Logging off Social Media

[bravesfan1984]

Quote: Originally Posted by Majingir

To me, Facebook is just for people to brag about life. Like posting pics of where they are, what they're doing, and things their kids are doing. And then judge their worth based on how many likes and/or comments they get. Twitter for me is more fun. You can just post comments on whatever you want, and gifs/memes are more for that.

Absolutely agree. I'm at the age now that all my friends are married/have kids so that is all I see on FB. Being a single guy, with no kids, makes it kind of depressing for me.



I agree on twitter as well. I basically just follow all the baseball accounts of major journalists and such. But a huge appeal for me is following the meme accounts, some of that stuff is pure gold.

[Majingir]

Quote: Originally Posted by bravesfan1984

Absolutely agree. I'm at the age now that all my friends are married/have kids so that is all I see on FB. Being a single guy, with no kids, makes it kind of depressing for me. I agree on twitter as well. I basically just follow all the baseball accounts of major journalists and such. But a huge appeal for me is following the meme accounts, some of that stuff is pure gold.

Even family is like that. I find alot of my family stays connected in some way due to social media. Mainly people reading others life posts. So I'm out of the loop and disconnected from everyone about everything, mainly by choice.

It's the part of Christmas I hate, having to directly or indirectly comment on the goings on of mine or others lives due to my lack of social media presence.

[SPTO]

I used to read and post in political groups/pages on FB with regularity but the simple fact of the matter is this, that material was very unhealthy. I'd find i'd get visibly angry and my blood pressure boiling because of it. I'm just speaking in generalities here so as not to break the TOS but the level of discourse was almost always bottom of the barrel and i've found it a lot more healthy to just avoid that stuff.

Nowadays I only use FB to play games and talk to a couple of friends. I don't use Twitter very much and due to personal life events didn't even get to do my live tweeting of the World Series.


So yeah, i'm not Mr. Social Media.

[TheMatrix31]

Twitter is the only one I use absolutely regularly because of its real time nature and breaking news and such. It's still needed even though my usage has changed dramatically.

I used to be much more involved but since I've intentionally withdrawn, my mental health has improved markedly.

[AUChase]

You really only consume the information that you want to on social media.

I like Twitter the most of the three major. It's helped a lot in terms of following College Football recruiting and other sports outlets like beat writers for my teams. There's really no reason to subscribe to Rivals, 24/7, etc. anymore. I also follow mostly OSers and satirical pages that I find useful.

If I don't like what someone posts I either just accept their opinion and disagree or there's always the option to block or delete. I've deleted my own family members from Facebook because they post ignorant **** all day. I've deleted people because they started using their personal account to try to sell makeup to everyone.

Facebook has a lot of value to me despite the fact that I rarely check mine or post to it anymore. When I was overseas in the military it was the easiest way to stay in contact with my friends and family, especially with a child back home too. Now it's great for staying in touch with some friends of mine who are still in the military or people I met while in Japan.

I don't think any of them are bad in moderation, but if someone doesn't have enough self control to keep themselves in check then they probably should just avoid it.

[JayCutlersCig]

Quote: Originally Posted by bravesfan1984

This is a topic I've been thinking about posting for a bit, as I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. I guess it could be called an addiction, as social media has pretty much taken over most of society. For me, I have the 3 major social media accounts and have found myself checking these throughout the day on numerous occasions. I feel as if I have to stay "up to date" constantly. It's not so much I post or anything, but just to see news, etc. (I basically only follow sports info). This has led to me pretty much ditching any plans, blowing off video games, and kissing social life goodbye. Drives me crazy seeing people on their phones all the time, yet here I am doing the exact same. It's really tiring, tbh. I have so many video games I need to play, but I can't even fire up my ps4 because I know I'll pause every 10 minutes to get up to date on my social media. It's just maddening. Not to mention just missing out on so much stuff around you by living in your phone basically. I'd like to have this thread for discussion on how everyone else copes with this and have found a way to successfully leave social media behind, or atleast limit the use of it during the days/weeks. I'm really looking to make changes, especially with the new year coming up, to better myself and get back to how it used to be before all this technology consumed us. So please, let's discuss, and hopefully this thread can help many more people than just myself.

Do it.

I’ve learned that social media has given a platform to stupid, toxic, and politically pigheaded (on all sides) people. I took a hiatus from Facebook and came back only when my parents convinced me to. Now, I just keep up with my friends and sports teams, as it was meant to be. Social media is a toxic medium.

[DieHardYankee26]

I don't really have a problem with social media in a vacuum: I just know I'm not the kind of person that it's good for, so I avoid it. I started seeing too many people I knew talking out of the side of their neck so I got on Reddit and decided if I was going to watch people make a fool of themselves, it'd be better in anonymity. If I need to talk to someone, they'll have my number.

As far as trying to get off of the sites, first thing is obviously just get rid of the accounts. Facebook you can't really delete your account, you just deactivate it so if you want to get back on it you always can. Twitter I think when I deleted had a 30 day grace period where they wouldn't delete your account if you logged back in within 30 days.

I personally had more of an addiction to my phone if anything. It's still hard to avoid totally but just being more productive came down to me controlling my devices. I had an iPhone, with the Kindle app and my iTunes library. It was too easy to go from one activity to the next. So I got rid of the iPhone, got an iPod, a Kindle, and a new phone (still a Pixel so I could do everything the same but not as conveniently because of iTunes). So whereas before I would listen to a podcast and end up on the internet, my iPod has no access unless I hook it up to wifi which we don't have in our building on base. Before I would get 3 pages into a book and move to Reddit but the Kindle has none of those features. Convenience is the enemy sometimes.

[Fresh Tendrils]

I find myself using social media platforms less and less. Admittedly Facebook is the primary one I used, but my time and effort has greatly decreased over the past 5 years or so.

I think "social" media is a misnomer partly. It is a fantastic tool for conversing with strangers and maintaining long distance relationships that was simply not possible before, but I feel like I miss-out more with those I'm closer with.

In a sense I now view these platforms as "anti-social" media. Sure, you're conversing via text, audio, or visual, but it's still very isolating and lonely. When we got back from our honeymoon I was reminiscing about the days of my parents and their grandparents. How their grandparents would go on vacation, come back with a Kodak Carousel, and effectively make a presentation of their vacation to the family.

Fast forward to now and it's an image dump to Facebook and that's it. There's no connection or narrative. It all feels so cold and impersonal to me now.