Social Media as a necessary evil?

[Corrupted Unicorn]

I know very well that, in the web revival scene, we inherently attempt to distance ourselves from social media. Perhaps, we have even certain disdain for it It is not without its flaws, and we here in the web revival we try to build an alternative Internet, different forms of interaction, harking back to the Internet before it was mostly reigned in by social media. A noble cause, if you ask me, because I am the kind to believe there's always more than what's usually presented to you, and such is the case with the Net.

Yet...
Much like money, like how many of us hate capitalism yet are unable to get away from it, I see social media as a "necessary evil" nowadays.
 
While I personally can't handle updating frequently on a platform like this, I understand that, if I were to try to find a job in the artistic landscape nowadays, I'd need to have at least three of the big ones: Youtube, Instagram, Artstation...
And even if I didn't wish to pursue an artistic career, it's undeniable that social media has become the way to keep in touch with people: friends, fellow artists, artisans and creators. And other benefits that I might not have in mind right now.

With all that's said, what's your stance, your approach?

Do you still keep some social medias around, for professional or personal reasons?
If so, how do you keep good habits around them to avoid the worst sides of these platforms? (drama, scrolling addiction, privacy concerns, the need for instant gratification...)

Or, on the other hand, do you staunchly refuse to use social media?
If so, how do you make up for the services that social media offers? (keeping contact with people, sharing art, getting known as a small business)

I've been considering phonebooking. As Urban Dictionary puts it, two descriptions later:

"A person who never uses Facebook for social networking but rather to accumulate an alphabetical list of people like a phonebook. A Facebooker that uses Facebook soley to respond to friend requests, but never posts a single status update, makes comments or even has a profile picture."

So basically, the social media equivalent to a lurker. This is described as a negative thing, but I think this level of detachment could be necessary to some people.

Why do I format my posts as if they were school assignements?
I don't know, I hope you don't mind. 

[drmollytov]

Here's a slightly different perspective:

I've been a freelance writer for nearly 20 years. I left social media not for any personal/ideological reason, but because in nearly 20 years, I never got a single paid client or piece of work from my social media or professional blog accounts. Including LinkedIn.

I also used to think those platforms were "essential" to freelance creative work - until I looked at where my clients came from. None of them came through those channels. Not one.

My work came from (1) me pitching ideas or projects to teams/businesses I wanted to work with, (2) my existing network (clients, college professors, family/friends) asking for work or recommending me for jobs, and/or (3) former clients coming back to ask for more projects.

I now have my portfolio and resume on a three-page Neocities site, and the workflow hasn't slowed down one bit.

So if social media wasn't bringing in work, then all it did was suck up my time and energy for no return. Not worth it.

That said, I know a lot of people rely on social media for other things, like "this is my only access to my rare disease group" or "this is where we organize the weekly school carpool" or "my sister lives on another continent and this is how I get to see photos of my nieces growing up." It sucks that Big Tech holds those hostage so we continue feeding data to them, but in those cases, the person using the platform at least gets something they value in return. I wasn't getting anything, so I left.

[PALEOKNIGHT]

I've always been partly aware that social media was doing bad to me, but somewhere post pandemic that feeling got higher.
I don't know exactly when, but I deleted my tumblr account, where I funnily I felt a bigger sense of detachment from the community there than on much bigger sites. Previously than that, I deleted my Instagram app, and now I only keep whatsapp and discord, because in those I can keep in touch with my close friends.

 

"A person who never uses Facebook for social networking but rather to accumulate an alphabetical list of people like a phonebook. A Facebooker that uses Facebook soley to respond to friend requests, but never posts a single status update, makes comments or even has a profile picture."

This is pretty much how I am on instagram nowadays, I figured that the autoplaying videos were a huge source of distraction, keeping me away even from even seeing what the people I actually followed were posting. The fixing of that was deleting the apps as I've mentioned before, and ONLY opening it from web browsers. The fact that it's kinda clunky to browse, videos don't autoplay, and I have to log in and out every time, made me slowly drop out of it. Nowadays I only open it when I REALLY HAVE to, like checking the schedule of an event or seeing info on a local store that has no website.

