Two separate apps innit?
Plus there's always the website.
Two separate apps innit?
Plus there’s always the website.
Sorted, I am assuming you have to have an open/active Facebook account to be able to continue using messenger?
Completed Facebook about 3 years ago. I was spending way too much time looking at other people's lives and comparing it to my own. not healthy. It's the whole going to bed and still scrolling through Facebook for an hour. It's depressing
I deleted my account so no going back. Felt very refreshing.
Then I started upping my Instagram usage, watching videos for an hour or more at a time. So I deleted that a year ago now. Feels good.
Top tip is to make sure you don't have apps that are linked with Facebook for login as that can reactivate your account when you log in.
I do spend a lot of time on here now tho 😫
The only "social media" I participate in is STW or YouTube techno minimal bass stuff if they count?
I ignored Facebook for a year, then out of curiosity had a look. It was like ground hog day, the same people and groups posting the same content day in day out.
Here
Facebook I hardly use it now, good for a few groups and local community stuff as I live in a very small town.
Twitter binned it off 100% I don't really get it to be honest.
Instagram is really my thing now I have a decent following but also follow some really interesting people.
Youtube is one I couldn't do without it really is a rabbit hole but often in a good way.
I can see how social media can have a negative effect on people though especially Instagram
Sorted, I am assuming you have to have an open/active Facebook account to be able to continue using messenger?
Of course.
STW and FB.
Deleted Twitter and still have an IG account with about 3 posts on it. LinkedIn is just used for work once in a blue moon when I need to find someone.
I use FB as a news aggregator and end up reading lots of articles which pop up on it from the FT, New York Times, Economist etc. Find it really interesting. I also post loads of stuff and our adventures were mentioned in a few Xmas cards we've just received, so some people find it interesting. I also really like the Memories feature.
On Facebook but massively culled the number of "friends" I have on there. Just because I went to school with someone 25 years ago or worked with someone 10 years ago doesn't mean I'm interested in what you're having for tea tonight or what your political views might be. Also reduced the number of groups I'm part of as the level of stupid in some of those was getting beyond a joke so now I'm just part of a few local riding groups and some car groups. Groups that are properly policed and as such as really useful given the near complete death of the traditional forum.
Instagram I dabbled with leaving for a few weeks at a time and each time I went back on it, it just pissed me off more and more. The number of adverts mixed in with the number of "my life is ace" type shite from wannabe "influencers" just wasn't what I wanted to see so deleted the lot - app, my account (with years and years of posts and pictures) - gone. Not felt for a second that I'd want to go back.
Forums - STW (the only biking forum I use), Pistonheads and a Leeds United forum are the only ones I use as they're actually pretty useful/funny.
LinkedIn I detest to my core and only ever use it when I want to look for a new job 🙂
YouTube - watch a load of stuff on there but unlike IG, found it dead easy to filter out the shite that it was suggesting I might like.
Don't think I could give it up completely but only use it these days where I personally get value from it.
On Facebook but massively culled the number of “friends” I have on there. Just because I went to school with someone 25 years ago or worked with someone 10 years ago doesn’t mean I’m interested in what you’re having for tea tonight or what your political views might be. Also reduced the number of groups I’m part of
I have a theory that it's possible to take this too far. It's as if Facebook needs to push a certain amount out to you and it'll make that up with crap if you're not engaging with enough friends and groups. FWIW those "friends" I have who I don't engage with never appear in my feed anyway as FB is prioritising accordingly.
Is youtube not counted as social media?
I would group it in with the others, and it is probably the most addictive of the lot. And while it is probably also the most entertaining and informative, it is becoming increasing hard work to keep the crap and poison off my feed.
I still have a facebook account, but never use it, I had a look at twitter and could see virtually no benefits to it at all to fight the algorithm (and it amazes me the mundane crap that people regurgitate from their twitter bubbles onto here as if they think it is insightful or interesting).
The social dilemma is worth watching on netflix.
and this is kind of relevant, and matches my experience of social media, especially youtube where I keep going back with anticipation but am almost always disappointed.
STW only for me. Had FB years ago, but didn't really use it, and got sick of wellbeing messages and randoms asking to be 'friends'.
Had Twitter until recently but sacked it off, as I wasn't really using it and I think Elon Musk is a ****.
dropped FB a good few years ago. And dropped instagram a while back. My life is better without both.
I dont use ****ter or any of the teeniebopper ones (snapchat, tik tok etc).
It obviously depends on the type of person you are, but many hours can be lost looking at nothing.
FB is really useful for the various cycling groups I'm in, you don't have to use it for anything else.
The biggest problem I see with Facebook and Twitter is that there is no User Manual.
do you think anyone would read it if there was...
Does Strava count as social media?
Yes totally.
