The benefits of staying off social media

Some platforms are clearly more toxic than others, though I'm increasingly of the opinion that they are all pretty toxic, just different flavors of "world outlooks" to choose from.

I feel that those that actively participate (commenting, posting, responding, reacting) are more affected and more caught in the feedback loop. Those that more or less passively read these platforms, rarely interact, and largely work to keep "perspective" seem to have less of a tough time on it and allow it to impact their outlooks and moods less.

Those that tend to interact more seem to get caught in a sort of feedback loop. measured/Nuanced/Moderate or considerate takes are generally frowned upon on most of the major platforms these days. Outrage and simplistic viewpoints reign supreme, and most will bury the rest, forcing even those with moderate stances to either "consider a side" when continuing or just outright not partake. And all of these seem to be, relatively speaking, vocal minorities.

There are plenty of people that consume stuff and just dont have anything useful to say, or just dont have the energy to say it and defend it etc. Of course this seems to depend on the platform as well, for example I would never post this take on reddit....

With that said, I go agree generally, that these are toxic and create unbalanced viewpoints and world views. As Dave Chappelle said, "twitter isnt real", and to an effect that true. Twitter, reddit, youtube, facebook, dont necessarily pan out to the larger population's opinion as a whole, at least where its measured (such as in politics and polling)

Reddit, arguably, is more toxic than my version of Facebook - but it is strangers being toxic, and zero FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) which is prevalent on Facebook and Instagram.

I love this part, I noticed times when I'm heavily into social media and online dating I have significant career stagnation. I'm no longer building projects to help myself learn.

Now that I'm social media free, I have much more time to make music, and to work on my side projects. I also tend to meet extremely high quality people just going about my day. Life is less stressful this way.

I know this won't be everyone's experience, but this is what's worked for me.

I think the biggest difference is that social media amplifies the lowest common denominator view (I don't mean stupidest, but more most risk averse, most easily offended, angriest, whatever) and the lowest common denominator appears to be a little higher here.