 These things have put me in a much healthier relationship, really, I'd like to distance from them entirely, but I can't just cut off contact with my family and friends, so they get to stay around. Now I see people scrolling during social events or important lectures and it just feels weird... Always makes me think about how that was ME not too long ago, can't feel anything but a little sad or guilty 

[Spots]

Getting actually popular on social media is pretty rare and almost impossible if you only make stuff that is SFW and purely original (not basing this on any hard data, just the feeling I've gotten from being on the Internet a while). Most artists and other creatives will never reach a large audience on social media no matter what they do, so I don't think the end of social media would have all that much of an impact in the grand scheme of things. The handful of people at the top would probably be impacted the most, at least at first. Basically, most creatives didn't make it before social media and most of them still don't now. Instead of being at the mercy of publishers, we're at the mercy of algorithms and big tech companies now. This is all very speculative and based on casual observation, though, so I welcome anyone who has more experience with creative freelancing to correct me if I'm wrong.

As far as staying in touch with friends and family goes, I don't think social media is necessary for that either, or even better than what everyone was doing before. Calling, texting, instant messaging, email, and letters are still around and lack the unnecessary spectacle and algorithmic manipulation of social media. Sending photos and giving updates to a bunch of people could just as easily be done in a group chat or email chain.

Even if social media was better than how things were before in some ways, I would still argue that the negative influence of social media on the world so far outweighs any positive influence that it just isn't worth it. At this point, social media feels more like a weapon of mass destruction than anything else. So, I don't think that social media is a necessary evil.

[milo]

I think if you have a close, understanding circle of friends and family, you can get away from social media and still be able to exist in the modern world. When it was "the thing to do" back in 2020 I nuked my facebook, which was the primary way I messaged all my friends. I pretty much told them, get discord and message me there or text me. And it worked! Most of my friends got a discord account and that's the way we all keep in touch now. Discord is still technically social media, but the fact that there's no algorithm or anything really trying to get you to look at distractions makes it usable as a friend group/chat platform and just that.

I do have instagram, but I don't use or post that often. If I do, it's stuff that only my close friends see or react to. I have an instagram for the business I run, which I feel, unfortunately, is an essential part of getting business. For whatever reason, the locals in my area all use instagram and I get lots of new business from locals who discover our instagram page. My solution there is to treat it entirely like a business. I keep myself out of posts and make sure the business is the "face of the business". My peers in the industry I'm in all tell me that I need to get my face on camera and post myself in reels and stuff, but, truth be told, I don't want to be on camera and I don't want to pretend to be some sort of influencer like they do. I just want to run a decent business. :)

The only roadblock I found while trying to move away from a world that's constantly plugged in was when I tried turning off all notifications on my phone, and electing to check my messages a few times a day. My friends and partner got kinda irritated when I wouldn't respond to important requests in a timely manner haha. Although that's more a them issue, but I aim to please so I turned my notifications back on. ;) However, I never let apps that aren't messaging apps send me notifications and that definitely helps.

[Blue]

Pretty much everything I do online, whether it's social media or a personal site, is fandom-related. Nowadays, if you want to participate in fandom, social media is your only option. Want to have discussions, talk about news related to the media you like, ships, fics, art? You'll need SOME form of social media to get to it. Granted, if you're there just to read fanfiction, you can just make an ao3 account and read it there, comment, leave kudos and bookmark stuff, with interactions with writers being what you get out of it, but nowadays most people don't even do that (that's a discussion for a different topic that's heavily tied to overall fandom mentality a lot of younger people have and unable to recognise or just refuse to because it's too much work). Group chats/discord servers are the other alternatives, but that also requires getting to know people first unless you decide to join one blindly because you looked it up (which honestly I would not recommend based on everything I've heard about that).

There are alternatives like Dreamwidth and Fediverse, but most people don't use Fediverse for fandom unless you're on aethy or baraag (misskey.io falls here too, but they haven't been accepting registrations from non-japanese users for a long while), of which the first one is very quiet most of the time and the other doesn't accept invites unless you're an artist. Dreamwidth is going to be frequented by people who are older in general, so the fandoms might reflect that, meaning there won't be many newer fandoms present (trust me, as someone who loves doing exchanges, it took me a whole year for a one that also isn't cross-posted on Twitter to have another person who'd like to write for it too).

