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Eurisko

Opinions on Social Media.

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I used to love social media when I was a teen. MySpace was my favorite of all because it let me do so much to my page that it felt like I had a website of my own. YouTube, while it wasn’t so much a “social media” platform, it definitely had a lot more opportunities for interactivity with other users back in the day. Then, right around Facebook’s arrival (or at least when it started becoming more popular and was no longer a college-oriented site), MySpace changed its format so much that it basically disabled any creativity. All of my friends flocked to Facebook. So I did too. YouTube, well Google has done some decent things with the site, but every good feature they add they have removed many other good features along with it. 
 

Facebook was fine at first. I liked it more when we had “walls” instead of “timelines”. Now, I don’t even use Facebook under my real name.  Too much spam, scam, you name it. I mostly use it now just to keep in touch with my stubborn friends who refuse to text message and resort to FB messenger. The other reason I don’t use my real name is because when I deleted my first account that I had since 2010, every time I tried to make a new account since 2017 to just recently, my accounts get banned as being fake accounts, even when I send them my ID they don’t do anything about it. Of course, they let me use a name of Jackie Chan’s character in the movie “The Foreigner” without a hiccup. Strange how that works. 
 

Instagram... I don’t really care for it too much, but I like it the most because it cuts the BS. You have to post an image of some type to make a post, and so for me if I see the image and have no interests, I can just scroll past it. It makes it easier to avoid reading something you don’t want to read by accident.  What I don’t like is the constant spam messages from fake accounts, my entire “discover” or wtf ever it’s called tab being filled with nearly naked women or muscle men. I have even made new accounts following nothing and they still show me that crap. So idk what’s up with Instagram but I remember before FB owned them it didn’t act like this. 
 

Twitter... I don’t give two fucks about that website. For one, I don’t understand the website, two, every  social media horror story seems to originate from that site. People do nothing but “cancel” each other. It’s like a website for people who didn’t grow up and get over their grade school drama and now they have a website to continue said type of BS drama but now they can do it behind the safety of their computer or phone. 
 

All that said, I really don’t like social media. I have considered several times just deleting all of my accounts and never coming back to any of them, because I just don’t care for it. I have gone months without social media and feel my life goes in better directions during those times. I don’t consider forums or discord to be social media, though. I find these sites to be much different from social media. 

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29 minutes ago, Eurisko said:

Sorry if there has been this discussion before, hadn't seen it.

It was taken down. That one was a bit more hectic than what I imagine this one to be. It was about warning people not to use social media, because it could get you in trouble. 

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5 hours ago, seed said:

We've literally had a couple of those a few months ago...

They just want to see if you change your mind through repetition of the same topics every 2 months or so.

Is it working? :P

 

4 hours ago, Doom_Dude said:

At least on a forum or even on a place like Discord you don't have your fake friends from highschool and relatives you haven't seen in 15 years all reading your posts and sending you candy crush gaming requests. Nor do you end up reading what the porn stars and celebs are posting.... ;)

That's correct. The forum equivalent of these candy crush notifications are topics like these that are on repeat, and comparison threads. ;)

As for Socials, i tend to use quite a bit of it, but often during the day i am not using it. I feel it helps being on socials in moderation and also take time to spend time outdoors without a squeaking phone in your pants.

 

...That came out more wrong than anticipated.

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Just now, Redneckerz said:

They just want to see if you change your mind through repetition of the same topics every 2 months or so.

Is it working? :P

 

No.

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32 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

That's correct. The forum equivalent of these candy crush notifications are topics like these that are on repeat, and comparison threads. ;)

 

Oh fuck, I gotta get out of these social media threads.... ;)

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Never had Facebook or Twitter. I had Snapchat and Instagram for a few years but got rid of those too. I never even interacted with anyone on those apps so that basically made them useless to me, and the less Z U C C on my phone the better.

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As someone who generally loathes social media broadly, it can be useful if you can manage it properly. Twitter is fantastic for networking, promoting works and keeping up with communities like game development (which in my experience has be a very positive and supportive group). There are also useful synergies between certain platforms like Discord, Twitch and Twitter. Followers on one will help grow another.

