Be honest: Do you still use mainstream social media?
1mon 4d ago by piefed.ca/u/WongKaKui in asklemmy
Cuz the comments throught Lemmy/Piefed seems to indicate that literally every user on here is a FOSS/Dencentralization Purist and has 100% abandoned mainstream platforms.
I wonder if this is actually true or just a small minority of users being overrepresented.
I think you're seeing a loud minority honestly. People who use mainstream socials still (yes, I do) don't tend to shout about it all the time.
Agreed.
I also find it funny how you (mostly) read about (F)OSS purists here but readily engage in using Chromium based browsers like Brave.
Like...why?? You (not you OP :p) can't preach about FOSS but also use Brave in the same contexts.
Edit:
Okay Brave is open source. But what they do and for what they are in the news for, are (IMO) not in line with what F(OSS) projects usually stand for.
using social media is just assumed. like driving a car, having a job, watching tv, etc. it's just background assumption, and if you don't use it, you're weird.
but there are vastly different ways and volumes in which people use it. i have most only ever used it for community/volunteer stuff. i only used it personally like 10 years ago back when it was just pictures my friends and I posted. I stopped using it in 2021 or so after it got enshittified and became nothing but advertising and porn in my feeds and my friends photos took scrolling for 5m to find.
Yeah I'm basically the same. I have it, but I only use it sometimes. It doesn't hold my interest that much.
I use discord and piefed and that's it. Discord is mainstream, but I'm just in a couple small servers talking with friends.
I just don't mesh well with most social media. Mastodon and Bluesky confuse me just as much as Twitter and Facebook did.
I lurk on some subreddits still. Sometimes I just want to look at pictures of orangutans or neatly organized server racks without anyone bringing up Trump in the comments.
Also if you count YouTube, I still have premium though I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth it.
I’ve been using SmartTube on a Firestick and it’s great. Not only does it get rid of the YouTube commercials, it can also get rid of the “…and that’s why I use SquareSpace” type stuff.
Yes this is perfect. With YouTube history disabled so you don't see recommendations at all. Just subscriptions, 'watch later' list, and non-personalized post-video recommendations on some devices.
Yes, I’ve disabled history and use the FF extension Untrap for YouTube to block anything else that might bleed through. Endless Algorithmic feeds are bad for you imo
Its not worth it. Try freetube.
What do you use premium for? I used to have it a long time ago until ad block made it unneeded.
PS Trump is an orangutan
PS Trump is an orangutan
Y'all always have to be "on" don't you?
I was just making a joke on your comment
without anyone bringing up Trump in the comments.
Fair enough, but I'm a hair's breadth away from deleting my account here and never coming back. Apologies if you've read my spiel before. I post it a lot only because I think it ends up being relevant a lot. Anyway, Most people, myself included, join the fediverse for ideological reasons. I'd wager most of us are anti-corporate, or at least don't trust Google or Facebook sorry Meta 🙄, and Reddit, et al.
But just because I'm here for ideological reasons doesn't mean I want to talk about nothing else. But every community is either soaking in politics, see my pics above, or empty. Even Anne Frank wrote about other stuff in her diary every now and then, so I don't buy the "everything's on fire so we should work it into every discussion" argument.
Reddit used to have a somewhat similar problem, in that it attracted a very specific type of user (neckbeards), and the experience was less fun if you weren't one, but Lemmy seems so much more obnoxious in this regard, and I can't fathom how it could get better.
You probably already know this, but there are other smaller instances that have way better "local" feed stuff because all of the main politics and shit posting are already on the big ones, like world.
Sorry for being annoying with my joke
I already have an account on lemmy.radio. In fact it was my first foray into the threadiverse in 2023 during the Redit APIpocalypse. I made an account here because I post a lot in worldbuilding@lemmy.world, and after the UK lost access to imgur I didn't feel it was polite to clog a tiny instance with my unrelated uploads.
But herein lies my gripe about the fediverse as a whole. Fediverse platforms are by and large clones of larger social media offerings, and thus inherit some of their problems. Lemmy prioritizes new content over old but still relevant content, so if you want to aggregate a discussion under a single topic, as you would on a forum, it inevitably gets pushed off the front page as new posts come in, and nobody will ever see it again, so you have to keep posting new topics, but those end up clogging the feed. If you look at my posts on the worldbuilding community here, I have a bunch of different topics, but on this phpBB forum All my stuff is tucked neatly into a single thread that doesn't clog the feed because the thread will remain visible as long as I kee posting.
You CAN sort posts by newest comment, which replicates the default forum style of topic bumping, but nobody ever does that, so the culture grows around the default "hot" sorting algorithm.
I scrape reddit for things that can't be trusted to stay hosted there and put them on the Fediverse. But I don't actually use reddit.
Based. What are some examples of such things?
Boobs n butts.
Every morning, I scrape reddit to see what crimes the fascist paramilitary invaders known as ice did recently. Then post it to Mastodon so the media is off reddit servers and then post that to Crimes of ICE
I don't know why people are trusting reddit to host this media, it gets deleted often and it's too important to let get deleted. One day, there will be trials, and this will be evidence.
Decentralisation purist here.
Nope. Got off all of it in 2017 and I've never looked back
Same,in 2013.
Only YouTube.