Ditched the lot (FB, IG, Twitter and LinkedIn)....best thing i ever did.
Don't miss it in the slightest. I have loads more time and am probably a little less stressed for it.
On Facebook but massively culled the number of “friends” I have on there. Just because I went to school with someone 25 years ago or worked with someone 10 years ago doesn’t mean I’m interested in what you’re having for tea tonight or what your political views might be.
Same, and I think this is pretty key.
I had a cull a while back, deleted like a third to a half of my "friends." Because you're absolutely right, there's a tendency to add people you "know" but that can be pretty tenuous. Sure, we went to high school together so I've at least heard of you, but we didn't speak two words to each other when we were at school let alone a quarter of a century later. People change and I get that, I'd hate for people to remember be as the walking stereotype Sheldon poindexter I was back then but... you've added me as a friend and not even said hi? Why?
Facebook's still just about usable for me. Not [i]too much [/i] onscreen spam confusing my eyeballs, just the stuff I want to see from bands, bike co.s, new releases, sales, stuff like that - I don't follow any friends or family any more cos they just put stuff relevant to themselves, not to me.
But TWITTER?! Ow, my eyes man, not only is it full of spam and shite fed to me, in the expectation that I'll read or click on something I have absolutely no ****ing interest in (Who IS Elon Musk ffs?!) but all the interesting people I used to follow seem to have been suckered into reading the trash and re-tweet it so now I see loads of crap I don't want to see. I think, by my calculations, 99.7% of the twitter feed I see is of no interest to me whatsoever. So occasionally, I open it (like I was linked to it from here the other day to see some crazy roundabout), and scroll through, seeing nothing really.
I deleted the FB app from my phone in the midst of the first lockdown. I still have the profile but log in once in a while to have a look at memories. I have an Instagram which I post anything on and that's linked to FB for any family that may not see it otherwise. I use Twitter sparingly, mainly to find news etc. LinkedIn for work related shite.
Is Reddit classed as social media? I probably use that most.
I ditched FB many years ago. Other than Strava and lurking here I don't do any other social media.
I do feel my world has got smaller because of it. My social group certainly has probably not helped by the covid years. Do worry slightly that as I get older that I'll miss some of the connectivity that social media offers. It used to wind me up mostly, hence why I ditched it. But undoubtedly there were some positives to be had.
I'm only on STW, FB and Twitter and they are more than enough for me to waste my life away. Don't do Strava, Insta, TikTok or Snapchat and never will. I wouldn't consider YouTube to be SM as I only watch and don't interact beyond hitting like. FB is good for family or local stuff and special interest content. Many of the suggested groups are quite well aligned to my outdoorsy / photography interests.
Twitter, on the other hand, seems quite dark and manipulative by comparison. So much uninvited content from right-wing headbangers, journalists and politicians just keeps appearing. I block 'em like a turkey shoot and a whole new batch appears in short order. People I've never heard of spouting hateful poison about asylum seekers or a slightly brown duchess. Presumably this is due to me following people who engage with the headbangers however, I never see suggested content from left wing commentators, politicians or grown ups who call out gammons or government corruption despite already following plenty of these types of people. Twitter might be getting binned soon, the witty stuff is sinking in a sea of bile.
I have a theory that it’s possible to take this too far. It’s as if Facebook needs to push a certain amount out to you and it’ll make that up with crap if you’re not engaging with enough friends and groups.
Indeed, before I finally ‘left’ (I’ve shutdown, but not deleted, my account) I had limited what I was seeing to such an extent that FB basically went: you’re not interacting so we are not going to serve you anything…. I dropped FB previously for 2-3 years (deleting app off phone/ipad), only going back on it after my folks death to ‘keep in touch’ with family and close friends. I then binned it as it was headed the same situation (and I had pretty much moved to IG instead). I prefer IG as there is less ‘interaction’ necessary although the current algorithms pushing ads are getting on my tits.
Never done twitter or strava and managed to avoid linkedin (its always seemed pretty odious and self-promoting bullshit that I normally avoid like the plague). Don’t have a YouTube account and tend to search for specific things (only really click on something if it looks to be of interest). I can bored on there pretty fast these days (the incessant ads again don’t exactly lend me to interact more than necessary).
The current STW ‘algorithms’ have lead me to interact significantly less these days and drop paid membership although I have had an uptick in the last week or two.
I prefer closed WhatsApp conversations (with different friends and family) to other ‘channels’ these days.
Get rid of Facebook. No downsides.
I've never used any of them. I read my wife's fb once and that was that.
I deleted my Facebook, Instagram accounts a few years ago.
I deleted Twitter about two years ago.
I’m just about to delete my Reddit account (again).
I’m on Strava but not for the social aspect.