And like. I love writing, fanfiction is the main thing I do in fandoms, but I also like talking about ships I like, finding people who have same or similar interests as me, and just sharing my thoughts and ideas for whatever I want to write/am writing right now. The thing is that most people are quite used to social media and are not very likely to move away from it for fandom, and frankly, I get that. I've been in fandoms for most of my life, it's the main hobby I have, and sometimes, completely moving from one place to another not knowing if others will is a gamble, because then you end up alone or with maybe two or three other people.

Now this could also be a my fandom thing because as of now, it's not as big as it used to be before and not many people are as active, but most are on Twitter. There are some people on Bluesky which I think is a great alternative due to a functional block button and ability to block lists, but not enough to have a nice little community overall. There was an attempt at having a forum back in early 2024, but it lasted for maybe two weeks before people just didn't bother with it anymore. I do think that, whatever fandom is in question, overall everyone would benefit if they also used Tumblr as it doesn't have a word limit (to my knowledge at least) that is detrimental to the fandom experience. it's objectively better to have the ability to make long posts, regardless of what you're posting about. I don't think this is happening anytime soon tho, at least not until Twitter fully goes down, meaning everyone would be flocking to different places.

Overall, I am heavily against the 'social media bad' sentiment in general, especially because you have the means to curate it and avoid a lot of the things that can cause harm once you notice it. Yeah, sometimes you might not be able to do it well so you leave (honestly tiktok is a huge problem for me because no matter what I do I cannot bend the algorithm to my will, something I was able to do with Instagram and Twitter without much issue), but most places have the ability to let curate your online experience, something that I live by especially in fandom as someone who does tend to do a lot of "less favourable" writing, according to many. Not to mention that most people won't care to use altarnatives as they're not as intuitive for what people usually do in fandom..

[DiffydaDude]

@Blue we should try and start a movement to get people to make fandom specific sites

[aroceu]

@Blue as someone who is neck deep in fandom i agree a lot with what you said!! i think the mentality that social media encourages may not necessarily be the easiest to immediately maintain (in fandom or otherwise), but fandom is an incredibly community-focused online activity - there would be no point if there was no community. a lot of people in fandom don't have the time or skillset to do more DIY stuff; i've always observed social media seems to be the easiest way for fandom people to flock, because it's just the matter of choosing your username and having an email. relative to the internet it's a quicker and easier way to connect and talk to people especially in public (giving it more of that communal feel), rather than composing a private email or finding your way into discord servers and chatting in more enclosed spaces.

generally speaking, i've always liked social media because i find it an alternative and often more convenient way to communicate with people outside of directly and privately messaging them. i do think it has its downsides: the numbers get to our heads, the algorithms also get to our heads. both, i think, because of human nature, and because how the corporations have invested in them to operate in certain ways to get us addicted (i.e. algorithms.)

i don't like using too much social media though just for my own sanity. i have bsky because i like microblogging and a lot of my fandom friends are on it, or twitter, but i'm barely on that on principle - i keep my account around though because i still have a lot of friends who are only there. i have a tumblr, too, and i'm on facebook to talk to my family. i really approach social media as an as-needed situation based on who i want to talk to, rather than based on what platform i'd rather use. that's the whole function of social media, to me - a means to talk to certain people and perhaps be entertained in different ways (i don't use tumblr the same way i use twitter/bsky, for example), but i don't take it too seriously and i'm not really married to any platform. take me where the people are! and where i can see my friends' thoughts and they can see mine without us having to actually interact with each other, lol.

the internet is really only my playground in a personal and hobbyist sense though. my irl/internet presence means absolutely nothing in my professional life, but i think that's a good thing for me and i don't have to worry too much about it. i know i'm online just because i want to be

[musicobsessed107]

It's definitely an evil, but it's not really "necessary" by any means, thankfully. You'd be better off starting your own blogging website instead.

And besides, hardly anyone gets famous and becomes well known on social media. Most users are your regular average Joes whom nobody really seems to know about and have a small following of maybe only a few hundred at most. This isn't the late 2000s when social networking sites were still run by the people, for the people and fame on these websites was organic (and when search bars were actually functional). Nowadays, the stupid algorithms determine who and what becomes popular and when, and unless you know how to exploit these trained algorithms to your advantage well enough, you don't really have a chance of anyone finding your works on these sorts of websites in this day and age.

