Quitting social media

[typefitter]

I should start this discussion by saying the only social media account I have is on Twitter. I've never been on Facebook or Instagram or Snapfluff or Knucklefish or whatever. But I was a pretty hardcore Twitter user, close to an addict.

After the Texas shooting, I was really grossed out by the idiocy on there, and the pointlessness of it, and I decided to give myself a break from Twitter for the rest of November, a kind of test. I can say with all honesty that I logged off whenever I said I was going to log off, and I haven't looked at it.

(I should also say a couple of close friends left Twitter and seemed thankful for it. Their chorus was in my ear.)

ANYWAY, it's only been a couple of days, but I already feel better. My actual life is probably as good as it's ever been, but Twitter was making it seem like everything is awful. (Maybe everything is awful and now I'm just ignoring that it is.) Either way, I feel like I'm at the start of a colonic cleanse. It's also amazing how much more time I have in the day (to spend here). I think this is going to stick.

Of course, I said that once before, after taking a break when that poor reporter was shot on live TV and Twitter autoplayed the video. A few weeks later, I returned.

Anyone else quit social media and feel better? Feel worse? Tried to break and couldn't? I'm curious to know if I'm just in the post-divorce honeymoon phase, WHICH I KNOW A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT.

Seriously, though.

 

[Chef2]

I'm on twitter, facebook, and instagram.
I'll check twitter a couple of times a day........facebook maybe once a week, and instagram very rarely.

 

[User 149557]

I quit Facebook in 2012 and haven't missed it once. I left Twitter once I was no longer a sports editor and have a burner account and check the feed once a day for five minutes. I then banish myself from the place the rest of the day.

You don't realize the anxiety a Twitter feed can artificially create until you leave.

If Twitter was what it was in about 2009 or 2010, I'd consider being active again. It was really fun and the news accounts were like having your very own personalized AP wire. Weird Twitter was like having your favorite stand-ups performing at all times of day. Now it's just mechanized outrage and anxiety.

 

[typefitter]

I quit Facebook in 2012 and haven't missed it once. I left Twitter once I was no longer a sports editor and have a burner account and check the feed once a day for five minutes. I then banish myself from the place the rest of the day.

You don't realize the anxiety a Twitter feed can artificially create until you leave.

If Twitter was what it was in about 2009 or 2010, I'd consider being active again. It was really fun and the news accounts were like having your very own personalized AP wire. Weird Twitter was like having your favorite stand-ups performing at all times of day. Now it's just mechanized outrage and anxiety.

I think it's changed, too. I don't remember it making me miserable when I first got on there, probably around 2009. But now enough **** somehow invades your feed that you can't avoid it. Plus Trump has made everyone crazy.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Facebook is my only outlet. It's way more peaceful than Twitter or anything else, but I'm sure that's due to my self-regulation of it -- I drop out of feeds and friends that are going to cause me a lot of grief. With others we've settled on a sometimes uneasy truce that begins with "no politics." I'm not perfect about that, but I do wait a few hours before posting something political to think about whether this one is meaningful enough.

I like keeping up with my old hometown and with my siblings' kids, my parents' friends, etc. I wouldn't know about any of that. So it serves my needs. Also, importantly, I work from home and it's a social outlet I need during the day.

Twitter, Snapchat and the rest are garbage. Facebook is a more personal connection for me. I still hold that one in a different category despite all the news about Russian bots and the election. However, my wife hasn't signed on in years, and every time I tell her about something happening there, it affirms her decision.

 

[cjericho]

On twitter, pretty much to follow a couple of friends who still cover sports and also for updates from a few breweries. On instagram to see updates from breweries and maybe look at some pictures. Never had FB, but sometimes look at Mrs. page.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

I should start this discussion by saying the only social media account I have is on Twitter. I've never been on Facebook or Instagram or Snapfluff or Knucklefish or whatever. But I was a pretty hardcore Twitter user, close to an addict.

After the Texas shooting, I was really grossed out by the idiocy on there, and the pointlessness of it, and I decided to give myself a break from Twitter for the rest of November, a kind of test. I can say with all honesty that I logged off whenever I said I was going to log off, and I haven't looked at it.

(I should also say a couple of close friends left Twitter and seemed thankful for it. Their chorus was in my ear.)

ANYWAY, it's only been a couple of days, but I already feel better. My actual life is probably as good as it's ever been, but Twitter was making it seem like everything is awful. (Maybe everything is awful and now I'm just ignoring that it is.) Either way, I feel like I'm at the start of a colonic cleanse. It's also amazing how much more time I have in the day (to spend here). I think this is going to stick.

Of course, I said that once before, after taking a break when that poor reporter was shot on live TV and Twitter autoplayed the video. A few weeks later, I returned.

Anyone else quit social media and feel better? Feel worse? Tried to break and couldn't? I'm curious to know if I'm just in the post-divorce honeymoon phase, WHICH I KNOW A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT.

Seriously, though.

Didn't you write this about SJ.com when you quit here for awhile?

 

[typefitter]

Didn't you write this about SJ.com when you quit here for awhile?

I honestly don't know. Maybe? I did quit here for a while because it was bumming me out. That lasted a few years, I would guess.

My interest in this place fell when my interest in Twitter rose, and it's gone the other way now. I'm a little like @LongTimeListener, in that I work from home, and I feel like I need a virtual newsroom somehow. But I worry that social media is giving me the illusion of engagement when otherwise I might force myself to go outside or to the gym or even just to the bar for lunch.

PS: I would add that I'm much better than I was about getting worked up here. Still need to work on that, but I used to take things here way too seriously.

 

[User 149557]

One thing I love about coming from a family of Luddites is I don't have to keep a Facebook account to keep up with family.

