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The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

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Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#151
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous." Wow. I have problems with Instragram, but I've never tried to sum it up into a single statement and while this is rather specific and may not include all the problems I _feel_ are there, it really does bring home the main issue, for me. A little snark in there about democratizing, as some people will always put…

> Wow. I have problems with Instragram I remember that for a few months before my partner broke up with me, their IG feed was full of reels, posts, 'comedy', 'psychology tips', about people complaining about their partners. And also lots of Insta influencers posts giving relationship tips or encouraging people to break up for diverse reasons. While I'm aware my relationship wasn't perfect, the standards promoted by t…

All the ideas that the world will be perfect if you would just think thoughts like these...

"manifest what you want from the world" and "think positive thoughts and everything will be ok"

Is actually kind of true when you think about all the algorithms that run social media. If you only ever search for cats and scroll past anything political, the algorithms will learn what you like and feed you more cats.

So, if you're searching up relationship advice, and spending time on those things, that's what you get back from 'the borg'.

You do have control over what social media shows you, it's just that you need to work against your basest desires in order to get there.

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#152

Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality (similar to colors not existing in reality). Having access to a extra mirrors at first creates a sense of control. You know your mom and dad won't give you a "non-distorted" reflection so the reflection from stra…

> Who people think we are is who we are May be true for extroverts, but as an introvert I don't give a cent about what random people think about me (which also explains why I do not use Instagram in the first place).

[deleted]

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#153

Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality (similar to colors not existing in reality). Having access to a extra mirrors at first creates a sense of control. You know your mom and dad won't give you a "non-distorted" reflection so the reflection from stra…

It isn't Instagram, it is like counts. But the like counts are what drives the addictive behavior and makes the product "free" to use. This is just Goodhart's Law at a personal level. We stop being authentic to chase likes. We inherently turn the measure into a target. We have hundreds of "friends" of FB and we interact with a dozen or less regularly.

It's not just like counts. That's just a metric/formalism for the narcissistic self-marketing thing that these platforms are really about. You could remove them or obscure them but some other form of observing engagement would take the same place.

It's about being seen and popular. The same crap adolescents have dealt with for decades, but now... automated.

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#154

Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality (similar to colors not existing in reality). Having access to a extra mirrors at first creates a sense of control. You know your mom and dad won't give you a "non-distorted" reflection so the reflection from stra…

> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous.

Astute. I have concluded there are social mental illnesses, and celebrity is absolutely a generator of one of those.

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#155
post #43

My wife convinced me to install Instagram so she could send me videos of stuff. My experience was that at first it was annoying, then I found out I could follow some cool hobbyist folks working on cars, old computer systems, electronics, and of course all the mechanical keyboard content, as well as travel (I'm an extensive world traveler and used to post travel content on Instagram over 5 years ago) and I got sucked…

Just a general point:

You can disable badges (in iOS) in notifications separately from the others (that is, allow notifications but not badges).

I found that out because, like you, I require that there is no counter.

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#156
post #95
post #43

My wife convinced me to install Instagram so she could send me videos of stuff. My experience was that at first it was annoying, then I found out I could follow some cool hobbyist folks working on cars, old computer systems, electronics, and of course all the mechanical keyboard content, as well as travel (I'm an extensive world traveler and used to post travel content on Instagram over 5 years ago) and I got sucked…

> 2. Thots. Maybe because I'm a male between 25-50 or something, but even though I subscribe to 0 people on Instagram that qualify as thots, my feed started getting filled with women using Instagram to advertise their OF/services. Usually these seem cross-recommended as related to comedy shorts, cosplay/gaming, or cars, but aren't really any of those things. THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS. I have consistently resisted ev…

I don't use a whole lot of social media with targeting as part of the core feature set (just Instagram and Snapchat.) Instagram has their algo honed into exactly the type of people I like to see, and my search page is filled with basically nothing except that. This is despite the fact that I don't engage (comment or like) with any posts. They must have some intense screen lingering analytics to figure out what people like. I find it very annoying and wish I could see what data they're basing recommendations on. It's a large impetus for me to get rid of my Instagram account entirely.

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#157

From a person who constantly deletes and reuploads the apps I have different reasons for each. Instagram is very addictive, Twitter demolishes me from the inside, Linkedin drags my confidence down, Spotify & I have a personal problem. When I feel that way with the apps I delete them to get rid of those situations and when I feel better I reupload them. Because it is my fault to feel those things not the apps. In thes…

I agree with you on every point.

If you're willing to share, I'm curious on what issues you're having with Spotify. Do you feel you're filling the silence too much with it, or something else?

I'm tired of Spotify too, in part because I don't see an endgame where I shut the family plan off. My family uses it a lot.

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#158

Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality (similar to colors not existing in reality). Having access to a extra mirrors at first creates a sense of control. You know your mom and dad won't give you a "non-distorted" reflection so the reflection from stra…

  > Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous.
because they've basically turned themselves into a commodity?

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#159

Wait - > We looked into the top 30 most popular apps people most want to delete in the United States by delving into regional search volumes for “delete” and “deactivate” apps/accounts by each state. They’re not going off of actual app deletion or account deactivation data… they’re going off of how often people search for how to do it? Here’s the thing - if I want to ‘delete Facebook’ then I’ll do it - there’s no sea…

> they’re going off of how often people search for how to do it?

Yes, its called a proxy. It's not perfect, but it's very likely has a strong correlation and low standard deviation from the truth.

> What they’re measuring is stats on people too technologically illiterate to manage the apps installed on their own device, right? That’s a significant skew on the conclusions they’re drawing isn’t it?

It's enough of a population to demonstrate probability.

Re: The apps that Americans search to “delete” the most

#160

Wait - > We looked into the top 30 most popular apps people most want to delete in the United States by delving into regional search volumes for “delete” and “deactivate” apps/accounts by each state. They’re not going off of actual app deletion or account deactivation data… they’re going off of how often people search for how to do it? Here’s the thing - if I want to ‘delete Facebook’ then I’ll do it - there’s no sea…

> Here’s the thing - if I want to ‘delete Facebook’ then I’ll do it - there’s no searching involved, I go to my home screen, long-press the ‘f’ icon and then choose the ‘trash’ option.

But you haven't deleted your Facebook account. You've removed the app from your phone.

If your goal was to delete your Facebook account you've failed.

Each company has a different way to actually achieve (or come as close as they allow you) removing your account from their service. It's completely reasonable that (even technologically literate people) would need to search for how to accomplish that goal for service X, since the services tend to be intentionally somewhat hidden.

Note the search term in the article isn't "Delete Instragram *app*", it was "Delete Instagram Account". Those are different things.

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