[JetDungeonDragon]

I think Blue hammers in a lot of good points. I'm also against the social media bad thing. In my personal circle, I do hear a lot they x social media site was an entire waste of time for one reason or another. Little exaggeration on how much, but the sentiment is there. The fact that I have the circle of friends that I do right now because of social media alone is enough to make it do more good than bad. How many others are like me and found people that they could grow close to over nearly 2 decades?

This ability to bring people together I believe outweighs whatever other evils social media may incur significantly. Not to mention, being able to open up and hear the viewpoints of other people.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Coming back to this topic to ask: I've heard of RSS feeds very often here around the Old Web Revival movement, and while I haven't checked them in depth yet (thus I don't know how to set up one  ), here's a strange question... would it be possible to replace social media with an RSS feed system, to stay updated on people you'd usually follow while avoiding things like infinite scrolling and recommended posts? So theoretically, that part would be covered by the RSS feed and you could have social media itself only to reach/message the people you stay in touch with. Or would that be too much trouble to bother with? 

On the other hand, I use browser extensions to enhance my Youtube experience, decluttering it so I don't get frontpage videos or a sidebar with recommended videos. Great to avoid falling into undesired rabbitholes. (Unhook, if you're curious). Do similar tools like this exist for other social medias? (Youtube kinda counts as social media nowadays...)

[Grelb]

I removed all the mainstream social media back in 2012. Later I removed my reddit account in 2018. To be honest, I didn't do it only for my health, but also because I am extremely scared of what it was creating back then, that it's now reality.

The most concerning thing imho is the lack of focus of younger children. I feel that most of the competition in the future workplace will be in that direction, rather than the more traditional "smartness".

Anyway, right now, where I live in the netherlands, the only reason why social media is necessary is for public events, such as parties. Sadly, even the more "underground" and DIY scene moved there, so I have an empty pseudonimous instagram account that I open once a week to check what to do during the weekend. The only alternative is squats, that here have their own aggregator called radar.squat.net

[warlock]

would it be possible to replace social media with an RSS feed system, to stay updated on people you'd usually follow while avoiding things like infinite scrolling and recommended posts?

Yes*!

*Most modern social media sites don't quite support them. Doing some cursory research, it appears that you can set up an RSS feed for Twitter/X the Everything App accounts, but instagram/facebook doesn't have any support for RSS and will outright ban you if you try to set one up. Youtube does fully support RSS feeds for individual youtube accounts, though, so you can keep up with your subscriptions without ever opening the site.

Tumblr has full rss support, likely just due to the site technically being a blogging platform, and alternative SocMed sites like Spacehey have RSS support, at least for their blogging feature.

RSS feeds are super fun to have! It's very nice to have an at-a-glance feed to see what's new from the people you're interested in without all the noise of larger sites. I've used NetNewsWire on my computer, as well as the 32bitcafe web feed tool for my work computer.

[candycanearter07]

Yes*!

*Most modern social media sites don't quite support them. Doing some cursory research, it appears that you can set up an RSS feed for Twitter/X the Everything App accounts, but instagram/facebook doesn't have any support for RSS and will outright ban you if you try to set one up. Youtube does fully support RSS feeds for individual youtube accounts, though, so you can keep up with your subscriptions without ever opening the site.

Tumblr has full rss support, likely just due to the site technically being a blogging platform, and alternative SocMed sites like Spacehey have RSS support, at least for their blogging feature.

RSS feeds are super fun to have! It's very nice to have an at-a-glance feed to see what's new from the people you're interested in without all the noise of larger sites. I've used NetNewsWire on my computer, as well as the 32bitcafe web feed tool for my work computer.

Pretty much the only "real" social media i actually care about (bluesky) does suppport RSS natively, but I still use a proxy because the native version doesn't seem to support images yet.

[Blue]

@Blue we should try and start a movement to get people to make fandom specific sites

That would be an interesting idea to try out, however it requires more than two people for it  Trying to manage forums and just make people use something that's not social media is going to take a lot of time. Unless there's a moment where all social media just dies down for a period of time, no one is going to make a mass move to different platforms. I do think trying to make a change and at least balance it out with having some sort of forum/site that's functional for fandom to participate it, it just takes a lot of work and trying to make people do that is going to be hard right now.

I think the best bet is to try Dreamwidth more, since it's already established and making communities should be a viable option, as anything above that might be too much right now.