Deleting Social Media

[T3551ER]

3 hours ago, BobDobalina said:

First, congrats on taking this step roo, whether or not it's in steel-toed boots the kind @chenGOD likes to wear.

I haven't myself deleted everything because I never really got on anything (except LinkedIn an that was out of necessity).  Nope to myspace, facebook, etc.  Pretty early on I saw these things for as the dopamine oscillators they are and wanted no part of it, still waiting for my trophy from the Ultimately Useless Wisdom Society.

That's a bingo. I was in my late 20s/early 30s when all of my friends were getting on FB, and yeah over the years it's definitely shaped (warped) who I stay in contact with an how.  Especially after kids, the needle had definitely taken a dive in the more isolated/lonlier direction.  Exactly along what u say, a lot of people use this as some sort of meta-surrogate for actual friendships.  friends hang out, do stuff together, talk life talk shit, vibe, etc.   All bells & whistles aside, IMHO FB is just a glorified csv file of people you know (or think you know) 

Just biked in to say that "dopamine oscillators" is such a spot on (and unique) term for this phenomena. Never heard it before, props (and apologies for inevitably stealing it for future conversations)

[ooqpoo]

I was on facebook for a few years but deleted it entirely in 2010. Only on Quora these days. I like how it focuses more on people's (tall) tales about every subject imaginable rather than pure promotion of individuals, or that's the way it seems to me anyway. 

[TubularCorporation]

3 hours ago, jaderpansen said:

never even started with that shit. facebook, insta, twitter, what-have-you... none of these. did i ever feel like missing out? nope.

The only reason I started Facebook was because back in the mid 2000s when it had just opened up to the general public I was planning a side project with someone who insisted on using it instead of email.  After that I didn't log in again for about 5 years, until I moved to a new city that didn't have an active local music/art messageboard to keep track of shows.  But I never liked it and by early 2015 I was so sick of the way it made me feel about myself and a lot of people I knew who were great in real life but awful on Facebook that I quit.  I went in to it resenting it and left it resenting it.  The only reason I ever used Twitter was back when phones were limited to 10 or 20 SMS recipients and I was organizing a little thing that had about 50 people on the contact list, so Twitter seemed like a good way around that, but the text-to-tweet function was so unreliable that it didn't even work for that.

[Himelstein]

4 minutes ago, TubularCorporation said:

The only reason I started Facebook was because back in the mid 2000s when it had just opened up to the general public I was planning a side project with someone who insisted on using it instead of email.  After that I didn't log in again for about 5 years, until I moved to a new city that didn't have an active local music/art messageboard to keep track of shows.  But I never liked it and by early 2015 I was so sick of the way it made me feel about myself and a lot of people I knew who were great in real life but awful on Facebook that I quit.  I went in to it resenting it and left it resenting it.  The only reason I ever used Twitter was back when phones were limited to 10 or 20 SMS recipients and I was organizing a little thing that had about 50 people on the contact list, so Twitter seemed like a good way around that, but the text-to-tweet function was so unreliable that it didn't even work for that.

Yeah, this totally makes sense. I have almost been forced to use it for certain projects before.

[TubularCorporation]

One good thing I'll say is that I've been back on there a little bit this spring in a few specific, and some of the the DIY video art groups on there are really an amazing resource.

[dcom]

My professional advice on how to exit social media:

1. Never sign up for any of them. Ever.

Spoiler

Full disclosure: I'm on LinkedIn, but I don't participate in anything. It's just an online CV for me.

Friends don't let friends use social media. I let everyone use them, ergo I have no friends.

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by dcom

[exitonly]

i was on friendster way back in 2001~ish times and then moved over to myspace for a bit. i remember hearing about facebook when it was just for specific colleges and you had to provide some person info to create an account etc. i had a facebook account for literally a month when my nosy relatives started pinging me to friend them or whatever and then i deleted my account. really glad i did because it seems like so many people are living in a parallel universe that sucks even worse than this one.

that being said, i really miss the days when you could easily gather information about upcoming events outside of FB. there used to be a lot of great independent aggregates for that kind of stuff but it seems like most of them have died off. even upcoming.org (which is something similar but way different now) was pretty nice for finding stuff. meetup was not entirely lame for a minute as well.  before the pandemic i would stop and look at flyers on the electric poles.

 

 

[EdamAnchorman]

I do still also go to FB because I'm in a Lego Technic group and a Lego train group, which is kind of an OK way for me to use FB I think.

[zlemflolia]

i dont use any social media except one-off forums and private chats. heres a useful tool for anyone who wants to scrub and delete a reddit account

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nuke-reddit-history/aclagjkmidmkcdhkhlicmgkgmpgccaod?hl=en

[Soloman Tump]

I use instagram a bit.  The increasing number of ads is getting ridiculous.  As if they dont already make enough money from it!

I see that as a bare minimum necessary evil for maintaining contact with some friends and family, and also really useful for music / zine connections.

I nuked my facebook account 5 years ago and have never once regretted or missed it.

 

[drillkicker]

I strongly recommend deleting the accounts as well instead of just the apps.  Even if Sugarmount still keeps your data, leaving the account open is a vulnerability, and other strange imps can exploit it and access your information or use your account to work their mischief.

But for the sake of contributing to the present heap of encouragement, I also deleted all social accounts a few months before the pandemic and haven't noticed any increased loneliness as a result (though this could be because of all the loneliness caused by other circumstances).  But don't get your hopes up, because it also hasnt inspired any reading either.  There are plenty of other distractions out there.