That being said trying to engage in any kind of nuanced discussion on most social media platforms is both pointless and harmful. And that's before you look into the damage to mental health a lot of social media can cause (Facebook and Instagram for instance have been largely proven to have damage people's mental health). And a lot of the original developers in these platforms are now saying they made a mistake and don't use it themselves. And Zuckerberg is a psychopath who only cares about turning Facebook's users into a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder.

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10 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

And a lot of the original developers in these platforms are now saying they made a mistake and don't use it themselves. And Zuckerberg is a psychopath who only cares about turning Facebook's users into a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder.

 

And don't allow their kids to do it either if I'm not mistaken. Go figure.

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I think social networks and sites like Twitter are alright as "post or keep up with updates" style of sites. For discussions I'd rather use forums, messageboards and the likes. For metrics (likes, favs, follows, views, etc.) chasing I'd rather not do that at all.

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To be honest I generally dislike most things social so that includes social media. It seems like it's full of impressionable people and drama for the sake of it. I remind myself that there's a lot of kids in it too and that I shouldn't take it too seriously.

 

That being said, there's also a lot of people who make good use of social media (both creators and consumers), so I try to align myself with that and ignore the bad stuff.

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It obviously has its issues, just like any other mass-medium out there. You can blame social media for all kinds of stuff, but that's totally pointless. It's not going to change anything at the end of the day, so why bother?

 

I also feel like people who get depressed and/or experience other issues from using such media should simply not use it, platforms like these aren't suited for everyone.

 

But that's just my opinion, please don't crucify me.

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I keep the shit quarantined to one old computer and don't let it touch my phone.   And of course I never used my real full name and don't post anything much personal, rarely even photos anymore.

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I'll sum up my distaste right away: people were just never the same after the 2016 US presidential election... everyone I thought was cool to talk and associate with became a raving political lunatic after, posting like 30 reposts from radical political groups on Facebook a day, either pro or anti Trump. So, what did I do? I stopped logging in, for like 3 years in a row now. I'm thinking about creating a totally new profile from scratch, because I don't feel like reading all that negative shit political people spew all day long to their band of agreeing cohorts.

 

I'm not really like the super anti social media type, I think it has uses... but this hiveminded, easily deceived opinion crap coming from politics in recent years is the most literal sense of cancer available to something that's not actually cancerous. I'm really not as politically radical and edgy as people seem to expect me to be, they just expect me to nod my head and agree with them on everything, and I don't, then they get all offended. Apparently the hip new urban thing these days is to agree with everything if it sounds like a social justice speech, even if it is all just a deceptive crock of flowery crap to win votes.

 

BUT, politics aside... I really don't feel very strongly about social media. I like to meet new and interesting people half a planet away and engage in tomfoolery. I use Xbox Live, which is pretty much social media too. But overall, the irony about social media is that you're better off if you heavily restrict yourself socially... otherwise it's basically just like social parasitism, being drained by people you wish you didn't accept their request, lol.

 

 

 

 

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You can sit there and explain how buttfuck awful social media is and be right, it is buttfuck awful, however social media is the only viable way now days to keep in contact with friends that have moved, live elsewhere or have little time anymore and for that fact alone it still has a value.

 

It may be a hive of brainlets, insanity, total drek, absolutely insufferable parents/boomers ect but at the end of the day I'd chose social media to stay in contact with the good folks I have met in my life over the mail system...

 

Spoiler

...Because now I can actively see when everyone is ignoring me :(

 

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4 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

You can sit there and explain how buttfuck awful social media is and be right, it is buttfuck awful, however social media is the only viable way now days to keep in contact with friends that have moved, live elsewhere or have little time anymore and for that fact alone it still has a value.


Only viable way? Here we go with the drama again. If you happen to get their phone number, you could actually call or text them. Don't have a phone? Perhaps a piece of paper, a pen, and a mail stamp would help you. Social media is the only viable way to have "contact with friends" streamlined and spoon-fed to you in a convenient package.