Even if you choose to ignore the moral and ethical concerns, the bottomless pit aspect to it is too much to take for me.
Never joined. As a forum user since the mid 90's it was clear what they were going to be and what the public was rushing headlong into.
Ring-fenced corporate money-makers that are gated communities off the "real" internet that exist only to mine you for data that can be sold and to serve advertising. To do that they must be as addictive as possible because more data = more value. They were never going to be healthy - by definition that's not possible.
We now know what a huge impact they have biochemically. They were AIDS when they started and they only got worse as the companies that run them learned how to hook you in more effectively.
Yes, of course, there's some good to them or people wouldn't use them. But the cost is way too great and the ultimate functionality (joining people together, enabling easy communication) was available on the internet - with no strings attached - long before corporates ring-fenced their herds of sheep off and started feeding off them.
BTW - STW is not "social media". It's just social. It's forum is searchable and indexable from the internet (Facebook isn't for example - so it doesn't even add to the "greater good" from that point of view) and it's not designed to make you addicted. The reason you're all here is that you like bikes, not that STW provokes an outsize dopamine response. STW Towers do not employ an army of PhDs to make the experience here addictive so they can sell your data on. They're trying to flog a mag and enable a community of like-minded people. That is all.
BTW – STW is not “social media”.
Given the rest of your post I can see why you're trying to make that argument, but forums are the original social media*!
They might have been overtaken in term of whizzy apps with bazillions of users and cunning monetisation strategies over the last decade or so, but they are very much social media.
*quick acknowledgement to all the people who are about to tell us they were on alt.cary.grant.fans in 1908 or whatever
Of course it is. Literally the dictionary definition is a website where the [I]users[/I] create the content.STW is not “social media”
FTFY 😃As aforumsocial media user since the mid 90’s
Came off twitter after a short period on there. It’s a truely poisoness place that brings out the worst in people, myself included
I’m still on fb though, only for the market place bike ads. I don’t count Strava as social media as I only use it to track my rides
I don't view Strava as social media - I simply use it as somewhere to log my rides. Follow/am followed by a few close friends and thats it.
YouTube similar - I don't interact with anyone on there (I did post 2 videos though!). Just use it to watch videos, same as I do for Sky/Prime/Disney+.
Nope. Forums don't qualify. The bringing people together specifically in social networks was the thing - importantly using the "web of contacts" method. Probably six degrees was the first "social" platform that used that model - in 1997.
Forums have been around much longer - and effectively are a more user-friendly extension of bulletin boards.
(Which I also used extensively back in the day - utilising my JANET connection at University).
Interestingly, the first thing I ever saw on the "internet" was a porn story involving the Thundercats that I had to access by typing in an IP address onto some terminal software - before web browsers were invented.
Either way. STW is not "social media".
Either way. STW is not “social media”.
You keep telling yourself that if it makes you happy that you are in the clean and enlightened minority free from the curse! 😉
you have confused social [I]media[/I] with social [I]networking[/I].Nope. Forums don’t qualify. The bringing people together specifically in social networks
Nope. For the purposes of definition that "web of contacts" method is fundamental to it - because that defines it.
Following your argument then football fanzines could technically be social media - multi-user created content that's consumed. But it just ain't so.
That networking component is important in what is defined as a "social media platform" - and without that component the harms that social media can inflict are reduced. It's that technical innovation - the six degrees of separation - that is fundamental to the basis of it's functioning and success - and the harms it can inflict.
Forums aren't capable of that and when we talk about "social media" we need all of those aspects.
In fact, you could define forums as antisocial media. Forums need a theme - in this case mountain biking - to bring people together.
The rest of the world can jog on and leave us to stew in our own pit 🙂
Forums need a theme – in this case mountain biking – to bring people together.
Every single user I see feed from through FB is connected to me by a 'theme' - the theme of knowing them personally, or the theme of sailing the same dinghy, or the theme of CNC machines, or the theme of ........mountain bikes!
Nope - by any reasonable standard (and a good dollop of google results for definitions) a web based forum is a type of social media. You just don't want to hear to as it blots your copybook!
And yes, you are conflating social media and social networks as one and the same thing.
Fed to you. And you consume.
Fed to you. And you consume.
Last night Callum posted on our kayak club FB group page about the upcoming yoga sessions. I read it !!!!!! Oh god, was I fed? Did I consume? I feel dirty!
Used as tools social media can be great. unfortunatly it is designed to draw you in and keep you scrolling and that design works. I am slowly trying to reduce my intake while still using the tools where they are handy.
I use Facebook primarily for getting updates on bands I follow - local music scenes do thrive because of the ability to reach a much larger audience.
Instagram I use as much for seeing fun biking content as I do for band stuff - and that is where I sometimes dump photos too.