Social Media

[LeFrettchen]

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick

it's easy when you don't have any friends

Ofc you have friends...

[PapaParrot]

I am kind of surprised, no one mentioned that there is a OpenBsd group on Face Book

A few years back, before I retired and was travelling ,working but out of town , constantly, and often a long ways from home, most of the kids and adults, in my pueblo really don't know about using a PC and forums, like this one, but they are all using facebook, well here, most of the adults are computer illiterate, especially older adults, the kids show them how to use Facebook, so any way I ended up joining it as well, and I liked it, is was nice seeing familiar faces, reading about things going on on in the pueblo, etc,..Now that I am retired and at home, I use it much less, a side note:, when I started using Face Book, I found that most of my relatives, some I have not actually seen in over 50 years, all are using it, similar, none have a clue as to using technical forums, and such,...none know what USENET is, except me, I was using usenet way back, even in the mid 1980's, I don't really care much about the so called social media, I think for many, especially people that can not get out, house bound, etc, it really is important,....
I don't like Twitter, nor Linkden, at all, and the worst thing about Face Book is that it is very slow, takes forever to load, and sometimes is rather buggy,
@

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick View Post
it's easy when you don't have any friends ---

Actually you do have friends, if you don't believe me, feel free to PM me , at any time, but any way, for me, the real social life for me is with my birds, and then the humans that are around me daily, and that I actually can touch and see, IE: wife, grand children, etc,...

[comet--berkeley]

I don't use Facebook.

Here is recent article about The Death of the Internet

[frcc]

I don't use social medial at all.

Would these products exist and prosper if people didn't want to use them.

There are alternatives, maybe slower, maybe not as effective etc, your choice still!

[hitest]

Originally Posted by frcc

I don't use social medial at all.

Same. Deleted all of my other social media accounts quite some time ago. I'm 31 days clean of FB. Feels good.

[Carpetsmoker]

I wrote about Facebook a while ago on HN in Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?; copied here for your convenience:

No. I actually created a Facebook account in 2018.

The problem is that without Facebook you will miss out. Sure, close friends and family will invite you to their social events, but more distant acquaintances will not; you know, the bloke you met at the pub last week and had a 20 minute chat with, or that cute girl you talked to but then she suddenly she was dragged off to a birthday party by her friends. By missing out on the social opportunities you lose the chance to upgrade these people from acquaintances to friends (or even lovers), as well as meet new people.

Some back story: I moved to a different country two years ago with my ex-girlfriend (for her job), and we both didn't really know anyone there. I work remote, so I don't meet a lot of people from work, either.

We broke up after a year and much to my dismay I discovered I had not really made any new friends in that year, and that I was quite ... alone. So I set out to change that. Facebook – as much as I dislike the company – was helpful. I moved to yet another country two month ago, and again Facebook has been helpful.

I dislike Facebook for all the standard reasons. I had an account but I deleted it about 5 or 6 years ago, but I decided that having a good social life was (and remains) vastly important to the quality of my life, and that Facebook is a tool to help achieve that goal.

(Facebook didn't really "delete" my old account, as after I rejoined it remembered many of my previous friends; some of whom I had no contact with outside of Facebook, like many Egyptians I was in contact with during the 2011 rebellion whom I had met through a friend and only knew through Facebook; my "suggested friends" list was full of Arabic names).

On a more deeper level, I am a little bit exasperated of always being the "different" and "difficult" person (which extends to things beyond Facebook). Standing up for your principles and "voting with your wallet" is good and all, but ... I'm not so sure it's all that effective. In this case, a more effective strategy is probably to first create a really good Facebook alternative (I'm not so sure there is one now), make sure decent privacy laws are enacted, etc.

[Funkygoby]

About LinkedIn, I don't see it as a social media.
I have been using social media for "business purposes" (reaching people, promoting concerts, whatever), that was a chore too me.
I didn't use LinkedIn much back in the days but 6 months ago, I started looking for a job, a job that would provide sustainance if you will, like software dev. 3 months later, I was hired in a nice not-evil not-fucked-up software company.

So while FB NEVER provided any benefit and can die in a fire, linkedin was a different experience overall.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Has anybody tried Mastodon?

