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The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

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Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#111

Post by donatj »

Before its fall, I had over 700 followers on Twitter. I could post any random thought and within minutes be having an interesting conversation with some rando about it. For example I pondered why phone manufacturers didn't use a p2p protocol for distributing updates and had an enlightening conversation with a person who worked for a major telco chiming in as to why that would be problematic for their infrastructure.

This was my biggest source of joy on the modern internet.

When the walls fell and everybody left, I dropped 200 followers to 500 but by X's own metrics no one sees my tweets. I would estimate between 13 and 20 is my average view count. When I do post, I am lucky a single person interacts, and it is almost always someone I know in the real world.

I have presences on Mastodon and Bluesky, but my follower count on both remains in the low teens. I don't think the market is there anymore for "dude that ponders technology questions". I tweet like it's 2010 and no one cares anymore.

This was the death of social media for me. This was the last place I was really "social" on the internet and it died.

Genuinely this has had a very negative effect on me, the only somewhat of a silver lining is that I now have these conversations with ChatGPT. It's not as much fun though.

Instagram is just brainrot these days. I'd used it for years to post my absolute best photos as a sort of curated gallery. No one cares anymore. Nothing I post ever gets seen. Why bother.

That sums up my general opinion of all social media these days, why bother.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#112

Post by hansworst »

milesrout wrote: post #103
xyzal wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the EU should flex their regulatory muscle and forbid algorithmic feeds on by default unless the networks break european society as the US is broken.

The result of a purely chronological feed is that you have to scroll through 10 posts from the same person and never see anything from people that post good content rarely. Plenty of people like and enjoy "algorithmic feeds". I can enjoy occasionally scrolling through a feed. Banning it is like banning alcohol because there are alcoholics in society. If you can't handle it, switch it off.

Obviously there’s a balance to be struck here. We could legalise fentanyl and tell people to just not use it, but that probably wouldn’t have a very positive impact on society.

At the very least we should acknowledge the negative externalities. Just leaving it up to the market to figure out (especially if we allow the current tech monopolies to exist) will result in serious societal impact.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#113

Post by polar8 »

milesrout wrote: post #107
ryandrake wrote: post #29

50 years from now, we are going to be looking back at Social Media and Smartphone addiction like we currently look at smoking. “How insane were we to have allowed it and allowed it to be promoted?” our grandchildren will rightly ask!

No. It is like alcohol: perfectly fine in reasonable doses, but harmful to people that get addicted.

“Perfectly fine” is a bit of a stretch. No amount of alcohol is good for health. WHO now say even small amounts increase risk of cancer and liver disease.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#115

Post by j4coh »

donatj wrote: post #111

Before its fall, I had over 700 followers on Twitter. I could post any random thought and within minutes be having an interesting conversation with some rando about it. For example I pondered why phone manufacturers didn't use a p2p protocol for distributing updates and had an enlightening conversation with a person who worked for a major telco chiming in as to why that would be problematic for their infrastructure.…

Probably at some point soon social media companies will recognise this and provide everyone with very nearly human-like bots that engage happily with your content. This will probably be even more addictive than their previous products.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#116

Post by moritonal »

smelendez wrote: post #90
8s2ngy wrote: post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

This has moved heavily into group chats and I’m not sure it’s coming back. Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances. Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into…

Google+ by any other name and four years earlier would have been an incredible platform. Circles were so neat.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#117

Post by anshumankmr »

Removing Instagram from my daily routine has been the best change I did, apart from adopting a cat. Just saw some stuff on my feed I had no desire to see apart from brainrot, and the algorithm kept shovelling some controversial figures too, which I had no interest in, so that also did not help its cause.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#118

Post by anal_reactor »

8s2ngy wrote: post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

I wrote my own client for Twitter, which was later adapted to also support Bluesky. The idea behind the project was to scrape porn easily, but it's also an amazing tool where it shows me the feed I personally want to see. This is pretty much the only way I interact with these services.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#119

Post by CuriouslyC »

j4coh wrote: post #115
donatj wrote: post #111

Before its fall, I had over 700 followers on Twitter. I could post any random thought and within minutes be having an interesting conversation with some rando about it. For example I pondered why phone manufacturers didn't use a p2p protocol for distributing updates and had an enlightening conversation with a person who worked for a major telco chiming in as to why that would be problematic for their infrastructure.…

Probably at some point soon social media companies will recognise this and provide everyone with very nearly human-like bots that engage happily with your content. This will probably be even more addictive than their previous products.

That is totally coming, facebook is already winding up for it. It's also enormously dystopian and kind of pathetic.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#120

Post by CuriouslyC »

polar8 wrote: post #113
milesrout wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It is like alcohol: perfectly fine in reasonable doses, but harmful to people that get addicted.

“Perfectly fine” is a bit of a stretch. No amount of alcohol is good for health. WHO now say even small amounts increase risk of cancer and liver disease.

I'd argue that small amounts of alcohol facilitate relaxation and socialization, which probably saves a lot more lives from preventing homicide and suicide than it costs in cancer and liver disease.
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