I was pretty addicted to Reddit for a while, but eventually I got banned for basically no reason and that was enough to get me to almost entirely stop checking it.
I don't think YouTube counts as social media. Also, you can disable ads, comments and shorts, it feels so much better
social media
noun
Interactive forms of media that allow users to interact with and publish to each other, generally by means of the Internet.
I think it counts
So anything with a comments section? That would make pornhub and animekai "social medias" too LMAO
unless you're actively posting and commenting and interacting on youtube, you aren't though.
some of us just watch videos. I never had an account either until I was forced to get one due to them blocking so many vids from being viewed without signing in.
just like i sometimes read twitter comments, but i don't have a twitter account and i don't interact it, they just sometimes come up as links in stories i'm reading. same with tiktok or IG videos/images. I see it mostly through other websites that are using them as sources.
that's very different than most people who are using it to as a means of socialization. I don't even regard reddit/lemmy or internet comments as socialization. some people do. i have never have a 'reddit friend' even though I used teh site for over a decade. to me it was just shit on the internet that was fun to comment about.
Why would YouTube not count as social media?
Pre-rebuttal in case you go in this direction: Being a social media platform and being a video sharing platform are not mutually exclusive.
It's just TV, there's nothing social about it for many people
Like Netflix with a different library
Would you consider tiktok to be social media, then?
yeah because it's mostly talking heads and the tik tok videos are meant to be replied to by other videos.
a lot of youtube isn't like that. it's just videos.
do some people use youtube as a social platform? yes. like the massive genre of talking heads and 'reaction' videos.
I don't think many people use tiktok like that. Most people are just commenting, or lurking. It's functionally pretty similar to how YouTube is used for the average person.
I remember there was actually a time (probably way back in the late 2000s) where youtube used to have a little "video reply" feature, and they would nest the replies beneath the video in a little banner! I miss those days...
Tiktok is the definition of social media imo. You respond directly to each other with videos that reveal who you are in real life. It's almost aggressively social lol, like neighbors yelling at each other inside of the same apartment building, even if you live on opposite ends of the continent.
But that's not how most people actually use it
That's a way to use it (and the one I prefer) but it's still media with social components, ergo social media.
That's too broad.
There's a pretty general consensus that it counts, and it makes good sense from a media literacy point of view to treat it as such.
Another even simpler point I haven't seen anyone else mention yet is that social media is historically associated with being used to socially interact with friends and family, either people you know irl or closely-knit online groups you treat as legitimate personal relationships.
Though I suppose Twitter can be an exception to this, but anyone who remembers how Twitter started out knows that it was never intended to be that way lol (now that government and judicial agencies use it as a defacto form of official press release ontop of everything else)
If the question is "why not", I think a good reasoning is simply because it broadens the categorization to the point where the term begins to lose all meaning. Different websites inherently have different forms of structure for interaction.
The way you behave on Instagram, Facebook, tumblr, and Twitter all feel fundamentally different from the way you behave on forums and video sites. People on Lemmy don't "reblog" stuff, people don't send each other friend requests on Youtube. It redefines the core dynamic.
On Youtube, the dominating theme is channels and parasocial relationships, more similar (but not exactly the same) to an audience's relationship with traditional media like Film and Television and their responses to the various actors/artists/celebrities therein rather than a 1:1 reciprocal relationship. Sure, there are fan groups, which gets into an interesting subset where you can begin to socially interact with each other, but these groups often live in outside spaces (such as tumblr). Hence the point I'm trying to make.
Even classifying Lemmy and Reddit as "social medias" feels like a stretch. I mean yes, in a technical sense we're all "socializing" with each other in this moment and having (mostly) genuine conversations. But for the vast majority of it, I would say:
I keep trying to block reddit, but half of the good practical advice and troubleshooting help is trapped there.
If anybody has a giant directory of active messageboards, I'm all ears.
I don't, I quit Facebook almost a decade ago and then Reddit when they did the API bullshit. I do still end up on Reddit sometimes through search results but I nuked my account and will never create another one. I'm not exactly a purist about FOSS or decentralized platforms but corpo social media is dead to me.
Started on FB when it was limited to .edu email addresses. It seemed different back then. Backed off around 2011 when oversharing was the biggest concern. My last post I can remember was in 2013, other than a goodbye post in 2022 or so when I fully deleted my socials.
Got a Twitter account in 2010. Made one post, a PM to a friend saying I had signed up, then never went back until I deleted the account at the same time as FB.
YouTube and discord if you can call those social media and Tumblr if you can call that mainstream.
Unless you count old Reddit as "mainstream", I never did.
Even if I have to deal with pissed-off people because I "still didn't join them on facebook".
my favorite is people wnat you to join them on some app. whatsapp, signal, etc. and you say you don't use apps and they ask you why you are such a dick.
because i use my phone as a phone dude.
I actually quit a volunter org because they demaded we all have slack on our phones so we could 'be available to cover for each other'. And I just flat out refused and they all got super upset with me, so I just quit. basically gen z people had joined and they refuse to use phone calls or texts to communicate. everything is slack/discord or some other group chat app.
The salt is high on ppl using third option apps. I have sms and if that won't work I guess we won't talk.
I lurk on Reddit but no longer have an active account.
