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What it’s like to have a social media detox

theguardian.com

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Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#71

Post by bobx11 »

seydor wrote: post #21

What is it that attracts people to social media? Ever since facebook started it seemed full of people self-promoting which made it look sleazy . Things haven't changed since , it 's just that now it has become normalized to be sleazy. What is it that attracts people to social media?

Are you sure our more normalized now? The back of magazines and comic books were also full of scams and sleaze when I was a kid. I am 40 and remember people forwarding letters around with a dollar in them for some kind of pyramid scheme.

Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#72

Post by seydor »

bobx11 wrote: post #71
seydor wrote: post #21

What is it that attracts people to social media? Ever since facebook started it seemed full of people self-promoting which made it look sleazy . Things haven't changed since , it 's just that now it has become normalized to be sleazy. What is it that attracts people to social media?

Are you sure our more normalized now? The back of magazines and comic books were also full of scams and sleaze when I was a kid. I am 40 and remember people forwarding letters around with a dollar in them for some kind of pyramid scheme.

We remember that because it was the exception

I don't think there was another time in history when people self proclaimed the things you find today in a social media profile , and not getting laughed at

Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#73

Post by famahar »

sys_64738 wrote: post #68
dijit wrote: post #4

Honestly, it's very difficult to cut social media. We like to tell ourselves that those who managed to quit (and are informing us of how bad it is) are being snobs or acting superior: but the truth is unfortunately that we are just feeling defensive of our inability cut the habit. I managed to get off of facebook and my mental health improved greatly, enough that I actually notice it. However, that was insanely hard…

> I'm still on Instagram, I'm on tiktok, I'm on Twitter. Tik Tok is another one that I just didn't see the utility in. Why would I want to watch a video of somebody being stupid? I just need to look around at people doing that in the normal walks of life.

You're really downplaying Tiktok. When it was starting up it was mostly a collection of teens dancing and making memes. Now there's content for everything made by a huge spectrum of people. Every person that relies on social media to maintain a brand needs to be on tiktok now. You scroll long enough and it'll feed you content hyper specific to your personality. I don't want to join Tiktok specifically because I know it'll show me things I enjoy but in a condensed form that will slowly rot away my attention span.

Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#74

Post by notjustanymike »

I bailed on all social media some five years ago. The most shocking consequence was how interested I became in people when I saw them in person. I had questions about their lives, the careers, family, activities and more. I suddenly didn't know everything about a person and had to ask.

Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#75

Post by darthrupert »

JustHiThere wrote: post #23
permo-w wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don’t forget that you typed this message on social media

can you elaborate ? This has imho nothing to do with social media. I check hackernews daily, I pick articles (or discover new tools ...) that spark my curiosity and I read them, period. Sometimes I engage and exchange with other people, leave my opinion etc ... This is nothing close to what Facebook, Instagram and co are up to ... Please explain.

Social media is media that is augmented with the ability to socialize with other people. That's what we are doing here right now.

Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#76

Post by darthrupert »

smeej wrote: post #12

This is why I hope Elon does burn Twitter to the ground, whether or not he means to. On net, I believe it makes the world worse. Even if there are some who benefit from it, I think it's at the expense of far too many other people to be worth the cost.

As individuals, we should not wait for that to happen. If Twitter falls, something will replace it and the users of that new place will be the same people that made Twitter toxic.

So I don't know. "Rise above, focus on science" or something like that. Is anyone studying theories how to make people non-toxic online? People are notoriously malleable, so it's most probably possible.

Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#77

Post by zirgs »

dijit wrote: post #70
schipplock wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and telling people to quit is unreasonable. well, it's not :/. Just quit.

omg, why didn't I think of that? https://i.redd.it/5tqpouqebvp11.jpg My whole post is about how I've been trying, have tried, and how I've failed. I'm 33 now, I've quit many other addictive things but this one seems to rope me back.

Just post something that will get your account suspended.

Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#78

Post by derwiki »

dijit wrote: post #70
schipplock wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and telling people to quit is unreasonable. well, it's not :/. Just quit.

omg, why didn't I think of that? https://i.redd.it/5tqpouqebvp11.jpg My whole post is about how I've been trying, have tried, and how I've failed. I'm 33 now, I've quit many other addictive things but this one seems to rope me back.

Have a friend change your password to something you don’t know.

Re: What it’s like to have a social media detox

#80

Post by zirgs »

KyeRussell wrote: post #19
dijit wrote: post #4

Honestly, it's very difficult to cut social media. We like to tell ourselves that those who managed to quit (and are informing us of how bad it is) are being snobs or acting superior: but the truth is unfortunately that we are just feeling defensive of our inability cut the habit. I managed to get off of facebook and my mental health improved greatly, enough that I actually notice it. However, that was insanely hard…

Yep. “You’re not curating your feed” is nonsense in 2022, and it has been for years. The only platform I’ve gotten close to this on is Instagram. Facebook and Twitter both exhibit the literally cancerous property of showing you what your contacts are engaging with. Once a social network does that, it’s basically game over unless you only connect with people who are similarly disciplined, which is just…untenable.

There are some twitter clients that allow you to follow other users without an account. I use Fritter on Android. It doesn't show ads and it only shows tweets and replies of those people that you actually follow directly.
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