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13 minutes ago, magicsofa said:


Only viable way? Here we go with the drama again. If you happen to get their phone number, you could actually call or text them. Don't have a phone? Perhaps a piece of paper, a pen, and a mail stamp would help you. Social media is the only viable way to have "contact with friends" streamlined and spoon-fed to you in a convenient package.

Ok then, I'll go pay for a stamp to send off a letter that I'll be unsure of if it reached them or not and that'll take a considerably longer time to arrive and I'll also consider disregarding the phone bill I get by opting not to use the free service (especially when we think about overseas calls yeah).

 

It's shit but that's on purpose, also who is sending letters in 2020? Serious question.

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Facebook has creepy old men who are level 9345 on candy crush

Twitter has a bunch of normies and snowflakes on it.

Both harvest your data.

 

I use youtube though!

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This is the only online platform I comment on :-P

 

Apart from here, I do watch a lot of YouTube regularly but keep well away from all other social media unless I’m researching something further.

 

As a whole, I strongly believe social media is destroying / has destroyed the world as we knew it. These things were designed to be as addictive as possible and many studies have shown people act like full on addicts for likes or even just to check their account.

 

Not to mention the damage the AI’s are doing in regards to radicalisation, changing what people think is normal, etc.

 

The most scary part is, I personally think it is already well out of control and am sceptical if we can ever fix the damage done.

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On 9/16/2020 at 12:28 AM, magicsofa said:

Social media is the only viable way to have "contact with friends" streamlined and spoon-fed to you in a convenient package.

 

Yes.

 

And why on bloody Earth would you ever want it any other way?

 

Don't you have any other things to do in life? Work, family, hobbies, stuff to do around the house, etc.?

 

I suppose you have. In which case you'd prefer keeping things simple and streamlined so that it doesn't take your time away from more important things.

 

Now of course you might be a weirdo or some old bumfuck who still insists that letters or phone calls are better. But the majority is already far from that.

 

As a consequence, I'm 100% sure social media made the world a better place. No matter how much in decline it is nowadays (because it is, and we should solve it somehow), the net benefit still outcomes the harm.

 

And not gonna lie, nobody can convince me otherwise.

 

(end of rant, I'm just full of this mentality of people never getting the point)

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26 minutes ago, Katamori said:

 

Yes.

 

And why on bloody Earth would you ever want it any other way?

 

Don't you have any other things to do in life? Work, family, hobbies, stuff to do around the house, etc.?

 

I suppose you have. In which case you'd prefer keeping things simple and streamlined so that it doesn't take your time away from more important things.

 

Now of course you might be a weirdo or some old bumfuck who still insists that letters or phone calls are better. But the majority is already far from that.

 

As a consequence, I'm 100% sure social media made the world a better place. No matter how much in decline it is nowadays (because it is, and we should solve it somehow), the net benefit still outcomes the harm.

 

And not gonna lie, nobody can convince me otherwise.

 

(end of rant, I'm just full of this mentality of people never getting the point)

 

And I'm just full of people trying to prove they're "right" but then being incapable of change themselves.

 

You can't be sure that social media made the world a better place. Where's the proof? Only thing that can be said with 100% accuracy is that social media had made the world a different place.

 

Then you argue that "In which case you'd prefer keeping things simple and streamlined so that it doesn't take your time away from more important things." That's called rationalization. Why you assume that playing lapdog to your boss to get a raise is more important than interacting with your loved ones? Because the former is more efficient, while the latter is not. 

 

"Now of course you might be a weirdo or some old bumfuck who still insists that letters or phone calls are better. But the majority is already far from that." Far from what? If phone calls are enough, why must I use a technology I dislike? Again, rationalization. Just because something more efficient comes up tomorrow am not forced to use it or even like it.

 

The world is choking in the name of efficiency. 

 

"And why on bloody Earth would you ever want it any other way?" I want it different because social media can't ever replace the chemical reactions that happen when you meet a person face to face or talk to them by phone. I always joke that I hate flirting through Facebook because the woman in question can be fucking while typing for all I know. Am 24 years old and I like to see the creases on a person's face. The face speaks volumes. So do the eyes, the voice, the arms... you lose all of that through social media.