I've noticed that lobste.rs has been pushing it lately.

Originally Posted by GarryR

Actually you do have friends, if you don't believe me, feel free to PM me

Thanks Garry, you are very kind.

I'm an antisocial bugger though, I consider a lack of friends to be a feature rather than a bug

[jggimi]

Mastodon is intentionally twitter-like, so there's little learning curve other than the web interface for those who are transitioning.

I've got an account on bsd.network, but am a very infrequent visitor.

[jayblingham]

I use social media, but rarely interact with social media. I use it because it's become the place where friends and family communicate. Aside from responding to a few messages and invites though - I'm pretty-much "read only".

Here's a few examples of how I use the larger platforms:

Facebook: Primary place where my family communicates. Not just through posts, but messenger, event invites (such as holiday dinners etc). It's annoying, but I use this as a read-only tool. I don't post cat videos, or pictures of my dinner (no matter how appetizing).

Twitter: I read mostly, and interact with a few accounts I follow. I've tried posting, and sharing - but frankly, I'm not interesting enough

Instagram: I started out with this because I thought I'd get deeper into photography than I did. In the end, there is a different subset of friends on here who share funny or strange photos of things they find in their travels, and I recently posted a screenshot of Debian 9 asking me to load a firmware disk, which I thought was fun to see in 2019.

LinkedIn: This is where I let head-hunters... I mean, recruiters, contact me if they have opportunities for me. I haven't accepted any in 20 years, but that, making industry contacts and other "business-y" stuff is it's purpose for me.

Reddit: If I don't find it on Google, I look here quickly first.

Mastodon: I got a Mastodon account when SDF was advertising theirs - logged on once, and didn't really give it a fair shot. It just looked like a less busy Facebook/Twitter variant.

I don't know if this was helpful, but I can at least be one more statistical answer

Jay

[e1-531g]

Does GitHub count as a social network?
https://guides.github.com/activities/socialize/

[LeFrettchen]

I use GitHub, but never thought of using it as a social network, so for me, it's definitively not a social network.

[hitest]

Originally Posted by e1-531g

Problem with Facebook is that they track also people who don't have FB account.

I can confirm that. I deleted my FB account two months ago and I do occasionally get ads about FB that show up at random websites.
Today I interact with people on forums and IRC.

[hitest]

Originally Posted by Prevet

I think social media addiction could be easily controlled by putting rules in place on your router, so that you can only access it for a short time once per day.

I like that idea, thank you! So far I have no regrets about disconnecting from all social media platforms. These days I connect with people in person, here on daemonforums and other forums, and a bit on IRC.

[blackhole]

In my humble opinion, the only solution to "social media addiction" is to get out of it and never return. It is specifically engineered to be addictive / compulsive / habit forming.

The reason these "social networks" and others can track you, is because many other sites are infested with their "login" features, analytics, etc.

[hitest]

Originally Posted by cynwulf

In my humble opinion, the only solution to "social media addiction" is to get out of it and never return. It is specifically engineered to be addictive / compulsive / habit forming.

Agreed.

[hitest]

cynwulf,

Two years later and I made the mistake of creating an account on FaceBook. The platform is highly addictive and I didn't enjoy what I did there. I was on Facebook for about a year again. The platform is insidious.
Hopefully now that I have deleted my FaceBook account again I do not come back to it.

[LeFrettchen]

I still have mine, but barely use it.
I mostly use it to talk with my nephew when he is at work, cause he cannot use discord when working.

Edit : and I mostly use discord when playing online

[Trihex]

I've never had a Facebook, Instagram, etc account and only do forums.

I have a GitHub account because someone had posted my FreeBSD tutorial on his site, ignored my most earnest attempts to get him to remove it and was doing business at GitHub representing himself as a respectable Web Developer under his real name.

I knew everything there was to know about him in 5 minutes, including what he looked like.

That's why I don't have a Facebook, Instagram, etc. account.

[hitest]

Originally Posted by Trihex

I've never had a Facebook, Instagram, etc account and only do forums.

You're very wise. I've used all of the social media platforms. Facebook was the last to go. As a recovering addict (I've been clean for over 6 years) I know the signs of addiction. Digital addiction is very real. These forums and other forums are my form of social media today.