Have you ever thought about/deleted social media ?

Lately I've been thinking about this a lot. Social media makes people seek so much attention because it's so easy to get immediate satisfaction through posting a new picture ect. I feel like this was one of the largest downfalls in my long term relationship that recently failed was her tendency to seek attention on social media (facebook, snapchat mostly). I've never gotten deep into social media. For example I do not have a twitter, nor do I have an instagram or snapchat or whatever else. Even so I found myself wasting a fairly large amount browsing Facebook. This led me to start considering the benefits of cutting it out of my life entirely. I have so far gone 4 days without logging into the Facebook app (I use the Messenger feature for a school group chat). I can tell you there's almost a relief not caring about what people who I haven't talked to in ages are doing with their lives and not being constantly connected. In addition I have much more time to focus towards goals in my life and have been doing research into starting my own company in my free time. Eventually I hope to delete my Facebook account entirely as I feel it'll better me and my mental health in the long run.

What are your thoughts on social media and do you think you could get rid of it entirely?


P.S I know the irony of posting this thread as forums are essentially another form of procrastination.

 

I've tried to delete my facebook a few times, but find that I almost "need" it to stay conneted socially, after a period of a few months I stared falling out of social circles. That being said my main reason for deleting it was tired off bullshit, wanting to go off the radar for a bit, and having spent too much time on social media.

I've deleted a number of my profiles, such as LinkedIn, youtube, twitter, etc so that I can reduce my digital footprint, facebook... hate it, but seems essential.


Anyone that's deleted it will tell you how different things feel, the way you ineract with people changes on a macro and micro level, you feel more engaged when having personal conversations. Strange thing it is indeed.

 

It seems almost counter intuitive since when you're not on facebook you won't know every microdetail of someones life so you'd have more to talk about. I guess without some background knowledge it could be hard to maintain conversation. My social circles were typically fishing friends/best friends (they're the same thing). My university friends and then assorted friends from highschool. I feel like I could remain connected to most of the ones I care about without the use of facebook but I guess only time will tell

 

No, I don't have any desire to delete my social media profiles. The only issue I've ever had with it is privacy concerns.

I only follow people and pages that I'm interested in, so scrolling my newsfeed is actually worthwhile for me. I don't see sloots attention whoring or any retarded shit like that anymore.

I just get on when I'm bored or waiting somewhere. Sometimes I'll send a PM/DM to someone if I don't have their #.

 

Honestly I've thought about it but from what I've heard from others that have got into graduate school after college, they recommend keeping your social media so grad schools are able to go on and look at you and see what you post etc. I know some accounts can be private, but I believe graduate schools like to see the social side of your life too.. So for that reason I've kept mine. Just don't go on it very much if I'm not feeling it or bored with it.

 

I like instagram a lot, tbh i dont even care what my friends post about but i do follow a lot of pages that post shit related to hobbies and interests of mine. Fb is dumb, twitter is alright for staying super update to date with world happenings, snapchat is good for scamming naked pics

 

I've deleted all of mine. The only reason I used facebook was to communicate over messanger but I realized that the only people I want to talk to, I already have their phone numbers. I wasn't big into twitter and I rarely used Instagram. Snapchat is the only one I still use because you gotta hit up the young Hunnies somehow.

 

I've considered it. But I've become immune to wasting time with other peoples junk. If I'm on FB it's to find articles to read. I don't bother with peoples photos or personal lives. That stuff actually annoys me. It's actually a good tool for learning for me right now. I find out a lot about current events, history, and just cool facts from the articles my friends post.

I did delete 90% of my friends though. I wish now that I hadn't.

 

Hahaha I see you Swell

 

It's mad how I was literally just considering this then come across this thread... I spend a lot of time looking a pointless bullshit on social media. Time to gtfo I think lol

 

Valid reasons. Most of my newsfeed is friends from my past that don't really concern me or things I liked when I was younger. I ensured when I do through my facebook account that my privacy is maximum.

This is true often employers or graduate schools will search for you on social media. This is why I've always maintained professional enough facebook pictures especially the stuff that employers can see without being my friend.

I don't have instagram but I do sometimes search my interests such as car related things ect. Twitter is good for what you say such as during a poker tournament knowing the standings ect.

I'm not going to go forward with deleting friends. Unfortunately I've had that happen to me and on the other side you wonder what's going on and why they deleted you.

For now I've only signed out of my facebook on all my devices. This makes it such that if I want to go on facebook it has to be a conscience decision to allow myself to consider whether I could be using my time more effectively instead.

 

I have a Facebook, but I haven't used it in years. I had a twitter that I used in highschool, I deleted it in an attempt to distance myself from the shit-storm that was twitter in highschool.

I now have twitter, but I only use it for things such as news (I follow very few people I know). Other than that, I'm not really on any social media and I just talk to people I want to talk to directly. I think social media is great, but if you're on it too much it can be a drain.

 

Yeah. Honestly when I graduate I might do the same and delete facebook. Currently use it alot in college for events and stuff though. Still I try to not browse too much on it

This includes sythe, these things can easily steal hours and hours of your life.

 

Maybe a few years ago I would have thought it to be a pointless distraction, but now it is reaching the point where instead of being blasted with meaningless drinking related pictures, most of the stuff on my feed is marriage/baby related. Personally I think it is kind of cool to see my childhood friends popping out babies and getting married lol. The main reason I use Facebook (and other social media like twitter) is to market software I develop since i'm too cheap to have a budget for real advertising. Social media is a powerful marketing tool.

 

Haha I see your posts occasionally, definitely a great marketing tactic. I'll likely have a social media presence with my company but whether I'll continue with my personal facebook account is still undecided. I'm at the stage where a few friends are having kids not married and they're accidents or everyone is just drinking and wasting their money and complaining about how they're broke. It's so funny to see people share "Wow so broke because of how expensive university is" when every second picture is them going out drinking with their friends ect. Another personal favorite is complaining about course load and then bragging about how much netflix they watch like guys come on how are we supposed to feel sorry for you.

 

Yeah I can't stand when people use it as a rant board. But thank god you can just unfollow those people while keeping them as a friend. I don't know how long ago it was when you didn't have that option; if you were someone's friend, you would see their stuff.

 

It's much too interconnected with my college life (clubs / social events / specific groups for classes etc.) But I definitely have considered it as I do feel like I spend much more time than I need to be trying to see what my peers are up to, opposed to being productive myself.

 

I wouldn't mind getting rid of it. FB is all I use, and even then it's a few times a month to check for messages from a friend I promised I wouldn't deactivate my account (they live overseas and it had been a long time since the last time I saw them).

It's hard to generalize about something like social media, considering how much of it there is (consider RS and Sythe, to name to niche examples). But I definitely agree that there's something problematic about the ongoing desire for attention. It's definitely something that, if you aren't going to take part in, you at least have to learn to live with it (and with people who do it).
I've found it helpful not to bash so much as to make jokes about social media, especially FB and Twitter. I think a lot of people, even if they themselves are heavily "under the spell," will still agree when you make a playful remark about social media's peculiarities. It's good to at least think about them.

 

I've been wanting to get rid of Facebook for a while now because I feel like there's nothing but drama on it, but I somehow always find myself coming back to it for some reason.

 

I have deleted my social media accounts before, but then I end up making them again. lol I tend to keep the new ones more private though, and end up not using them much. I guess, now, it's just have one for each media...