It's been a while since I was active here, not that I think anyone is reading my stuff, lol.
I'm currently on vacation and I only have 1,5 weeks left (out of 5) which feels kind of... anxious... I really don't want to go back to work, lol!
Lately I've been think a lot about social media, and I often find myself reminiscing about the "old times". I started using the internet around 2004 and I have followed all the trends by getting Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc. But for the last year I've felt so overwhelmed by the whole thing. I remember when Facebook and Instagram was acutal SOCIAL media, where you connected with friends, followed your favorite celebrities and commented/liked eachother's posts. Since the algorithms took over you barely see your friends' posts anymore, hell, do they even post anymore? Or are they just doomscrolling like everyone else?
I deleted the Facebook and TikTok app from my phone earlier this year, because that was the main source to my phone addiction. I even made a cringey Facebook post about my departure. I even tried shift over from Messenger and Instagram DM to only texts or Whatsapp because I want everything gathered. I got so tired of missing notifications due to everything being spread out over several apps. Did it work? Nah. Why? Because friends and family wants to use different types of social media to communicate. Facebook is the most difficult to stay off because of groups and events. The barn where my horse is has this group to announce news etc, and I miss all of it due to not using Facebook. It's just frustrating because I really want to be offline as much as possible. I want my social media/internet use to be limited to my computer only.
As someone who's kind of anxious in general, I feel like social media and the use of it is kind of destroying humanity. When I grew up there was A LOT of shit on the internet since filters and such was non-existent, but what is really shocking to me is the polarization and huge amount of hatred filling the internet today. It doesn't matter what you do or how you do it, there's always A LOT of people finding something to hate on. You can't have an open discussion about something without being called stuff. It's very much "if you're not with us, you're against us". If you don't want to take a stand in a political question due to not knowing enough about the topic? You're automatically against the cause.
I miss having contact with people.
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ziv
Site Supporter
I honestly agree about people not making a certain shift because the others won’t follow. When I was in HS we had a class group chat in snapchat!! arguably the worst choice. can’t send files or shit. but now they’re all in whatsapp since I’m in uni. would I have made the shift on my own? probably not. I want to be kept on top of hw and tests, if that meant having snapchat at the time then so be it.
it’s harder to unstick yourself from it all when everyone is so stuck. you want to be connected to them all but in the end it drives you all further apart.
Cordell
Yeah for sure. Everything feels a lot more volatile on social media these days. And even if my Instagram reels are full of pasta dishes (rare algorithm W), the ads either side of them are still awful. I personally try to use them as little as I can, although it's kind of a hard habit to get out of.
Regarding the Facebook group, maybe you could save a bookmark to it, or your groups or events in general, so the rest of it doesn't get in the way? Skip the feeds with the algos and most of the nonsense.
And yeah, the extreme polarisation is on another level. In pretty much everything as well as politics. Media? It's either a perfect 5/5 or a 0/5 trash. It feels exhausting to engage in circles like that, so I don't, but then the internet just feels so lonely on top of being mostly fake.