[Cryptowen]

one of the advantages of not being on social media is that when i do randomly run into some person i haven't seen in a while they react like they just saw a fuckin sasquatch

[Himelstein]

52 minutes ago, Cryptowen said:

one of the advantages of not being on social media is that when i do randomly run into some person i haven't seen in a while they react like they just saw a fuckin sasquatch

Also you get a premium filter for all internet garbage- meaning that if there is anything really, really funny, or cool posted on fb, a close friend will probably share it with you. So you don’t need to sort thru it all, haha, as long as you have a few friends or relatives who are on social media. Let them sort out and refine it.

[Cryptowen]

7 minutes ago, Himelstein said:

Also you get a premium filter for all internet garbage

yeah honestly i feel like there's a real normative process that goes on with social media. basically the more content is reduced to memes & short soundbites, and the more the form of discussion literally begins to revolve around scoring points, the more the sort of hivemind sets in. obviously this process of mimetic opinion transfer & subconsciously catering one's expression to one's audience happens in every form of social interaction, but at least with real conversation there's a much higher degree of reflection & personal re-combination going on. go on facebook and it's like john carpenter's the thing is tryin to get me to watch tiger king or some bullshit

[prdctvsm]

8 hours ago, jaderpansen said:

never even started with that shit. facebook, insta, twitter, what-have-you... none of these. did i ever feel like missing out? nope.

same 

[YEK]

Got rid of facebook and I'm so happy I did. I use instagram to look at photos of graffiti.. that's it, never have posted. Is this site considered social media? I'm definitely a bit addicted to it but that seems to be a healthier thing than the other apps.

[zlemflolia]

2 minutes ago, yekker said:

Got rid of facebook and I'm so happy I did. I use instagram to look at photos of graffiti.. that's it, never have posted. Is this site considered social media? I'm definitely a bit addicted to it but that seems to be a healthier thing than the other apps.

https://dev.to/austinhuang0131/barinsta-the-open-source-instagram-client-8l2

[chenGOD]

With friends from all over the world, it’s convenient for me. I think I post something once every couple of months. None of my friends are the “show off the excellence in my life” kind of people so it’s really just about keeping up with how they’re doing and what’s going on in their lives. Like you’d do with friends in your hometown. But because my hometown is not fixed, this is a proxy. 
Don’t have insta, do follow a few things on Twitter for professional reasons and Reddit for a couple of things but never post much there either. 
WATMM is probably the biggest social media timesink for me lol

[drillkicker]

2 hours ago, cyanobacteria said:

https://dev.to/austinhuang0131/barinsta-the-open-source-instagram-client-8l2

I have batinsta but the problem is it doesn't allow you to look at private profiles for obvious reasons, so I can't see most of my friends' posts.  I've found myself using it almost never.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

17 hours ago, chronical said:

I think caring this much about social media is the problem, not social media itself. There are loads of problems with it of course but that's just how it is. How cool would it be to keep Instagram and read more books at the same time

crack cocaine isn't the problem, it's the smoking it that's an issue

[psn]

Was on FB from ~2007 and it was a bit of lulz for a while. Got sick of the whole thing and nuked the account about 8 years ago. Never looked back, it was simply a great relief.

[Nil]

 I have IG/FB/Twitter accounts I solely use for promotion and work. I post as little as possible. I hate it all.

[Dragon]

18 hours ago, randomsummer said:

It honestly baffles me why some people share so much about themselves on social media, I can't even imagine being in the headspace to think that someone else would care that I worked out this morning, or that I'm taking a walk in the park.  I can understand artists and musicians posting their stuff a lot, that's different.

most of what i know about Facebook comes from cross-posts or things quoted on other message boards. sometimes i really cannot imagine what goes on in peoples' heads.

case in point: a mother posting something like this (spoilered). if something like this happens and it involves a young child, why on earth would you post it on FB and why would you go into so much detail?

Spoiler

a toddler does a poo outside, and another dog comes to eat the poo.

Quote

We were away from people and behind trees so I dangled the boy's bum over a convenient patch of leaves, fully intending to bag and bin the inevitable result. [...] The owner eventually staggered up the steps and dragged the dog away by the collar, my parting shot "Your dog just ate human shit!" hopefully ringing in his ears, and the waft of excreted tuna sandwiches wafting off his dog [...]

the mother not only posted the story in full detail on FB, but sold the story to a local newspaper - https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/horror-labrador-gobbles-up-toddler-20469464

Quote

It licked his bum and it sniffed at his bum and then it snuffled around beneath me. I could hear the owner calling his dog but it was too exciting for the dog and it couldn’t handle it.

Then it found the treasure that my toddler had left in the leaves and it just golloped it.

 

sorry for including the quotes, but i think it's essential to illustrate how bad the problem is. we're reaching a kind of medieval era where everyone is so neurotic that we fixate on things like witches or qanon or rape, because we see it as theraputic and framing it as an accusation is safer than being seen fixating on them.

[oscillik]

I deleted my Facebook a couple of years ago now, after tentatively bringing it back into life in the hopes that it would assist in networking for photography stuff. It didn't, not really. I do not miss it, and it hasn't negatively impacted my life not having it.

My Instagram account is essentially dormant. I have about 2 photos on there so that it looks like it's not a lazy bot, and I use it to keep an eye on friends photos etc. I am considering deleting it because of the same concerns you have @Dragon pretty much. This one will be a bit more difficult for me to delete because of contact avenues with people I'd like to keep in touch with, but not sure if they use Signal and I don't wanna be that creep that starts passing out his number anyway.

WhatsApp is getting nuked before 15th May, due to the terms update. I have Signal, Threema, ProtonMail, and iMessage/SMS for anything else.

[oscillik]

I just realised I was meant to tag @J3FF3R00 not @Dragon (sorry man)

I clearly am having a bad day, sorry everyone