Nothing else
Quit using fb years back, maybe five? Have checked it twice to message people i've no other contacts for.
I've used reddit maybe a half dozen times since moving to fediverse during the 3rd party app exodus. Each time to find a specific niche thing, often to no avail.
So i'd say honestly no, but i never like social media much to begin with.
We asked in our instance census about use of lemmy-like platforms (reddit, hacker news) and most people said they still used them in some respect. Only 7 our of 49 who answered this question said they never use them, over half use them equally or more than Fediverse alternatives.
Personally I use Facebook messenger, well I normally use Beeper because I don't have facebook on my phone but I still use the platform to connect with people. And video call on my laptop from time to time.
I still have a Facebook account, but I refuse to even look at my feed. I don't really want to know what most of my family is up to, however Marketplace, sadly, is better than Craigslist ever was.
Still have my old YouTube account, but I rarely look at it.
No Gram/Twitter/LinkedIn Permabanned from the mainstream link aggregator what feels like forever ago
Don't remember my Tumblr login
This is it for me.
Must feel liberating ❤️
Not at all
Yeah I deleted all my accounts. I only run a mastodon, Lemmy, and a rarely used Pixelfed account now
What is the "cutoff" for mainstream? How far do you stretch the definition of "social media"?
Mainstream... Something you hear about a lot and you can walk down the street and chances are, someone will be on it.
Social media... I mean anything that you can do social things as a main fuction of it...
So game chats are excluded since games are the primary function.
I still have an Instagram account because that's where my friends / past friends are. I've backed up and removed all my posts, and even when I was "actively posting," I hardly used it. Now it's only for communicating with people with whom I have no other way of speaking.
I still use YouTube, and do, in fact, use YouTube Premium. I'm on a family account, and while there are decent clients that I situationally use, there is no real alternative for the platform itself due to the nature of user-generated content platforms.
I no longer use my Reddit account, but I do read threads when they come up in search engine results, and many times, I do specifically narrow my search to the Reddit domain. Too much information there to completely ignore.
My Discord account is still active, although I have successfully managed to get my best friend off of there, which was like 99.5% of my Discord usage. But unfortunately because the informational age of the internet is dying, many products and games choose to use Discord for official support, which means that information is no longer indexable and only exists in the neutron star that is Discord.
So when people ask if I use mainstream social media (I can count on one hand how many times this has been asked), my quick answer is just "YouTube."
Ah, I suppose YouTube is a social media platform, I didn't even think of it. I wonder why
I have FB for marketplace a couple times a year, I don't install the app unless I'm buying something.
I watch a LOT of educational YouTube, and some tech news on there, using GrayJay.
Otherwise, this is it.
Used to have insta years ago.
I guess I technically have Marco Polo, but it's literally my immediate family only 🤷♂️ and that's more chat app than social media.
Edit: oh and discord for the couple of friends who use it. Plus I'm on a couple of servers for my hobbies, very specific, I hardly look at them unless I'm active in a given hobby at that moment.
youtube and discord but only because i cant live without those (youtube for youtubers and updates, discord for friends)
Insta: to watch furry femboy thirst reels YouTube: to watch stuff Snap: Nudes Reddit: See reactions to governmental policies. Also, I really love the askeconomics sub.
furry femboy thirst reels
based
arent furries and femboys major user demographics on the fediverse tho? theyre probably too privacy conscious to make content containing their appearance tho
nudes
i dont understand usage of snapchat for that
just checked the snapchat wikipedia page and its structure seems mid for that; signal would be better (has messaging, disappearing messages, view once media, stories, but way more encrypted and private, which u would want for nudes, and its also a good more general purpose messaging app) if ur getting them messaged to u
I Just got my second Ban from Reddit in two weeks for mentioning Zionism in an inoccuous way.
Reddit has been captured.
Captured since at least 2015. More likely Reddit was an op from the beginning since /u/maxwellhill was Ghislane.
- Xitter: App is installed but only for the YearsProgress notification (which counts in percentage how far along we are in the year. Just a fun gimmick I could get from other apps but idc enough for to get active)
- Trakt: Replaced by locally hosted yamtrack (It's a forked version and way better than trakt)
- Discord (if that even counts): Only to message friends. I don't engage in public server discussions outside of rarely asking for troubleshooting help
- Instagram: Only because friends send memes. Not much else
- Pixiv: Very rarely
- WhatsApp: Mainly due to family and RL acquaintances
- Reddit: Only at work while waiting for a loading bar to finish. Also I can't always take/endure the high volume neutral-negative leaning posting of political threads of my lemmy-feed and I can't be bothered to login to my lemmy account. But I never engage in the reddit posts with voting and commenting.
- Youtube: Very much so. Just the normal vanilla youtube experience. (And yes, I use Premium because I use it so heavily. Also the creators I watch get compensated more per view and I can't be bothered to subscribe to every patreon)
Edit:
Honestly, the reddit api-exodus helped me get off entirely from both reddit and lemmy and to reduce my reliance on it during lunch break.
And yes, I use Premium
laughs in Invidious
Laughs in I don't really care and I could use YT on firefox and enable ublock origin but I also use it on my TV so patching APKs is not really easily done and sideloading is a pain. Oh and btw, I don't trust those applicarions witg my google account
Invidious doesn't support Google accounts at all
you can make an Invidious account to subscribe to stuff tho
and to use it on a tv just use your tv as a monitor for a laptop
Great...Another thing to run on top of my TV.
