friends and even people I know only slightly are up to and FB is about the only place we all come together. I only know a handful of people who do not use it and those don't use any social media at all. What a pain in the backside that is. I mean, we actaully have to meet or at least email if I want to know what they're doing. 

I'll go months without posting anything, but when I do is just about whatever I've got myself interested in at the time and doesn't vary much to what I chat about in real life. My last post was something about tearing down the small engine to a wood chipper for repair. Then ended it with "The good thing about it is that because I can't run it yet, I stand less chance of losing something important; like a couple of fingers or even an entire hand." which is something I'll say when I'm retelling the story in person.

What I used to do was create personal accounts for a different persona, but those never lasted very long.

[grovyle]

wrt not knowing HTML, I guess the question is are you interested in learning or not? if you are there are plenty of resources you can find here and around the indie web to learn, if not, there are people who have premade blog templates so you can have your own site with minimal knowledge needed, OR you could use a blogging website like WordPress or something similar! I'm using smol.pub for my blog but it's definitely much more minimalistic.

It really is the question! haha I'm in a weird place in life rn so not ready to commit to a learning process like HTML's. I would love to eventually, and that's why I want to dedicate it the time it deserves. Blogging is definitely an option, I used blogger up until it was unusable and haven't gotten back into it since then. I also didn't know of smol.pub, it does look more minimalistic than what I'm going for but it looks interesting

After I saw how bad social media has become, I have no problem staying away from it. I have found alternatives to what I did on those old social medias on my own, and it's much more enjoyable. If I could drop it all together someday that would be nice. 

Yeah, I guess the problem with leaving social media is finding alternatives for the same stuff. I'm fine if I never fall down a scrolling rabbit hole again, but the bookmarking/getting news/archival capacity I would like to keep, one way or another.

I'm pretty disappointed with all social media, new or old. About the only one I still use personally is Facebook, and that's mostly to do with how many people use it. I'm always interested in what my friends and even people I know only slightly are up to and FB is about the only place we all come together.

Yeah, that's what instagram is for me! Everyone I know is using it, and I wouldn't like to lose contact with the outside world haha but at the same time, I think instagram is less web-friendly than facebook, which makes it harder to delete off my phone. The bit about using it in the same way you'll talk in person resonates with me also, part of why I deleted twitter was because I was too much of a persona there, rather than myself. It's also hard to gauge how much of myself I want to put out in the open, but I don't think that struggle is exclusive to social media, or even exclusive to the internet.

Thanks everyone for your replies! 

[Memory]

I don't. I tried Twitter back in 2016, but deleted the account after a week since I didn't like it. I grew up despising social media from my parents and it still sticks with me to this day. I do have a Mastodon account, but it's strictly to follow artists that I like to commission for artwork.

In my first semester of college I did a research paper on social media's affects on my generation (Gen Z) and it was much worse than I thought. Besides the known tracking and selling of data, social medias sites would use algorithms to try to find similar content, which in turn created a massive rabbit hole of reactionaries and conspiracy theorists. As for non-political things, well just look at the various stupid and or dangerous "challenges" done on platforms like TikTok. Any chance of me using social media was killed during my research for that paper. I'll stick to forums and IRC for interacting with people.

[brisray]

@Valeria22 Could some of that be because at least a proportion of Gen Z is not yet comfortable in their own skin and either looking for validation among their peers or want to give their parent's generation the finger?

I started writing about this in my last post in this thread then deleted it before I posted. I wrote that I personally only really use FB. Professionally, I look after around 40 social media accounts, everything from LinkedIn to MeWe to TikTok to Discord.

Because of what I do and where I work, a university, I sometimes get students coming to me because they've managed to get themselves into an online argument, got insulted or bullied by someone or feel that everyone else is leading much better lives than they do. Some I refer to our counselling services as I feel they've got deeper problems than I can help them with. Others I'll go through their options, from simply ignoring the posts, to reporting them to whatever platform they are on. I have no reservations at all about reporting public posts to the police or FBI on their behalf if I think they are being threatened, which thankfully is very rare. Others just need a gentle reminder and confirmation that what they are seeing is just someone else's edited highlights without all the boring bits.

[Memory]

[removed by author]

[devils]

I think a lot of people who are fresh to the Web revival/indie Web scene have the idea that to be to be properly into it you absolutely must ditch all social media when that's not entirely true.