 

I like forums, though. But they're different. I'll make another post later arguing about why I think social media is becoming everyday less social. Take Instagram for example, you can't dislike anymore (I think, never used it honestly). What people use IG the most for is uploading photos and waiting for likes. But there's no interaction there, that's only narcissism speaking to itself.

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On 9/19/2020 at 5:04 PM, Antkibo said:

 

And I'm just full of people trying to prove they're "right" but then being incapable of change themselves.

 

You can't be sure that social media made the world a better place. Where's the proof? Only thing that can be said with 100% accuracy is that social media had made the world a different place.

 

Then you argue that "In which case you'd prefer keeping things simple and streamlined so that it doesn't take your time away from more important things." That's called rationalization. Why you assume that playing lapdog to your boss to get a raise is more important than interacting with your loved ones? Because the former is more efficient, while the latter is not. 

 

"Now of course you might be a weirdo or some old bumfuck who still insists that letters or phone calls are better. But the majority is already far from that." Far from what? If phone calls are enough, why must I use a technology I dislike? Again, rationalization. Just because something more efficient comes up tomorrow am not forced to use it or even like it.

 

The world is choking in the name of efficiency. 

 

"And why on bloody Earth would you ever want it any other way?" I want it different because social media can't ever replace the chemical reactions that happen when you meet a person face to face or talk to them by phone. I always joke that I hate flirting through Facebook because the woman in question can be fucking while typing for all I know. Am 24 years old and I like to see the creases on a person's face. The face speaks volumes. So do the eyes, the voice, the arms... you lose all of that through social media.

 

I like forums, though. But they're different. I'll make another post later arguing about why I think social media is becoming everyday less social. Take Instagram for example, you can't dislike anymore (I think, never used it honestly). What people use IG the most for is uploading photos and waiting for likes. But there's no interaction there, that's only narcissism speaking to itself.

 

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I'm not proving it. I'm way too busy for shadowboxing with strangers on the Internet. It was just a rant about bullshit people who refuse straight facts.

 

The world works just right away on the principles on rationalization as this is what brings us forward and what makes progress - even if *cultural* progress is largely different. Your examples are mere collateral damage upon it, but yes, I admit, the examples themselves are valid.

 

It's also okay to dislike social media, sometimes even I dislike honestly, just leave out this pseudo-majestic justification I was ranting about. Real life interactions and faces, oh come on...again, I can and will accept your *opinion*, we have most likely different tastes, but I honestly think people way, way overestimate the importance of personal interactions. Yeah, maybe it's necessary in some small amount, but that small amount is just perfectly satisfied even today. The rest is, again, superficial bullshit. I'm honestly convinced that times are changing and if you're more focused on the essence of communication, instead of these stupid nuances, your relationship with others, especially with anxious people, can significantly improve.

 

It's not a popular view but I just think people are not honest with themselves and thus are in denial about these things. Oh, and by the way, industrialized society has already successfully alienated people from each other anyways, social media is just accommodating to it.

 

As for Instagram, it's perfectly fine-tuned for image sharing (NOT hosting, admittedly, as it's super restrictive about things) and I can understand the reasoning. Why would you want people to dislike your stuff anyway? This world isn't about constructive criticism anymore, didn't you know? (and now THIS is the thing we may argue whether it's good or not because it's subjective with GOOD pro and contra arguments) But this is the beauty of the internet, you can find your platform for almost everything. It's just that social media, in it's most crystallized form, is not suitable for literally everything. And this is fine.

