Who else doesn't use/stopped using Social Media...and why?

Poll

Which (if any) Social Media do you use?

Two weeks ago I decided to get rid of FB permanently. And now I am ditching Twitter. I've never used any other social media accounts, although I have an out of date LinkedIn account.

I deleted FB because I struggled to see its benefits. There are some pros but, for me they out weighed by the cons. People fishing for likes, fishing for attention and trying to demonstrate how their lives are amazing. This of course happens in 'real' life, but there is something especially fake about FB. The contrived nature of comments and posts. It reeks of inauthenticity at times. Yet, it's addictive. It's Private Message system essentially means I felt the need to go on daily as if I was checking e-mails. Or that I needed to check notifications in case somebody said something I need to check. And whilst I am on there I end up spending too much time on there. After deleting it I ended up signing in on several occasions without thinking. Pretty crazy.

So, seeing as 95%+ of people my age seem to have FB, I was wondering what peoples experience is for those who haven't had it for months/years or have never had it? Why so and do you regret leaving? Has anyone deleted it but found it to be a mistake. I prefer talking by phone and in person for events and discussion, but I can see that it's good for some events.

Peoples reaction to me deleting FB has been mixed. Some don't care, others admire it, but there is a few people who see it as bizarre and weird.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1

chelseafreak

i stopped using fb about 2 months ago for similar reasons to you. i hated the fact that everything posted on there is always positive and it makes it look like all my friends lives are perfect and it made me really really depressed. then i just worked out there were only 5 people i had on fb i actually cared about, 4 of them had my number and 1 is on skype so i asked for there email address so we can still talk regularly and so there was no point keeping fb anymore, due to the mass amount of friends people have on there nobody noticed anyway.

Reply 2

username2088165

I've never had Facebook/any other social media because I honestly don't see the point in it. It might be cool for some things, like connecting with your favourite band, but other than that, I don't really see what purpose it serves...

Reply 3

BookBird

I use FB to keep up with pages I've liked, for example Humans of New York, US Uncut, A Foul-Mouthed Feminist. Also, since I'm going to uni this year, I've joined some of the freshers groups, but that's it. I used to use Twitter to keep up with the news.

Reply 4

OnionRing

Facebook is quite important for uni so I have it.
Ditched Twitter years ago
Hardly active on Instagram, have yet to post a photo
Ditched snapchat last week because I don't care about other people's lives. Everyone shows off "hey look at me, I'm cool"

Reply 5

Fannibal

Original post by Uni Kid

So, seeing as 95%+ of people my age seem to have FB, I was wondering what peoples experience is for those who haven't had it for months/years or have never had it? Why so and do you regret leaving? Has anyone deleted it but found it to be a mistake. I prefer talking by phone and in person for events and discussion, but I can see that it's good for some events.

Peoples reaction to me deleting FB has been mixed. Some don't care, others admire it, but there is a few people who see it as bizarre and weird.

Never had FB or twitter or any of the 'talky' social media things. Originally it was because my parents forbade it, and it was one of those choose your battles wisely moments. Now I see no need for it when, I'm kind of antisocial and like it that way. I have instagram and I use it often but I have no idea why, I think it's just something I use to procrastinate.

Lots of people think I'm weird too, but I don't really care, I just know that if I get it I'll spend way too much time on it! :biggrin:

Reply 6

Blackstarr

I never had facebook until last year and the reason being was because I lost my phone and wanted to be in contact with my friends, other than that, facebook is pointless.

You don't need other people to approve of your pictures.

Reply 7

SecretDuck

I culled a lot of my friends list because they either mistreated me back then or I didn't know them.

I just find Facebook to be a big distraction and if it wasn't for keeping touch for the people I do care about, I would've gotten rid of it a long time ago.

Reply 8

Ndella

The only reason I still have Facebook is to keep in touch with friends I don't live close to. I don't really like how it's frankly a competition to see who has the best social life, so for that I've stopped using it for a couple of weeks now. I've noticed that I hardly ever compare myself to others now so that's one benefit of avoiding social media. If it wasn't for uni groups and stuff, I'd have deleted my account months ago.

Reply 9

Uni Kid

Original post by chelseafreak

In regards to friend lists, this is another key factor. There were a whole load of people that I didn't like having access to my photos and the like, who I had from school/college/uni, who I never really liked. Yet they often lived in the same neighbourhoods as me or I had this fear, rational, or sometimes irrational that I would bump into them and some seem to take deleting as a personal insult.

When deleting it I did what you did in a sense. I went through the whole list of friends, and the ones I didn't already have their mobile, I got their e-mail address/Skype.

Reply 10

chelseafreak

Original post by Uni Kid

i wasn't as worried about deleting people since i saw the amount of friends they supposedly had and some were in the area of 900-1000 so they wouldn't notice i wasn't there anymore.

i use to worry more about people i didn't like trying to add me on the basis of "oh i went to school with him" and if i didn't accept they might get annoyed at that so overall it wasn't worth the hassle.

I look forward to the next time i meet someone new and ask for there number and then explain i'm not on fb since i feel adding people on fb became a cop out if you will since you are technically friends but your unlikely to ever talk to each other.

Reply 11

okey

Although I don't really like a lot of social media for the reasons already given on this thread but I generally tend to keep them incase anyone did need to contact me through them or if there was a need for me to be able to contact a large number of people. On instagram I have reduced people i follow from about 300 to about 45. Following a lot of people makes it a big distraction to me because theres always a new post that you feel like you might want to see but 90% of the time its the same "my life is so great and im gonna be so successful" bs. Now i just follow people that i would want to see posts from and only check social media about once a day. I occasionally tweet and post on instagram about once a month, bc its become such a norm.