So, here's the thing: social media as a concept is not the main problem. Old-school MySpace was a great example of this- it was a great way for people to connect and express themselves and for artists to promote their work. The main problem is that the companies who own these social medias value profit over humanity- they want you to spend most of your day on their site and no one else's because the more clicks you give them and the more ads you come across, the more money they get- and boy howdy, are they determined to get it even with fairly predatory means. To make a very complex problem simple, it really does boil down to «in a capitalist Web, you're the product».

Leftist tangent aside, in my experience I've never been able to completely detach from social media. The only ones I actively use are Mastodon and Tumblr.

Mastodon is cool because it's made up of smaller communities, and you get to know people a little bit better because of that. It's got flaws, of course, but even arguments can be productive since the character limit is a lot bigger than on Twitter. Your experience on Mastodon can be very different from instance to instance, so it's just a matter of finding a place that sticks.

As for Tumblr, while it has a lot of similar problems to Twitter (especially now that many people are moving to Tumblr from there), it thankfully is a lot easier to curate your dash over there.

Instagram is one I should be using (lots of artists in my country rely on it for connecting with other artists and companies), but gosh, I just can't stand it's mobile-first layout. It's not the worst offender, all things considered, and if it helps you keep in touch with others I'd say you don't have to ditch it (that's quite literally why social medias started existing after all).

While I encourage everyone to make a website, it's not something everyone can do (sadly). For all it's worth, your current relationship with social media seems pretty healthy OP. I think having a timer for Instagram is an incredibly clever idea too.

That being said, if you want to make a website you should go for it! Even if you think no one cares, trust me, it's incredibly rewarding to be able to put out your thoughts out there without a filter.

[Melooon]

I was thinking about this thread on my day away! I always thought I was someone who didn't use social media.. I have a few accounts, but they are not active and I don't take them very seriously.

But I recently moved into a shared house and I have housemates who do use social media (OMG TicTak is the most obnoxious sounding thing iv ever heard!!) - seeing how they use it has actually made me realize I DO use social media! However, my social media is very different!

I treat listening to music like social media! When Im bored I start exploring songs; I particularly enjoy songs that have stories or an emotional impact - I love to follow trends in music (although often the trends Im following happened 50 years ago). Listening to music gives me a feeling of connection and a narrative I use to connect with the wider world. I often put on the same artists over and over when I'm just doing something like making a cup of tea, and it feels like that artist is a friend Im hanging out with, it's a social experience for me - it's bi-directional too because the songs change me and I change the meaning of the songs in my head. I also have all sorts of stories and daydreams I make up for certain songs, it's a whole inner world, and sometimes listening to the radio makes it connected to the outer world too!

Im not sure if that is replicable or useful to anyone - but I guess maybe its an example of one way you can replace social media with other kinds of media and other kinds of (hopefully more fulfilling) connection.

[Memory]

Could some of that be because at least a proportion of Gen Z is not yet comfortable in their own skin and either looking for validation among their peers or want to give their parent's generation the finger?

Most likely, as I was rebellious in some ways against older generations in my youth. However it's concerning that the primary platforms being used by Gen Z for this purpose not only decides for you what are the first things you see, but also encourages people to do things such as cherry pick parts of their life, alter or even hide the truth about themselves, and even partake in stupid "challenges". All done simply to drive engagement and traffic to make profit. You have TikTok and stupid "challenges" like the 'Kia Challenge', which for those who don't know what it is, is people filming themselves stealing Kias. Why it's called a "challenge" is beyond me because it's not a challenge, it's a crime. You have Instagram which for years have promoted unrealistic beauty standards because of how many edited selfes and photos get popular. Twitter was a dumpster fire that encouraged mob culture that also fostered some really horrible political takes, and that was before Musk turned it into a military burn pit.

I could go on with other platforms like Facebook and Reddit, but I think I made my point. Gen Z should be able to express themselves, however this desire of seeking instant validation from doing whatever is popular on the largest platforms is terrible in the long run both for the individual and society. I hope that the FOSS alternatives to these platforms like Mastodon and Lemmy get used instead because at the very least, it's the individual who controls what content they see, not an algorithm.

you might have already run across this, Valeria,
but Tom Scott (who performs science infotainment on YouTube)
gave an amazing lecture
for The Royal Institution of Great Britain a while back,
discussing some of the things you've highlighted here, namely
polarization on the internet by algorithms and the effects this can have
on folks.

