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Forums › Free Speech › Living with Social Media
Thought a thread about this would be a good idea.
If you watched “The Social Dilemma” (recommended) or any number of books over the past few years, you’ll have heard how fucking terrible it is having a high-intake of social media.
I thought I would share a few things that have worked for me, and hope you’ll share some of your own tips.
Excellent topic! You needn’t watch any show to see the destructiveness of (anti-)social media. I technically have an Instagram account, but I do nothing with it (to the extent that I’d have to look up my password if I wanted to log in). I got rid of the others.
I’m old – gaming just kind of passed me by. I remember playing Doom (the original) and loving it (and buying more RAM for it…) and it was great, but the new games are too complex to be fun to me. If I’m going to spend time learning something complex, it’ll be something with an ROI.
I watched my kids sleep with their fucking phones for fear of missing one goddamn upvote or comment. And I really should emphasize FEAR – the social media addict is consumed by fear and self-loathing, cares too much about what others think, and thinks that others are actually paying close attention to them (hint – the “others” are as self absorbed as the addict and mostly just respond, like, etc to fish for return interaction). The whole thing is a cess pool.
There’s a handful of good, but it’s easily swamped by the enormous negative impact social media has had on everything.
In addition to the personal / mental-health aspects of social media is the fact that they make their money by selling increasingly detailed profiles about you to whoever is willing to pay. So your insurance company, your prospective employer, your nosy neighbor with a friend in law enforcement, can all find out that you have health issues, mental health concerns, a family history of cancer, are pre-diabetic, masturbate to trans-midget porn, manage your money poorly, and, worst of all, watch “Jersey Shore”. Oh, and none of it has to be true, because they’re not bound by any of that reporting nonsense. Who cares if they get something wrong? Most likely you’ll just never know why you didn’t get that job…
Good topic.
I am an old guy as well, and fully admit to being a curmudgeon. I recognized early on the addictive quality of Facebook. I lasted 2 weeks with an account and found myself checking it several times a day, and then several times an hour, and then having it available to check non-stop. Once I realized what was going on I went through the incredibly difficult process of deleting my account. Since then I took the path of “the easiest way to quit is to never start”. I have no Instagram, no Tic-Toc, no Snap Chat. My kids tell me all the time how much I am “missing out” by not staring at my screen all day – but I find it incredibly liberating to be able to sit and read or just talk to someone without that nagging feeling of needing to check my phone. One of the other things I found helpful is turning off notifications. My wife’s phone is constantly buzzing or beeping with notifications from all her apps. I can’t stand that and turned off all notification except for texts.
If I’m working, or on a date….and to a lesser extent with friends or family…I keep the phone on airplane mode. And I surf often, with no phone service even if I wanted it.
But it’s still very tempting, the moment those things have ended, to get back at it. Happened last night: surfed for ninety minutes, got home, and browsed for ten minutes while still in my wetsuit.
I don’t know too many people who’ve successfully dodged it 100%, but none of them seem to give two fucks about missing out.
Mickey mentioned “The Comfort Crisis” and in that book, the author discusses being okay with boredom…letting yourself day-dream, or stare off into space instead of grabbing your phone. I read that section at a coffee shop, and thought, “Oh, this should be easy.” It was crazy hard to not hit the screen and check for messages, but man, it sure felt good the one or two times I managed to zone out instead.
Couple things:
Social media is, in my opinion, the most destructive influence on western society and culture that’s ever existed. It’s warped people’s perception of reality, deepened cultural and political divides, given rise to an entire grievance industry that teaches that people are permanently oppressed, and it’s altered people’s expectations for relationships, ideal mates, and what many perceive sex to be.
I rarely use it other than to check on some stuff from friends, I muted my family on Facebook (every 30 days I just click to not see their posts for the next month), I only follow business colleagues on Instagram, and I use Twitter to see what the spat of the day is and to see if anything is trending news-wise so I can go to a number of sources and piece it together for myself.
I don’t follow any bikini models or influencers.
I don’t watch porn anymore, either.
I only activated FB in May of 2020, to contribute and see postings on my nephew’s memorial page. Plus keep in touch with grandkids on the West Coast. Got on it the other day and had 42 notices. Being retired about five years, it’s no big deal to me. What I’ve found the most useful has been learning to play guitar on Youtube. Beefy here on IGX was my inspiration, and after doing nothing my first year of retirement, I picked it up again. I attend regular, virtual live jams, and have taken lessons right from YT. Much of YT is garbage, but you can learn just about anything on there. My wife is an active card maker, and it’s been therapeutic for her to learn from YT videos. I have a twitter account, but rarely post on there, it was originally setup for me when still consulting by my son. Most of my twitter involvement revolves around the stock market, and I’ve made a post there last week, that was the first one in almost a year.
Dik, I was talking about smoking weed with a buddy last night, and think it applies to social media.
If the overall effect on your life is positive, then I’d say it’s fine.
With YouTube, I gotta keep it off my TV because those algorithms will just send me surfing, MMA, and training videos and I’ll binge for hours. But without it on TV, I’m good — I’ll just look shit up when I need it like it sounds you do.
Random web browsing and Instagram are my weak spots…haven’t figured out the right approach yet, but working on it.
Yesterday was my first planned “zero internet day.”
No tv, apps, websites, digital music, etc.
Sent a few — very few — texts and had an important phone call.
It was AMAZING.
Crazy productive, and allowed myself to get bored and space out a few times…and that was nice too! Not only do I plan to repeat it every week, I may do it multiple days every week.
One of the best (the absolute best?) things I’ve done for overall well-being in years.
Yesterday was my first planned “zero internet day.” No tv, apps, websites, digital music, etc. Sent a few — very few — texts and had an important phone call. It was AMAZING. Crazy productive, and allowed myself to get bored and space out a few times…and that was nice too! Not only do I plan to repeat it every week, I may do it multiple days every week. One of the best (the absolute best?) things I’ve done for overall well-being in years.
No internet day is a good idea. I will give that a try.
I’m 24 hours into a self imposed FB “fast”. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be. It has become my primary means of communication between distant family, HS and college friends and dog rescue groups. I’m almost at the point where I’d be willing to reactivate my account just to post something so ludicrous that it would get me a forced ban. But being able to reactivate at any time and not doing so tests my own “comfort crisis”.
I’m 24 hours into a self imposed FB “fast”. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be. It has become my primary means of communication between distant family, HS and college friends and dog rescue groups. I’m almost at the point where I’d be willing to reactivate my account just to post something so ludicrous that it would get me a forced ban. But being able to reactivate at any time and not doing so tests my own “comfort crisis”.
As someone heavily involved in animal welfare, I don’t know of a group of people I’d want to interact with less than the typical dog rescue. Especially on social media.
You’ll feel better if you see fewer of their posts and instead go to your local shelter to help out every weekend.
I’ve been a volunteer at my local animal shelter (One of the largest municipal shelters in the country) for the last 7 years. I just started my retirement career as a Veterinary Assistant. I am very well aware of the crazy that exist within the rescue community and even bear the scars of dealing with aggressive dogs that should have been put down but weren’t due to pressure from misguided rescue groups. That being said, I also deal with some very professional organizations that do a great job, but unfortunately FB is the fastest way to get info out there to potential fosters and adopters.
Coming off my second day (one day a week) of “no digital.” Couple thoughts:
1. Love it. Both days were markedly more productive…but also more peaceful. There would be a few moments where I had nothing to do but stare at nature, and there was a wonderful sense of calm and timelessness.
2. Very hard (for me) to do multiple days a week without internet. Tried adding a second day and didn’t enjoy it as much.
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