Yeah, no thanks.
I have discord but I only use it to talk to a relative who doesn't like traditional texting and because some of the help guides for mods are solely on discord.
I had an Instagram and a Facebook years ago and deleted them. Recently I realized I was missing out on updates, information, and job postings related to both my job and my hobbies that are only posted on mainstream social media, so I made an Instagram that so far has zero posts, not even a profile picture, and I don't have it installed on my phone, only on a tablet that stays at home and doesn't have personal info stored on it. I'm still missing out on a lot that's only posted on Facebook but the amount of dread I have when I think about going back into that cesspool has so far kept me away.
Just YouTube, but I only watch and don't comment or use it as social media.
Does Youtube count as MSM?
I do not use mainstream social media. Haven't in years.
never had facebook, instagram, etc ...
i skimmed reddit for a year before finding the fediverse. i've only ever been a lurker on reddit but have written 5k comments on lemmy so far ...
Being honest? Fuck no. Well, except for Facebook Marketplace. I try Craigslist first but all the good shit (and stupid people... holy fucking stupid people) are on Marketplace. Which means I technically have a FB account. I did venture down the feed a while back and the amount of AI slop had me noping out faster than a crab at a seagull convention. How anyone tolerates that shit is beyond me.
The stupidity in Facebook boggles me. Where are these people coming from?
I’m still on Discord and YouTube, but I’d prefer a world where we could move to various alternatives.
I don’t even hate social media sites run by profit motivated companies. It’s a question of how profit-motivated and unregulated they want to be. Ideally, it shouldn’t be so hard to move - so that users don’t become “locked in” to a poor system, and competitors can show off the space’s problems.
There is a group in Fecesbook about the war in Ukraine and the Russia. It is the most up-to-date and best-curated information source regarding the war, so I will follow that group until the war is finally over.
There's also a Finnish group for people travelling ecologically. I regularly browse questions people are posing there and if I'm the only one who knows a good answer, I write one. That group now has a sister community here on Forumverse, and any new content I want to write, I write in that comm instead of the Fecesbook group.
Otherwise I am outside all commercial social media. I do not have a google account, so I browse Youtube without login if I browse it. And typically using Tubular as my client program.
Nope just fedi and tildeverse don't miss anything.
This is literally my only social.media. i have a discord but mainly use it for tech forums. I ditched meta completely a couple.years ago ad it has been one of the best decisions ive ever made. I did it when i was getting sober because i recognized that it was an addiction and hated the way it made me feel. Never had a shitter or anything. I technically have a youtube but i only use it for posting the occassional video for joy.
If this is mainstream then, yes.
the fediverse platforms i use are Lemmy, Mastodon, and PeerTube
i dont use any nonfree social media but am active on Discord (which is social media adjacent, being a chatroom platform)
i also watch Youtube videos (through Invidious) and occasionally browse Reddit meme communities but i dont have accounts on those
and i havent abandoned any mainstream platforms, i never used them, was never allowed to by parents (and never wanted to because i was properly educated about online privacy) (the reason i have discord is a dnd group)
i went down the libre software pipeline due to autism and my first pc running linux (my dad is a tech person), ive only ever had linux computers and a macbook (not counting mobile devices tho; i have an iphone and plan to replace it with a linux phone)
No but I barely used it in the first place.
I guess I still use Bluesky?
Issue for me with social media is it feels like such an awful chore. I don't understand how people basically live on a platform.
No.
wasnt using it before, thanks to fediverse i can use at least some.
Mainstream social media is my mindless scroll mode, but when I’m actually serious about learning something , like figuring out the ins and outs of buying a used yacht , it’s straight to the niche forums. Nothing beats real people talking about their actual experiences, no algorithmic fluff.
I only use Lemmy and YouTube. I miss Reddit sometimes because of the niche subreddits that are nonexistent here.
Reddit I guess. I don't post there though.
Forums, reddit, and lemmy. That's it since 1995.
Maybe some slashdot and fark too, but that's basically the same as reddit
I tried going back to Slashdot and it's just not the same
- Youtube as it's really unmatched for anything video.
- Instagram (just stories) to catch up with what my friends are doing
- Facebook marketplace for 2nd hand stuff
- LinkedIn for work
- Reddit for very few niche communities that don't exist anywhere else on the web
I have FB/IG, and to a lesser extent Reddit, exclusively to share Socialist and activist content, and keep up to date with what's going on. Most orgs still use FB/IG. 🤷♂️
I still enjoy reddit, while acknowledging how shitty it actually is (been a member since 2006 lol).
I've degoogled everything except Youtube. I don't really consider youtube social media since I'm not interacting with people.
I also have bluesky, mostly for lefty content. Honestly if all of it, including fediverse, went away tomorrow, I wouldn't care that much. I kind of hate everything about the internet these days...I much prefer meatspace socializing, even as an introvert.
Unfortunately yes. I use Wechat, for that it has been stupidly made a required app for people living in PR China. Worst of all there's ID verification, and they ban your account for alternative front-ends. I hate and absolutely despise it.
