Over the years I've made an effort to purge social media platforms from my life. FaceBook was the last to go. It took me several attempts to get rid of FB. Over the last year or two I've deleted, and re-started a FB account several times. I think social media addiction is a real entity. Yesterday I deleted my FB account hopefully for the last time. My friends are smirking when I say I'm off social media again and ask if I'm okay?! I feel fine. Am I the only person in the digital landscape who is free of social media?

Congratulations, i view this as a positive change.

I think it depends on what counts as social media. I got on Facebook in 2016 and Mastodon in 2017. I deleted my Facebook account in 2020 and haven't looked back. However, i am still on Mastodon.

Thanks mate! At this point I think I'll limit my socializing online to posts here on LQ and IRC. I've tried Mastodon and found it interesting.

I consider many larger online game communities as a form of social media. I had the hardest time quitting World of Warcraft. Not sure that counts. I would quit, then go back a month later like a damn Yo-Yo. I still can't explain it as I hate the game and the way the community has changed from the way it was 10+ years ago. I craved the on demand social experience but that has disappeared and become meaningless in the last few expansions. I've been free of it for over a year now I think and feeling much better. Sad part... I still miss it from time to time. I bailed on Facebook after it got 40 bucks from me for stupid Farmville...

Now I just stick to forums and the occasional IRC chat. I've poured myself into learning C so it keeps me occupied. Am also trying to get together with more friends outside of the digital scope.

I have no social media. Not to say I’ve never had it but the 4+ times I’ve had Twitter, it’s been with burner accounts and I never reveal who I am. I hate Facebook. My wife is buried in it 24x7 and is forever asking me questions about something stupid; my go to response is always “did you get that from Facebook”? I take great pains to make sure I don’t have a digital fingerprint out there, at least to the layman. It is nearly impossible to remain anonymous on the Internet. The best way would be to not access, but the convenience is too great to pass up.

Technically MeWe, Mastodon (the Fediverse in general), and LQ are social media. They are also far more benign than commercial social media!

I agree completely. The commercial social media companies are harmful for the end user.

While the thread title makes good copy, IMHO it is far too broad and therefore doomed. The is no way to live in the modern world entirely divorced from digital. Digital has become ubiquitous and will only increase. This thread isn't about digital, it's about social media which is but one aspect of digital communication. There cane be little doubt that social media is somewhat analogous to handing a loaded gun to a 3 year old child. It is obviously dangerous and quite possibly deadly but the genii is out of the bottle. It's far too late to simply close Pandora's Box and no point in that anyway once "the demons" have flown. All we can do constructively is learn more critical thinking or fall down deep rabbit holes to the reign of the Queen of Hearts.

Thanks for the reply. Point well taken. Agreed. A better title would have been Social Media Detox. For me, social media is the most harmful on-line activity. A good argument can also be made for other on-line activities being harmful (gambling, adult content). I'm not averse to adding other digital elements to this thread.
Social media companies know that their product is highly addictive and harmful.

https://www.healthline.com/health/so...s-it-addicting

Thread titles are editable (within two weeks of posting).

Thanks for the tip mate! Done. So back on topic. This thread is centered on the harmful effects of social media and related musings.

I only use FB for Groups, what I'm interested in no longer use forums, unfortunately, & if I didn't, I wouldn't know what was going on in my chosen hobby; it is unfortunate that I have to, but that's just how it is these days.

As for social media as a commodity, I have no use for it - just info about my interest.

EDIT: I do belong to several computer related forums though, but I don't lump them in with the general term of social media...

That is almost true, for people living in cities. My sister lives in the town my parents died in. Population about 12. The nearest cell tower is roughly 60 miles away. Internet? What's that? There is a post office 15 miles over at the next town, but they do not do door to door delivery outside of that town: people use PO boxes and next day air took 5 days to arrive the last time I sent one. The surrounding high plains are mostly cattle ranges, with ranchers, a few miners, artists, craftsmen, and artisans that appreciate not tripping over people when they are trying to focus. They live just FINE without social media! The midwest and west have MANY areas like that, but they exist in every state (although not many of them are as beautiful as the high plains!) Visit such a place for a few weeks and get over the withdrawal symptoms and you find yourself feeling better, thinking more clearly, and happier. (Great places to focus on your coding and software design projects for a while. After a while you really need to mind meld with some other developers and innovators. Great minds may not think alike, but they inspire and challenge each other to get better!)

@ wpeckham - I wasn't and am not defending social media. I did defend and am defending the need for a viewpoint wider than ones' immediate surroundings. I spent over a decade roughly 5 miles outside a town of 180 and loved that life. My living situations have been decidedly rural for roughly 1/3rd of my 76 years and are as I write this. Currently my nearest neighbor is about 100 yards away, and town is several miles. Newspapers, magazines and TV are not much like they were in the 20th Century largely because of digital, for good and for ill, but that's just the nature of progress. In general, it is usually a good thing to at least spend some time and effort keeping up with current events even if it is only about the weather and the market for oats and alfalfa.

All I can say is that my personal sobriquet for Facebook is the Zuckerborg--and you too can be assimilated.

I used to be moderately active on it, but no more. Yes, I do still have a Facebook account. I log on once a month to post a reminder of a meeting of a group that I am a member of, because, if you want to do outreach, you have to reach out where the people are. Other than that, I ignore it energetically.

As for Twitter, I heard an interview with one of its founders--I forget which one--on my local NPR station (which, at the time, was WHYY in Philadelphia) when it was a bright new thing fifteen years or so ago and concluded that I wanted nothing to do with it. I have never regretted that decision.

I can relate to the idea that sites like LQ may be considered social media, because they are media and they are social. But such sites have a purpose other than "eyeballs" and "engagement." They exist to solve problems and help people.

When it's all about eyeballs and engagement and nothing else except maybe self-aggrandizement (and, of course, surveillance and selling personal information to third parties), I would submit that "social" media isn't--social, that is.

And, by the way, here's a good analogy for "internet influencers."

Just my cynical two cents. (By the way, I wasn't born cynical. Real life made me that way.)