I knew of Tom Scott but didn't know about the lecture. It was a nice watch though a fair amount of the information was things I already knew about.

[Y2KStardust]

Honestly, I feel like I'm one of the rarities; someone in the small-web space who still uses lots of 'big' social media. I'm pretty isolated IRL especially with my chronic pain, so one of the things I try to do online is give myself as many spaces to make friends as I can!

I do think being intentional about social media use is important, though. I don't use twitter much these days, I find it too much of a kerfuffle compared to social media that I "get", like tumblr.

[arcus]

Instead of looking at social media sites and how I engage with them, I think about what I specifically want out of something, and use various sites (and other things) for what I want to do:

• News, and for finding interesting videos to watch: Knockout forums and Tildes.
• Random stuff to read: Same as above, but also Linkhut and Neocities' activity page. Ao3 and Pixiv if I want to read fanfiction.
• News for things I want to follow specifically: Twitter through Nitter.
• Socialising: For the most part I talk to my friends on Matrix. Sky CoTL and VR Chat are also good for this when I feel like meeting new people or vibing in the corner. Sometimes I hop around IRC but that's rare.
• Posting whatever's on my mind: Matrix; in my friend group we all have our own channels where we can post whatever we want. I occasionally use Mastodon and status.cafe, too.
• Looking at art: Twitter but through Nitter. Occasionally I check Tumblr and Pixiv as well.

Most of these sites support RSS, so I can look at everything at a glance and mark off what I've already seen, without having to visit each site separately. With my RSS reader (Canto-curses,) it's not something that I randomly scroll through, or have the urge to constantly check.

As for modern, major SNS specifically:

• Tumblr I used to use for posting and looking at art, and meeting people. It was great for art, but it was awful for making friends. While I did make good friends through it, there was always a sense of distance between me and my other mutual followers, even though we were close. The general etiquette and the very own design of the site discourages you to be social: One sign of this, is that it's taboo to leave comments on posts unless they're really good, which is why people leave comments in the tags. I didn't reach out to many people because of the uneasy atmosphere ― I didn't want to overstep any boundaries or be annoying. Over the years I got burnt out, and eventually joined Discord... only to come back years later, to try and meet people with similar interests around my age, since everyone sticks to private Discord servers these days. I stopped using it again, aside from occasionally lurking tags for art.
• Twitter has similar etiquette and design problems. I never kept an account there for long; I was too burnt out from Tumblr. I did have an account years back, but that was back when the site didn't properly support images. I do use Nitter, but that's not something I scroll through.
• Discord I talked a bit about in another thread. I used to explore various servers and talk with all kinds of people. I realised there was a point where I stopped talking as much, and spent most of my time lurking. The public servers I used to like either changed or died out. Eventually, I started using Matrix more and more, and bridged my friend group's channels to it. I logged out earlier in the year and never went back.

[Coby Cat]

Facebook:
I mostly use its messenger, since it's the primary means of communication for most friends and family. I wish I could properly integrate it into other chat applications I use (I'd ideally want to centralize all my communication in Thunderbird), but for now the standalone Messenger website will have to suffice.

Other than, I occasionally check specific Facebook pages. Updates for local businesses that lack a website (or don't update it), announcements from the local government, . . . For those I wish I could just get a proper RSS feed.

That leaves Facebook Groups. There are plenty of interesting groups, but I find the interface so utterly unworkable that I find myself avoiding them. A more sensible alternative frontend, closer to classic forums, would be welcome.

Twitter:
I mostly lurk, since I rarely feel like I have anything interesting to say. A lot of what I see on there I'd rather consume in the form of blog posts.

Chatting:
Beyond FB Messenger, there's WhatsApp for most remaining friends and family. I use Matrix for two more privacy-minded online friends, and as an IRC bouncer. I used to be heavily active on IRC, but almost all my familiar haunts have died out, and what remains has moved on to topics I care little about.
There's Discord, but because of its structure where each server has multiple channels, I can only keep up with a few servers and just occasionally check the others. Another service where I'd love to see alternative clients.

[Memory]

All I can say is that without social media, you have much more free time to do cool projects. In my experience, a proper, in-depth conversation from face-to-face can't be replaced. So I fortuneatly never bothered about any of the big platforms and everyone in my circle can be reached via E-Mail.