Other than that, not really. I have a TikTok account for a streak (sending someone a message every day with them replying to you, consequetively for many days). Its stupid and I have thought about deleting it, but the other side having the streak would be upset.
I love wechat compared to almost every other messaging app
Good for you then, I guess it's not that bad at what it does. I mostly just hate it for ID verification (and how many services require wechat for registration, but that isnt their fault i guess). Ads are a thing also, but they don't really push it to people who they think are foreigners, which is why I've set my default language to English.
Yeah, I feel ya! I'm referring to its clean UI, ease of use, and lack of ads, as well as features like the wallet and payment system. They also have Facebook style posting, but it's much nicer to see
My actual favorite chat app is Signal, for overall privacy and security. It helps that Signal also has a nice, intuitive UI and clean appearance, but it lacks some cool features.
Wechat was the first to implement so many things: message translation, voice message transcription (and translation), delete & edit, sending cash to friends (red packets in group chat is a fkn blast!)...
I use Mastodon/Lemmy as my primary social media accounts, but i still use Instagram and YouTube pretty consistently.
I want to be off corporate social media permanently, but most of my friends are still on Instagram and there really isn't a good replacement for YouTube. I have tried to encourage people to switch, but it hasn't taken yet.
Only on this (about an hour a day) and on LinkedIn (2-5 hours a week, depending on trade show) and left everything else in 2014. This millennial growing up with is all since 90s chat room, I got tired of it and saw the writing on the wall. Glad I left when I did but do miss the times on the old internet.
Yep because there are not enough people / content on Lemmy.
Just Lemmy and Rednote for me
Yes for porn (in addition to fedinsfw.app), but only slightly for regular use. Mostly just Facebook birthday comments and reading Reddit via search results, which I have to manually change to old.reddit links. I also watch science and tech YouTubers, but block ads.
LinkedIn and Whatsapp.
I'm probably not "the norm", but the only mainstream social media I have ever used was Reddit, and that stopped like whenever the first big exodus happened (2 years? I think?). I never used Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram or whatever else was oo still is used by people.
Now I'm assuming you mean "conversational" platforms that are mostly for talking to other people (or corporations these days). I do watch YouTube (not shorts), but to me and the way I use it that's closer to watching TV.
You can also remove comments from YouTube and be happier without the outrage machine
Yup, this is me too.
I guess Lemmy counts as social media, though probably not mainstream (yet?). Used to be on reddit, sometimes watch youtube, but I don't even comment there or do anything other than watch videos when someone happens to link one.
Never really was a social media person, I mean, that's the last thing I need, more ways for people to find me and demand my attention. Though I have noticed that a lot of people think there's something wrong with you if you don't use any social media, even some employers who try to look you up online. Crazy, imo.
🙋♂️
Does Tumblr count as mainstream?
Not according to OP's definition posted in another reply. We're still safely quirky and not normies and can continue ostentatiously playing with our shoelaces.
I still use YouTube and tiktok.
I haven't deleted my Twitter/Facebook/insta/bluesky accounts, but I only visit them if someone sends me a link to look at something specific.
I got accounts on fediverse alternatives, but I rarely use them.
But I have to say, I think that lemmy is probably worse for my mental health than Facebook or Twitter ever were
I used mainstream sm forever, but there came a breaking point for my mental health. Those platforms are made to keep people glued to them and I got tired of the dependency and the lost of focus/memory.
No, not anymore. I also think about sun setting my other account on the microblogverse (never used twitter but started using mastodon because its foss weirdly enough).
I did use Reddit the most of all mainstream platforms but stopped way before the whole API debacle as I grew tired of the community recycling old jokes and the circle jerk.
I use Discord, but only for a very few friends (and by very few I mean 2 and then 2 of my brothers ended up there too) mostly for comms in games, sometimes to chat.
We're considering options to leave, but as everything available has significant trade offs, it'll be a while.
But nothing else mainstream where you just post to the ether and friends/followers are just subscribed to it.
I use an app to browse reddit for images, but it can't log in or post comments.
But nothing else. I deleted Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all around the time Elon bought Twitter.
Fediverse is really as close as I get to social media. I had some, and deleted them all years ago.
Except Discord, but I only use it like a common room in a dorm/apartment, not a connection to every other community in the world.
i use discord because of my friends. reddit occasionally but very rarely these days. hackernews a lot but it's not really 'mainstream platform'...
aside from that there's few forums in my local language that's still kinda thriving.
I have to as a performer/artist, but I hate it. It's the bane of every artist
i use discord on my ps5 only to chat with my pc gamer buddies, and reddit if that counts. otherwise i am on lemmy, or online forums over social medias(lowkey wish social media never changed from forums)
I use Facebook to communicate with my family, since that's where our group chat is. I don't use my real name on there, but rather [MiddleName] [Grandmother'sMaidenName], and my profile pic is a cat. Sometimes I post pics of particularly good meals I made, so they come up in the "memories" feed and remind me to cook them again.
I follow a lot of chefs on Instagram, mainly for inspiration and to find new recipes.
That's the extent of my traditional social media use.
