The difficulty of giving up social media

[Tradd]

Lots of people these days have said they’re giving up social media. Don’t you end up isolated? I tried giving up FB around 2010ish for a couple of months. I found out friends had lost babies at term, gotten married (eloped). I didn’t know about any of this until I saw them weeks later.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to give it up, but as I live alone, I would be so out of the loop. Dives are arranged on FB groups or Messenger chat groups. I have long term friends I’ve known only online for more than 20 years. No FB, no keeping in touch. One group started on a forum, but then the forum died, and we moved to a private FB group. I have friends who don’t text, but only use FB Messenger instead.

I rarely post on IG and I’ve only ever occasionally read stuff on Threads.

What about you?

[pinkytoe]

I mostly text or email with family and friends but will occasionally check to see what family/friends are up to on FB or Instagram. However, I recently reached out on FB to an old high school friend since we now live in the same state. We got together and had a great time. That would not have happened without seeing her on FB. When I moved here, I made sure to join a couple of local groups so that i can have some community that is not online - book club, garden club. Ironically, I only found out about those things by seeing them on FB first.

[catherine]

I gave up social media for Lent once. It was OK, but I really had no intention to give it up for good! There are a lot of annoying and even addictive aspects to it, but I agree that I've gotten a lot of positives from it as well. (Y'all being one of the biggest positives!) I'm active on FB, here, and Substack mainly. I don't do Instagram or Threads or WhatsApp or Twitter. I've got my hands full with the platforms I'm already on.

[iris lilies]

I am unable to give up some forums. If you can tell me how, please do.

[happystuff]

I have facebook, but rarely go on it at all. I hope to soon, but only to try to sell some stuff on Marketplace. That's about it for me. People I want to be in contact with, I call, text or visit.

[ToomuchStuff]

I am not on X, Instragram, most social media, and only barely on FB, due to owning the business and fighting cancer (people wanting updates). I do not post myself, nor can I since I don't have a FB account.
Had a friend who was stalked through FB as that was the only way her family communicated. Makes zero sense to me. I would much rather have access the way people with security clearances or issues have, then have to have something linked to me. (sights like this are enough, but harder to generally track)
Tried to get setup with fake info, but my email company is asking for information that I do not have (personal cell phone, nope, company one, personal email that isn't through them, nope, that is what I pay them for).

[iris lilies]

I run hobby pages for a few organizations and so cannot quit Facebook.

i use it only a bit for friends and family. Mainly, .i turned off all posts from friends and family but for my brother, and I only have about a dozen friends/family anyway. My personal FB page is locked down.

[Rogar]

Other than this forum and a brief excursion into a few others I don't use social media. I have told friends who have wanted me on Facebook that I would love to stay in touch by email or phone, or lunch or coffee if local. If I were still working it would probably be a good idea to have a larger network of professional associates.

[Tradd]

I gave up social media for Lent once. It was OK, but I really had no intention to give it up for good! There are a lot of annoying and even addictive aspects to it, but I agree that I've gotten a lot of positives from it as well. (Y'all being one of the biggest positives!) I'm active on FB, here, and Substack mainly. I don't do Instagram or Threads or WhatsApp or Twitter. I've got my hands full with the platforms I'm already on.

WhatsApp is just a messaging app. I don’t consider it social media b

[iris lilies]

I read Instagram, with a couple of key accounts I follow for snark and another dozen I follow for hobby and visual arts.

I subscribe to several sub Reddits. there are a couple forums I read regularly that are not on Reddit.

[rosarugosa]

I really like Instagram for following various artists and artisans. When my studio hosts Open Studios every year, they have a page listing the participating artists. I always add any that I'm not already following, and that way I get to follow many of the best artists in our pottery community.
I believe I get more positives than negatives from FB, although I don't love everything about it. I belong to a lot of pottery groups and gardening groups and nature groups. I've actually made friends through FB, and I've reconnected with some old friends.
I participate in this forum and to a lesser degree the MMM forum.
I don't bother with Twitter, and I rarely go to Nextdoor.com anymore.

[pinkytoe]

I enjoy using reddit but was sorry to see it go public as now there are ads and one wonders if some posts are bots or not.

[iris lilies]

I enjoy using reddit but was sorry to see it go public as now there are ads and one wonders if some posts are bots or not.
It’s weird, I’m not seeing ads on Reddit. I wonder why?

[iris lilies]

Pinkytoe, I am wrong about Reddit ads, Yes, they are there. I guess I was not really “seeing” them.

[pinkytoe]

Reddit ads
Many more to come. Bad me - I bought a little Reddit stock a few days ago. I use them more than google now for finding info on various topics.

[Tradd]

Yes, Reddit is a good source of info.

[iris lilies]

Oh I think Reddit is a good way to get a pulse on the nation although probably just as full of stupid junk as Twitter and etc. I like the plain format, no images. Just text