Why I’m considering quitting social media

There was a time, about 10 years ago, when social forums were new and growing, but were still a small part of our lives. Sites like Hi5, Orkut, MySpace and Friendster were present and active, but weren’t as important to us, taking up only a few minutes a day. They were also incredibly personal; places you’ve written about yourself or posted pictures of things you’ve done and places you’ve been. Your primary form of social activity was always calling or meeting someone.

Of course, all that has changed now. Much of the past decade has seen major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram take over the social media arena, and with them, a large part of our lives as well. These networks have also created many business opportunities around the world, helping to promote and sell products and services, and serving as a means of communication between companies and their customers. They also help spread information about social causes and raise awareness of issues and injustices. This all sounds great, but I have a big problem with it – it takes the fun out of social media.

Take the example of Twitter. Thanks to the famous microblogging service, a real job called ‘Twitter Influencer’ now exists. They are people with a huge following on the platform, who claim to influence opinion and use their reach to “influence” people. In reality, all they do is charge brands a lot of money to tweet about them, cashing in on people’s trust in them. They end up betraying the ideals and opinions that got them all those followers in the first place. Many “influencers” simply follow one another, increasing all their numbers together and putting themselves in a position of supposed influence.

When you consider that a few hours after it was posted, an individual tweet has slipped so far down the average timeline that most people won’t see it, and Twitter starts to feel like they’re standing in a crowded room and saying something. something to a few. people you know who are in the room at the same time as you. In my opinion, you’re not really having a conversation; just screaming, in a crowded room.

You can attribute some of that to the fact that services like Twitter and Instagram are meant to be public forums where you participate and present your thoughts or photos to the world. Of course, both services have the option of private accounts, but in my opinion, that defeats their purpose.

What I do NOT want to see every time I log into Facebook

However, with so-called personal networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, there’s a lot to hide. You gave countless details about your preferences, likes and dislikes, your private information and a huge bank of photos of you and your loved ones. Today, these networks are increasingly used to mine your data and advertise very specifically to you. Not only that, but companies also use these forums to push their content to you whether you like it or not. This has led to a situation where every time I go to Facebook, I am bombarded with ads, brand messages wanting my money, and other annoying things I’d rather not do.

And there’s more; Facebook has become a place where people can complain about various social and political injustices, poor customer service, and other generally nasty things that tend to get you down. Social media is also used for propaganda, spreading false information, hating a particular cell service provider because your data services have been slower than usual, and generally adding sadness to my mornings already dark. You can’t really blame Facebook or Twitter for this, but as the networks have grown, their content has changed, and that’s not something I’m happy about.

What I want to see every time I log into Facebook

I’m here to have fun, not to be constantly disappointed by the sad state of the world. All I want is to look at photos of someone’s trip to Bali, someone else’s anecdote of how he had a wonderful conversation with his taxi driver, and maybe be a cat or two. I have no interest in starting my day depressed, angry or politically gyaan.

Social media used to be happy places where people came to laugh, smile, and be social. Public networks were meant to be nice places where people shared their thoughts and photos, while private networks were meant to be a safe place to see what your friends and family were up to and doing. Now they have become places where people try to sell you products, ideas and ideologies, or where individuals abuse their position of trust to serve their own motives, and where all your private information is for sale at most. offering. So thank you but no thank you, I’m getting by while I still can.