I barely use Facebook like once a week maybe for 10 mins, and sometimes I’ll click a Reddit link. Also check LinkedIn 1-2 times a month
no but i barely used it anyway, a little Twitter until Musk to follow a few scientists, then to Mastodon, from there to Lemmy. I used Reddit occasionally but hadn't bothered for years anyway.
i don't have FB, Insta etal
discord for sure, since that's where all the ESO raiding teams are. twitter's my main source of really kinky gay scalie porn, but that's about it.
tumblr
Haven been more or less inactive Facebook the last 15 years. As it made me depressed. Removed the app and my phone battery lasted 25% longer.
Since then I would spend 15 minutes scrolling maybe 3 times a year.
The changes are wild as the algorithm has too little data to work. Like two years ago every third post was a different picture of Ana de Armas and they all started with the text from "Havana to Hollywood". There would be 20 posts like that until I stopped scrolling
I have had every 3rd post be a cat fishing attempt too. Same caption "why is it so hard to find a nice guy" same model, different picture; repeated 20 times.
I started using marketplace this last year. I have been forced from Craigslist to Kijiji and now to marketplace. Have resented each move.
Reddit I will only lurk logged out. If will search Google with Reddit for product reviews or questions that I can't answer here. My mental health has improved greatly.
YouTube I still watch late shows highlights most weeks or will look up product reviews, comparisons, or DIY.
I don't watch any streaming.
I don't watch algorithm suggested videos. I don't watch vertical videos or other slop.
No
I'm still in the process of abandoning Reddit and barely started moving from Discord. Almost completely done with Facebook, though, and deleted Twitter while it was still Twitter.
YouTube will probably be the hardest to replace, and I'll stay on Bluesky alongside Mastodon for a while.
I guess the hard-core fedi users are naturally overrepresented because they're posting here a lot more often than others.
No, only this.
If Youtube counts, then yes, it's the only mainstream social media I still use. I miss some of the subreddits, but I can live without them now.
I use a couple of subreddits specific to Japan because that's where the knowledge is for legal, visa, financial, DIY, etc. advice and people refuse to move over. I technically have a bluesky which I haven't updated in around a year (it's for business purposes anyway). I also have a linkedin for job purposes. All other social media (FB, insta, twitter, tiktok, whateverTheKidsUseTheseDays) I either never had, deactivated, or fully deleted my account years ago.
Edit: some people are mentioning YouTube. I don't really consider it social media, but I do use it if that counts. I try to watch more Nebula, though.
I wanted to say not for quite some time now, but I forgot Discord. That'd be the only one I still use. I wish I could switch to one of the open source alternatives, but it's hard getting literal hundreds of people to switch, and we also need some discord bots too :/
Before that there was reddit, but I deleted my account during the great exodus.
It's a reality that not all niches have sufficient content here, so yes I'm in fact still using Reddit for select topics.
I still use Reddit for news, because the bigger userbase means a richer comment section. Which is the real advantage of this type of platform over RSS feeds from news sources.
I still use Reddit to participate in discussions in my native language.
I still use Reddit to follow leaks for the games I'm interested in.
I still use /r/redditalternatives and sometimes search the site for mentions of the fediverse in hopes I can help others come here. Also to represent and mention Mbin, since everyone on Reddit always forgets about it existing.
I also still use Discord instead of Fluxer because friends refuse to move despite me recreating our server 1:1 perfectly...
Other than that, I'm not using Reddit anymore, nor am I using other social media platforms.
I don't really use Instagram or Facebook but I do have profiles for my bussiness there. Other than that, Twitter and YouTube are the only ones I still use and have a personal profiles on.
A little bit, but it makes up very little of my usage. The fact that this is smaller and less hyper-optimized for engagement has been helpful in reducing my usage so I'm intentional about making it hard to use much other social media
I make it hard to use the fediverse too much too. It's just easier when its not a massive platform capable of surfacing the most optimized, hyper engaging thing you've ever seen one after another for 8 hours straight every single day 😅
I only look at comedian short specials on Instagram and whatever other racist stuff, Trump's mental farts and genocide that come up on my feed
I have not in maybe a year except one or two times catching up with long distance family on Facebook. No more Instagram, partially because I can’t log in. They claim I’ve set up MFA and I have not. No more TikTok. I was only interested in lives and those became monotonous and littered with vendors. I watch YouTube videos and shorts but don’t really engage. And definitely no more Reddit. So not really because I’m a federated purist, but just because Lemmy is working for me. Believe me though, as soon as it doesn’t I’m gone.
I use Facebook only for Marketplace, because it has completely replaced Craigslist in my area. I sell custom-built Game Boys.
I check Reddit for news and hyper-specific hobbies that don't really have a place on Lemmy, but I don't have an account.
I use YouTube often, but lately I've completely blocked shorts and I've started downloading all the videos I'm watching to my hard drive so I can stream them through Jellyfin instead.
Not really. I don't use social media that much. Except for linkedin, which is the main way of finding jobs over here. But there I just have some email subscriptions for certain job watches, so except for reading the emails and job offerings I don't interact much with it.
I reluctantly log in to Facebook once a week, because so many things about my kids are organized via there. I also log in to LinkedIn from time to time just to keep up with where former colleagues are working, as it's a large industry with many companies but with not that many key people involved.
Haven't done it myself, but fedibook.net supports exporting from facebook so that you can view your previous posts (or whatever they're called) in fedibook instead.