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I'm honestly not the biggest fan of social media, although I have some of it. I had a Myspace back in the day, namely so I could keep up with my favorite bands. Still never used it really that often hahaha. I'm more of a forum and instant messaging person (even today... I love going on forums and I love talking to friends on Discord). I guess deivnatART counts as an art social media... I used to be super active on that, but after the recent atrocious layout change, I've been not as active on it as I'd like. It's hard to navigate, and ohmygosh submitting to groups is a nightmare now.... anyway imma stop there before I rant about dA lol. Only other social media I have is Twitter - I am actually not a fan of it. Honestly I wish I can turn off what's trending off, like how hard is it to tick a box to hide the trend box? I don't even look at my timeline anymore. Seeing how people tear each other apart over the dumbest things hurt my heart and churned my stomach, so for the sake of my sanity, I never look at my timeline (hadn't viewed it in a year, I just go straight to my own page). I just use it to promote my games, sometimes talk about anime and music, and of course announce when I have casting calls for voice actors in a new project I am working on. I literally only made an account for that reason anyway. I don't really count YT as social media, especially since most of the contacting features (like PMs) were stripped away, so like... it's not even social anymore anyway lol, it's just a site you can watch videos and upload videos to me.

 

In general, I dislike social media. Namely since a lot of mean people tend to congregate and shout a lot, and there's no need for that. There's a lot of nice people on social media that just post fun stuff, like you should, but sadly the fun communities get overshadowed by fanatics, toxic fandoms, absurd cancel culture, political bickering, and who knows what else that it's given people such a bad and bitter taste in their mouth. So I don't blame anyone who has deleted their accounts and plans to never touch it. I literally only have one so I can promote my projects. If I could entirely do that on dA and forums, I would prefer it that way.

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Huh... not sure if this is coincidence or if this thread was started because of it but just came across a doco called “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix.

 

Gonna give it a watch now :-)

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its fine for the most part minus of course people getting really mad at other people for different opinions and youtube screwing over creators with stupid changes and decisions. also other things that are more of just me having problems with saying things and stuff like that

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I love watching YouTube vids, I've used YT at least 1 hour every day for the last 4 or 5 years when I got my first phone. One of my personal favorite YouTubers EmpLemon has some great videos on why YT is such a trash site compared to it s glory days, and I agree. YT is ridden with too many advertisements (real and fake), garbage algorithm and content, and shady business practices like when they banned LeafyIsHere and other commentary youtubers. Demonetization is a huge problem on its own, but I won't get into it here. 

 

The first actual social media site I used was Facebook. It was alright for seeing posts by friends and family, however in recent years, its been mishandled by Mr.Zucc, proof that users weren't so private after all, etc. One thing I've noticed on Facebook myself is that once you finish a recommended video, they will automatically shove you into the "Watch" video feed where they shove a bunch of more videos into your face based on what you watched before, much like Youtube's autoplay.

 

I love Instagram though. It's just a better Facebook with better memes and stuff. I think there's generally more content creators on there too.

 

I originally installed Reddit to try out the r/FiftyFifty subreddit, but I later realized that there is so much good content on here, I might actually be a neck-beard fedora-tippin' lady-respectin' fella myself! Anyways, Reddit is surprisingly full of great memes and content, depending on what you follow. I often see heated political debates often in almost every comment section, even if the post is the most politically unrelated thing ever. 

 

I don't use Twitter, but everything I've heard about it is horrible. EmpLemon also made a video about Twitter recently, it's kind of funny. Because of the bad things I've heard about it, which I'm sure the average teen like myself would know about, I avoid it at all costs.

 

Those are all the main platforms I use. I use Snapchat to talk to a few friends, and I browse Tumblr sometimes. I actually am a frequent Wikipedia visitor. I've learned a lot of awesome and random things from there. Even though it's not really social media, you can still make an account and edit stuff too, if your you're smart enough.

 

That's all I have to say. Social media is alright. It's definitely gotten worse over the years, but I'm not one to worry about my online privacy, so I do what I want to. 

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On 9/13/2020 at 10:18 AM, magicsofa said:


You're using social media right now.

There's a difference between a forum, and a social media. In my eyes at least.

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25 minutes ago, GraphicBleeder said:

There's a difference between a forum, and a social media. In my eyes at least.

 

I agree with this so much! Forums existed before these social medias anyway. To me, social media is like an amalgamation of a lot of social stuff on the internet in one, messy basket that doesn't really work in the end. 

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