Leaving more Social Media platforms

So after having left Facebook, I've reviewed what other platforms I use and decided that these are also not good and have taken the decision to leave them behind, so here, I'll take a look at those platforms and why I decided to ditch them

X (formally known as Twitter)

I never really spent a lot of time on X, but, I find the platform rather limited and just not really all that, but there's also some other things that I found.

• I had a very small following on X, about 5 maximum, and as a result, I didn't really get a lot of interaction on the platform

• Despite constantly configuring X to show my "Following" feed by default, I was getting content from people I do not follow, often quite controversial and political content - I don't want to see it, just don't seem to be able to control what I do and don't see

• The platform is so limited, the amount of text you can input is so restrictive, when you attach multiple photos they appear like they're separate posts too

• When you reply to someone, and then later on, someone reacts to your reply, you can't even tell easily which post that reply belongs to (or at least, it's not easy to see how you tell)

So yeah, I was never a fan of X (or Twitter) - it's never been a thing for me much.

Reddit

Well, I've actually had a Reddit account for years, but only really started using it more recently, however, it's an absolute cesspit - I've never seen a hive of such scum and villainy (as said by a certain fictional character in one of the best Sci-Fi films ever made)

It's not all negative, there's some good communities on Reddit, but, there's just as many toxic communities too, but here's what I've found with Reddit

The positives

• There's some lovely positive communities out there, and when you find one, you'll discover how nice some folk really are, even online

• There's a lot of variety of topics and conversations, more so than other platforms I've seen

• The subreddit layout and the threads/posts are rather reminiscent of the old web forum format, I did like that

The negatives

• OMG most of the communities on Reddit are a toxic dumpster fire - so many awful people with bad takes, rude comments, total trolling and posts that are definitely rage bait

• Power hungry mods: I was a member of one subreddit, someone posted a question, I answered the question politely and accurately, my post was removed for not obeying the rules but I didn't understand why, so I asked the mods why, and that got be banned from that community, because I dared to ask why .................. seriously, talk about absolute power trip

• There's so much repetitive content all over the place, I swear there's some topics I see time and time again, seeing them repeatedly form different users several times in the same day

• Total time suck - it might be more text heavy, but, it's definitely a place where one gets sucked in to conversation, sometimes conversation you really wish you hadn't responded to.

Conclusion

So yeah, more trash from more terrible social media platforms - I'm struggling to see what the point of Social Media is any more. It seems that most people spend so much time online and seem to put way too much importance in online platforms like the two above.

I've noticed a massive shift in the attitudes online though, not just on social media, but online in general. Since the pandemic and the lockdowns, many people were stuck at home with no real way to socialise and they all turned to online platforms, attracting people that ordinarily might not be interested in social media. But not just that, they took their frustrations out on others, without taking in to account online etiquette or just basic manners. Also, due to the amount of extra time available to people, quite a lot used that time to investigate and talk about social concerns that they have not properly researched, but, they still made ill-researched opinions on anyway, and they chastised and berated anyone with an opinion that doesn't match theirs.

However, the larger problem here is that post-pandemic, the attitudes did not re-adjust to a pre-pandemic time, and as such, people still exhibit the same frustration and attitude they had during that period.

To add to this, with the advancements in AI, I'm noticing a lot more "AI-slop", poorly generated content, "AI deep fakes" and just poorly researched content. This adds yo people's frustration in some cases, and results in poor online behaviour as a consequence.

Many other people subscriber to the "Dead Internet Theory" - the theory that there is no human generated content or responses online any more and that everything you respond to has actually come from a bot. Now, I somewhat think there's a little truth in this, but I don't think it's as cut and dried as that, I think there's still some decent human made content, but the overall quality of content is declining in a huge way.

So what's left?

I have the following forms of social media left

• Instagram (admittedly, I don't use this a lot)

• Discord (this is my main hang out)

• YouTube (whilst it's a video streaming site, it has some social elements to it - comments etc.)

It's time to bin social media!