Just Lemmy. I have a FB so my wife can tag me in shit and I can sell crap on market place. Haven't posted or made a change in like 6 years.
I browse/post on Instagram as a way to vent about my job, without having to talk my housemates' ears off. Sometimes strangers find it funny. Plus, it's a requirement for Lemons Rally checkpoints, whenever I participate in those.
Whatever I post to Instagram auto-posts to my Facebook page; I don't use that site directly anymore, I mostly leave it up so my blood family knows I'm not dead. I don't talk to them directly anymore.
Still stuck with Discord for keeping up with my actual family, housemates and the like, only because I haven't had any luck convincing them to join me elsewhere.
Had a Reddit account for over twelve years, nuked it when third-party apps went away. Only time I go back to that site anymore, is for communities that don't exist (or are effectively dead) here on Lemmy. Very, very seldomly. Last time I made a comment on my current Reddit account was over a month ago.
Yes, Reddit and Discord
My main usage is decentralized, but i still use mainstream ones when the information does bot yet exist on decentralized networks (reddit pages with solutions, whatsapp for family, discord for friends, etc.)
No
Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube. Those are hard to quit for me. I could easily make it with Facebook and Instagram, less easily with whatsapp which definetly affected the number of people I talk to..
LinkedIn is just for having your CV out there for job hunting, right? People who use it to comment on current events, AI slop or to share iNsPiRaTiOnAl content can fuck right off. Actually, please do shitpost and burn that Microslop hellscape to the ground
Depends. YT only for the videos, but some consider that as a social media. FB only for the messenger part. Never found a more use for it or have had any other social media accounts. Bamned from Reddit. Discord got deleted due to not using it for long enough, i have some curse when setting up microphones.
So only this place sees some intended active use.
I keep a fake Facebook profile around because some businesses and such don't have any online preference besides their Facebook page so if I want to know about deals and events they're running that's the only place I can find them
I do admit that I occasionally get sucked into scrolling through the feed, but especially over the last few months it's becoming increasingly full of nothing but AI slop
I never really had much of a social media presence besides that. Was on Reddit for a long time, deleted my account over the API bullshit, once upon a time I had a twitter, never used it much, deleted it when musk took over. Never had an Instagram or tiktok.
I watch a video on YouTube every now and then, mostly when someone sends me something.
LinkedIn exists but it has not been updated in some years.
It had to get really, really, awfully, embarrassingly bad for me to leave Facebook. But it really was, and a few years ago I did. If Facebook was only half as awful as it is, I would probably still be on it.
And the sneaking suspicion that every social media site will eventually devolve into Facebook has kept me from joining any more.
I still use Youtube for videos on how to do DIY home projects and repairs, but I don’t consider that social media. To me, “social media” is not “an app that distributes content”. I would say “social media” has the user’s real name on it and is for the purpose of interacting with friends and family, and meeting new people. That’s definitely not what I use Youtube for.
Youtube,
Otherwise, No. No FB, no insta, no reddit, no shitter
Does linkedin count? Lol
LinkedIn counts way more than Youtube, since most people apart from creators don't really have friends or acquaintances they follow or interact with. Maybe a "parasocial media" at best lol
You know to my surprise, I actually don't... I'll watch a YouTube video or read a reddit post, but I don't go there on my own or ever sign in anymore.
Discord has for sure been hard to avoid, but I just don't chat with those people I guess. Some have come over to Delta chat, but if I really need to reach someone I'll just text them.
Not even a little actually.
I'm well acquainted with the "I have an account for my social circle but just don't use it" version of this answer, and that's not what I mean. I genuinely never saw the appeal.
The only periods in my life where I ever held social media accounts were due to collective years of badgering and bullying by friends. I didn't get a facebook until 2017 or snapchat until I was basically about to graduate from college.
The moment I lost the social obligation I deleted those accounts with gusto and the sentiment "You know how to reach me." We all have phones and emails lol
The thing that always put me off social media more than anything, extending all the way back to the MySpace days, is how fake I would watch people I knew irl behave online. Someone could swear up and down that they hated someone's guts and wished them nothing but suffering in life... but online they'd send them friend requests and heart their little vacation posts. And that's without even going into the "personas" and curated images I'd see them project online...
I noticed myself almost fall into it once too. I uploaded two different profile pictures within a short timespan, and the one that felt a bit more staged and less like "myself" got a barrage of attention whereas me being myself was ignored. And I almost leaned into that for a couple of months before I caught myself and realized this is how personas start, and stopped trying to curate my photos for social media.
That place is not for human interaction, it's like one of those labrat drip-feeders, but for online validation. It's theater without conversation.
I genuinely never saw the appeal.
For me it's finding diasporas to connect with
Just this and Substack for me!
I have a facebook account for work, but I only login every few months and only sandboxed with Firefox. Otherwise, no. Never had a twitter account and I ditched reddit during the api change.
Not in last 9 years.
Never have. Was always a stupid idea. Annonymous or don't bother.
I have been in communities and chatting since the bbs days. So it's not like I am adverse to it.
But lately I see people saying, I can't quit Instagram or Facebook, it's where my friends are.
I am beginning to basically wonder: do you really want to be friends with people who directly support billionaires and fascism and propaganda? You are directly paying for that by participating. I am starting to cut people out of my life who won't leave. I've had enough.
