Social Media fasts

[Guest]

sometimes we just have to take a break from the noisy world, so here is a spot to share what things you might be taking a break from.

I'll start:

I think I am going to do my third twitter fast soon, it's just getting too noisy

[Popestar]

In the last week I've distanced myself from:

1. Twitter.  Account deleted.
2. Facebook.  Account deactivated so I can still use Messenger to talk to friends and family.
3. Disqus.  I used to post on the Green Bay Packers Insider Inbox comments section, but I can't take the hate any more.

That's pretty much all of the social media outlets I was using.  I did find an alternative to Facebook - MeWe.  I signed up, and it seems to be a whole lot more friendly, and less ads-in-your-face than FB.  I'll give it a shot and see how it turns out.  Worst that happens is I leave there too.

[kerbiloid]

They C what U R doing there...

[TheSaint]

I have a Twitter account. I look at it about every six or nine months or so, just to make sure it hasn't been hacked. I have a Facebook account, which I check every day, or every other day, or so, just to see what's going on with family. I haven't actually posted anything on it in over two years, but my wife tags me every once in a while, so my cousins know I'm alive.

Edit: Oh, yeah, I did sign up for a MeWe account. I have two friends on it: My wife, and a guy I used to work with who rage quit Facebook that I want to keep in touch with.

Edited January 13, 2021 by TheSaint

[Superfluous J]

I don't understand the need to "fast" from anything. If I don't want to read something I just don't read it. This includes all social media, this site... anything.

I spent most of the past 2 years not even looking at my email inbox unless I needed to see a specific email that I knew about in advance. Now I'm checking it daily again. Who knows which of the hundreds of emails in there were important at the time.

[YNM]

I've deleted my own Twitter account a good while (few years) ago. Stopped checking it from before then anyway.

I can't access my Facebook account anymore because Facebook themselves locked it (I still can change the password there, but once logged in, they'd ask me to verify myself in a way that'd be very, very difficult for me to do it). idk if I come to their office in person if they could open it for me... While I don't do much there it's pretty much the only place where I have my old friends, certain groups etc.

Someone actually misused my e-mail address and made an Instagram account using it. (well ok it's not exactly an address misuse, rather due to the odd way a certain large, free e-mail provider do their e-mail addressing that omits certain characters.)

 

The odd thing is, I'm actually following people's twitter account now simply by accessing them logged off. Doesn't reduce the experience one bit as I'm only finding informations anyway. And I'm glad that twitter allows this for those who haven't set their account private, unlike Instagram or Facebook...

Edited January 13, 2021 by YNM

[Lewie]

The only social I have is Snapchat, and that’s really for the ROTC group chat. Only thing I use it for, really. Never posted on ‘my story’ or whatever it’s called.

[kerbiloid]

Stackoverflow.

No, I don't ask there, and don't answer. I'm not even registered.

But  miraculously, it knows about my sufferings and miseries before I could know myself.

[Nuke]

i had to set up a facebook account to use my oculus quest 2 that i got for xmas. i did have an old facebook account that i opened a few years ago. after i started it, it only took 3 minutes for me to decide i didnt want to use facebook anymore and told them to delete the account. which they obviously didn't do. the login still worked so i used that one.  so i put every security and privacy setting to the most restrictive option and haven't logged in since. i dont use any other social media platforms. 

i remember back when myspace was a thing when it was called 'social networking'. that was actually a useful thing to have. it let me connect to people in my own town, and i got several dates with people i met on the service. the ability to chit chat with people in your own area was very useful thing to have. it was great tool for a recluse to meet people.  facebook didnt have any of this. they wanted you to give them your friend's email addresses. and you couldn't search for people in your own area and friend them.  they seem more interested in bombing you with random junk that you dont care about and have taken the social aspects completely out of it. if anything it drives a wedge between people just to make a buck.  this is why we cant have nice things. 

[YNM]

On 1/14/2021 at 11:54 AM, Nuke said:

The ability to chit chat with people in your own area was very useful thing to have.

I forgot, but I think this service did exist ? I really forgot which platform had this though. You can just "scan area" and there'd be a list of who's around you, that kind of stuff. Was already on the era of smartphones (early android and around iPhone 3 and up), so probably more of a privacy concern in a way...

[Nuke]

i can understand why facebook doesnt have it. because if you are meeting up with your friends you aren't consuming the unending stream of spam facebook churns out. 

[Base]

Social media takes away from me a lot of personal time, so I decided to stay away from it. At least at work. I have a little business of my own and my efficiency is low sometimes because I distracted by my Facebook feed. If are interested I'm making money with email marketing and having your own signature is a very crucial step. Here is a good generator  that helped me create my own signature.

[TheKosanianMethod]

I don't know if you'd call it a "fast" but about a year ago I realized a lot of the stuff I was seeing on Reddit was irritating. So I made a new account and subscribed only to subreddits that have content I enjoy or that makes me happy. I made yet another one a few days ago for the same purpose, as I felt that annoying content was getting to me again. This time, nothing political-related or anything overly debate-related. Just cute things, silly things, happy things, and things related to my personal interests. Social media is an escape from the world, not a way to view it.