 

[SpeedTchr]

I visit Facebook and Twitter regularly throughout most days, with zero issues. I only follow about 300 Twitter accounts, and have about 200 Facebook "friends". I have unfollowed (but not unfriended) a few of my friends and distant family members due to their political BS, left and right, but in general my feeds are quite pleasant and bring many smiles.

Twitter is a great avenue for me to keep track of happenings in areas of interest to me.

If you look for drama, you'll find drama.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

I honestly don't know. Maybe? I did quit here for a while because it was bumming me out. That lasted a few years, I would guess.

My interest in this place fell when my interest in Twitter rose, and it's gone the other way now. I'm a little like @LongTimeListener, in that I work from home, and I feel like I need a virtual newsroom somehow. But I worry that social media is giving me the illusion of engagement when otherwise I might force myself to go outside or to the gym or even just to the bar for lunch.

PS: I would add that I'm much better than I was about getting worked up here. Still need to work on that, but I used to take things here way too seriously.

I just think it goes in cycles.

Of course, a lot fewer people here to call you an asshole than on Twitter.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I have never used twitter. I have limited time to goof around and that never made the cut. I'd rather check in on here throughout the day while I am working. I have a facebook account, but I don't pay a lot of attention to it. I do check in for a minute or two every day or two. I keep the number of friends relatively small, and I don't post much. I like it, though, because it gives me the chance to keep up with a dozen people who mean a lot to me who I would otherwise lose touch with. I can see what they are up to and check in on them without much effort.

 

[bigpern23]

I often tell my wife she should stay off Facebook because she has the most depressing feed I've ever heard. It's like every other story she tells me is some off-the-charts tragedy befalling some kid, or some other awfulness that only makes the world seem cruel. She keeps reading, though.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

I still have Facebook and use it to look up people or businesses, but don’t interact with anyone on it. My Instagram account has pretty much just become for sharing pictures of the kids with friends and family.

But I love Twitter. I don’t get people who complain about trash on it because it’s so easy to make your feed or lists exactly what you want it to be. I rarely ever see anything offensive from accounts I follow, other than @BestFansStLouis retweeting Cardinals fans for entertainment purposes.

 

[Moderator1]

I have all three (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and readily admit I use all three way too much. I need to read more books but mostly I enjoy the interaction (and I still read a lot).

I have a Snapchat but it is way out of my league. A bunch of us were out one night bidding farewell to a smart co-worker who was leaving us for law school. My "work kids" tried to show me the ins and outs of Snapchat. I did a picture with some of the goofy filters and went to send it to a woman I was trying to maybe get something going with and accidentally sent it to a woman I'd tried (and failed badly) to get something going with.

Five minutes later, she texted "WTF was that?"

My bad, apologies, hit the wrong name, I told her.
No apology needed, she said, she kind of liked it (and it was NOT a dirty picture, just a weird Snapchatty thing)
So maybe I've been doing it wrong all along. Screw Bumble, let's do Snapchat.

The kids told me on a recent visit that their mom was now on Snapchat, so that's maybe a reason to stay away

 

[User 11148]

I have accounts on all the big social media places -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat -- because my rule with my kids is if they're using a cellphone I pay for to be "on" social media then they must let me follow/monitor them. I've relaxed that somewhat with the older two, but the 16YO DaughterQuant has yet to be thusly emancipated.

Facebook is my only true social media place, though. I've unfollowed the most political of my friends -- left or right -- because I really don't want to hear that level of nonsense. I mean, I've got friends who are Greenpeace activists in Australia and others who are Trumpists in bumble**** South Carolina. If I didn't do some serious unfollowing, I'd never see anything I'm interested in.

Like Rags and others, I mostly use it to keep in touch with people who mean a lot to me. Sometimes this keeping-up is painful -- one of my closest friends from high school and college had a daughter die a few weeks ago, and her week or so on life support literally became a digitized death watch -- but sometimes it's fabulous.

 

[WriteThinking]

I should start this discussion by saying the only social media account I have is on Twitter. I've never been on Facebook or Instagram or Snapfluff or Knucklefish or whatever. But I was a pretty hardcore Twitter user, close to an addict.

So, you would understand why Trump can't seem to let it go?

I've sometimes thought that if he would just stop tweeting, his approval rating, and indeed, his actual performance, would improve drastically, and there would be so much less to talk about with regard to him. I've never understood why he won't just stop with Twitter.

I, myself, have Twitter and Facebook accounts. I look at Facebook at least once, and usually, a couple of times, a day, just to keep up with acquaintances with whom I would lose contact otherwise. I feel like this is largely what Facebook is for. Conversely, I virtually never use my Twitter account. I only have a few people/feeds that I've ever followed, and I'm about as close as you can get to being a completely inactive user while still having an open account. I'm not addicted to either of them.

I have a friend who once said that people tend to either be Facebook people, or Twitter people, and for the most part, that's apparently true.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I'm on Facebook, but only to post the occasional pictures of my kids.

Will never be "on" Twitter, and all of the others seem weird and scary to me.

 

[Cosmo]

I'm really trying to cut down on my Twitter usage. It's a really valuable news feed, and when I come into work in the morning, I'll end up opening a half dozen story links to read throughout the day.

It's fun to interact with other Caps fans, for instance, during games. Otherwise, as type points out, you can find yourself digging down deep, depressing rabbit holes, whether it's political posts or people actually @ing football players when they get hurt because they're screwing their fantasy teams.

 

[playthrough]

I'm on Facebook often. It's just the way I keep up with second-tier friends and a ton of family.

Twitter I use pretty much just for work, sharing some of my stories and RTs.

As for Instagram ... well, I had an account that I used very sparingly, then one day it was hacked and the few photos that were there were all replaced with porn. The hardcore stuff. I heard from a LOT of people that day, including friends I hadn't heard from in years. Good times!