As someone who grew up before the internet was adopted, then got into Angelfire/Geocities “about me” pages, early MySpace & Facebook; it wasn’t a stupid idea. The early years were amazing because suddenly we were in touch with people all over the world, friends half forgotten, and artists. MySpace and then Facebook was a game changer for booking bands if you were a small venue or house and for tour managers of indie bands in the early 00s. I booked and wrote for a print zine back then and got to book some phenomenal shows and interview some bands I probably never would have if it weren’t for the ease of what social media created. But it had a price. By the ‘10s I noticed the need to look DIY or like one was participating through curated “likes”, posts, or pictures was more important than actually participating. Then it just became shit. I still have an Insta for my dogs because it remains a decent platform for networking with dog rescues and volunteers across country (I wish someone with the tech skill would develop something exclusive for us to use for that), but otherwise it’s become garbage. But for a while it was as revolutionary as the telegraph or telephone for people who’d never been able to connect with others in that manner. Then, like robocalls and telemarketers, the corporate assholes found a way to exploit a fundamental human desire- to connect with other humans.
But it had a price.
Yeah, thats the thing. I could see it coming a mile away. We already were talking to people all around the world, we already had ways of sending ideas and conversations. We already met people and went to shows and traveled the world.
But we didn't hand over all our personal information to a corporation, and that's when you knew there was going to be a problem.
So yeah, it always was a bad idea.
And I get you think having instagram is still a good idea. But it isnt. They are actively making your life worse. A single new meta datacenter will displace 3x the size of New Yorks golden gate park and require 3 new gas plants to power it. All to make AI to generate more content to keep people around and harvest data, and push propaganda.
People got along without this shit before, they can get along without it now. People need to connect more locally anyways. It is hard to leave because others are making it hard to leave. So who will break the cycle?
And I get you think having instagram is still a good idea. But it isnt. They are actively making your life worse.
As I stated, I am not using it for the betterment of my life but because currently it’s the best option for networking with others who use it to help beings who don’t even know what social media is. It’d be great if we had a nonprofit platform for negotiating crosscountry transfers, volunteer coordination, and adoptions that is utilized by millions, but we don’t. My struggle is use what’s currently available to negotiate transferring one life to a better opportunity and then find them a good home, or don’t. Social media facilitated me taking in a deaf/blind dog born across the country, coordinating with volunteers who flew her to me on their own time/expense, and eventually finding a family willing and capable of meeting her needs and giving her a wonderful life. I’d love for that to be something that was possible without the hubris of social media, but presently it is not. Local connections are great and should be nurtured, but cat’s out of the bag on connecting to random people all across the world. I never would have known that pup existed, the people who did would never have known I was willing and had the capability and learned skill to work with her, the people with the time and means to transport her would never have connected and done it, and the people I eventually placed her with willing to make her a part of their lives another state over would never have connected if not for the existence of social media, as abused as it has become. My skill is dogs, I do what I can with what I’ve got full knowing it comes with a lot of shit, but it’s currently what’s available. If someone out there has the skill to create a platform for connecting us without the bastardization of the network, please break the cycle.
Dog tax. This little soul getting a happy life was worth the cost. But I do wish someone with the skills I lack would use the power of the internet to connect those of us who’d like to help others without the negatives.
Not much, but I leave a site more so because I felt the experience became obnoxious at some point for each specific site. I didn't want to be there anyways even before any other reason gets a chance to set in. I have very low tolerance for corporate / conservative fuckery.
I still use YouTube but my subs aren't toxic it's mostly just educational material and retro/modern tech channels. Zero politics. Adblock, Sponsorblock, Tweaks for YT.
I still use Twitch but only for old core variety streamers such as Vinesauce, Jerma, PMW. I adblock and don't sub.
That's it now for "mainstream."
Besides YouTube, I only really used Reddit in the last years. Since the API change I basically switched over to Lemmy. About once a month I browse one of like 3 subreddits for a few minutes, but that's it.
I'm glad I deleted my Facebook account years ago and never really got into Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and all that shit.
So basically just YouTube now.
I don't think Youtube counts as a social media lol
No, left them all a while ago and haven't looked back.
I still read a few things on Reddit occasionally, and I'll search for answers using site:reddit.com. I just don't log in or post.
I still browse Reddit read-only via RedLib
I never really clicked with other social media, but I still use Reddit a lot. The format is good (I'm here because its trying to build on that format) and it actually allows me to find content relevant to me, unlike most of the more algorithmic stuff.
I haven't since Facebook, and I stopped using it in 2011-12. Nothing to do with morals or idk digital know-how, I'm just very easily triggered by people spouting half-baked, often morally disgusting opinions, and I'd rather not get my day ruined finding out a person I had partied with and gotten along fine was actually either very dumb or very evil. At least on Reddit/Lemmy/the chans idk the person so the emotional impact is lessened. 🙃
Yes but i use it a lot less since joining the fediverse exoect Youtube
I use all of them, as long as people I know or care about use them.
Yes, I use facebook to keep track of which local bands have upcoming shows, get invites to friends' barbeques, and exchange things on the marketplace.
I use reddit to discuss politics and books and food.
I avoid idiots.