11 ms·

I deleted Instagram a few months ago and I’ve not missed it once. The people who post more take up most of my bandwidth and those people I sincerely do not care

I deleted Instagram a few months ago and I’ve not missed it once. The people who post more take up most of my bandwidth and those people I sincerely do not care about but due to social etiquitte have to follow. As I grow older I find that I really don’t care about maintaining superficial relationships with acquaintances, many of whom I might not see ever. Other negatives- I click on one picture of a scantily clad woman and my entire search feed turns into softcore porn for a month. Culture is too vain. Selfies, blatantly showing off, spending hours on touch up apps were looked down upon in the entire history of the internet until that Ellen selfie photo that got huge. Apple, Facebook, Google, the media all advertised and made it socially accepted that the vanity is good. That had it’s pros and cons but I feel like we are crossed over on the cons side too much. The culture is too global. Everyone’s opinions/posts/comments all converge to the same dumbed down pop culture accepted norms/memes. Everyone tries to be funny in the exact same socially accepted way and there is no originality.

Rotdhizon 8y ago
To your second point, I also experience this. Being completely serious, I use IG to just follow cute animal accounts, mostly birds and pigs. Every now and then some promiscuity gets included in my feed. If I dare click on one of those pictures, my feed changes and starts showing me every other wannabe model or pornstar on the app. I just want to see cute birds, not humans.
- roel_v 8y ago
  On pinterest, I have something similar, except that I'm mostly following cooking things and some 3d art here and there, and then every few weeks they sneek in some bible verses and anti-abortion propaganda. I'm sure some algo somewhere is binning me with some of those people based on me looking at dumpling recipes, but jeez.
- technofiend 8y ago
  Imgur front page policy is no selfies and no NSFW posts, which results in lots of comics, animals and silly gifs. Might have some of what you're looking for?
- hoorayimhelping 8y ago
  It's so frustrating, because the only reason I click photos like that is find the menu that lets me click "hide photos like this." Lately, my entire Instagram experience has been look at my feed, see four new photos, look at explore, see mostly soft porn, click hide on few, see that it did nothing, give up, don't look at Instagram again. Facebook has completely ruined Instagram and I've basically written it off at this point.
- tanilama 8y ago
  Oh here comes my YouTube anxiety. They should really have this guilty pleasure button that doesn't count as your historical interests.
- hackerbabz 8y ago
  I like instagram because it doesn't force me to look at the public feed. I only look at posts from people I follow and I only follow people I actually know + a few podcasters I really like.
viburnum 8y ago
When I used Instagram the search tab did a really great job of showing me great architectural and historical photos, but if I looked at the page too often, it just turned into hot women and dumb memes. I'm guessing that if it runs out of interesting content it just shows you popular content. I am happier now without Facebook and Instagram.
anonymous5133 8y ago
Completely agree. Most of the people on my facebook are just old coworkers. None of these people have reached out to me through messenger so I would say facebook is a waste of time. Worse yet....facebook is a huge distraction and will prevent you from actually reaching your goals. I've deleted my old facebook but I created a new one. I don't use the news feed anymore and instead visit a select few groups that actually benefit my life but those groups are mainly focused on making side income and the such. Also worse yet is the amount of data that facebook is pulling in from all over the internet. Facebook has effectively created the largest non-governmental surveillance system on the web. That's a huge threat to your personal privacy. They've gone too far and need to be stopped.
spoondan 8y ago
It’s funny. I know the front-facing camera followed demand and was at least partially meant for things like FaceTime and taking photos with friends. But it also fed back into and catalyzed the normalization and popularization of selfies and vanity. Throughout most of my life, we would break out physical photo albums or an occasional VHS to reminisce. They’d be group photos, vacation pictures, captured moments from a birthday or wedding. I can’t imagine how we would react to a friend pulling out a photo album that contained the stuff many popular Instagram accounts post. They would seem psychotically narcissistic. Yet, we aren’t that far removed in time from selfie sticks being a joke. And it feels like we are an eternity apart in how our attitudes have adjusted.
- xapata 8y ago
  Portraits have always been one of the most common subjects in art. In the Renaissance, many were commissioned by the subject(s). Technology has simply made it easier.
  - pessimizer 8y ago
    Selfies are not art, but self-portraits are also not one of the most common subjects in art. Specializing in self-portraits made you strange and interesting, like a Cindy Sherman, and definitely made you look self-obsessed, which played into the interpretation.
    - xapata 8y ago
      Do you distinguish paying an artist to paint your portrait from a self-portrait? Both are selfies in my mind.
      - EForEndeavour 8y ago
        They're about as different as taking a horse-drawn wagon to the next town over versus riding there yourself on a racing motorbike.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
Instagram has a feature to mute people so you never see their posts, and it doesn't unfollow them. It's like a soft-block. I do it sometimes for stories and other times for all posts, then if I feel like I should, every few weeks or something I like some of their recent pictures randomly. I mostly just don't bother though. I too uninstalled Facebook, Instagram is a little less obnoxious so I've left it, though from time to time I uninstall it completely for a while as a break period.
- bagacrap 8y ago
  It's called muting. It's one of many features that IG has available which I think makes it healthier than other sm platforms (others include: stories vanish, so you don't need to be a perfectionist and you get to see mundane details of other people's lives rather than just marriages, extravagant voyages, etc; "all caught up" interrupts infinite scroll; comment threads are by default mostly hidden, so it takes a lot of work to even see any arguments, etc) Overall I think ig is quite a bit better for me personally than fb.
drharby 8y ago
Social etiquette makes you follow people? Ha! Not laughing at you, but the perception of insta etiquette. Its a tool to socialize. People i want to follow, i follow. Noone is entitled to my time, just as i am not entitled to anyone's time
- flycaliguy 8y ago
  It’s a tool to socialize and socializing is complex.
vlunkr 8y ago
I’m also tired of the “global” culture. Reddit is a terrible offender of this. The same opinions always prevail, and dissenting ideas are pushed out of sight. This applies to politics, religion, humor, pop culture, everything. It rewards conformity and it’s so boring. Smaller subs are usually lots better, simply because there are fewer people there to perform their predicatable voting.
- anonu 8y ago
  These social media platforms can't win (not that they should...). Either their AI is so tailored to feeding you exactly what you want to see, giving you a myopic view of the world --- or, you get fed the same memes and articles that everyone sees, leading to "mono-culture" and global conformity. Is there a happy middle ground?
  - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
    Yes. A non-algorithmic feed. Twitter was better when it just displayed posts from accounts you follow, in chronological order. Exactly the same goes for Instagram. I have since closed my Twitter account. I had it for 10 years, and I had over 5k followers. The algorithm constantly forced SJW lunatics into my feed no matter how aggressively I muted keywords. I still have my Instagram, but the same problem exists. It’s become super low-quality content, and lots of ads. Instagram was great because the community felt real. Now in my case it’s either soft-porn, or travel-porn. The travel-porn is probably worse. People taking unoriginal photos, with all the same filters, with a completely disingenuous question posed in the caption in an effort to generate comments, and subsequently more network effects by pleasing the Instagram algorithm. Even the adverts displayed to me are often just people’s personal profiles. Is this the real life? People are paying a platform to promote their selfies? It’s madness. Instagram will collapse eventually.
- dougmwne 8y ago
  I have an odd image that I think provides a good mental model of this. Bear with me... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWR0AS2rW48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWR0AS2rW48 These metronomes start out tick-tocking in their own time, but each affects the other until they are all locked in perfect sync. This is what global digital media culture is doing to us, subtle nudges to conform to a single global monoculture, so gradual that it's hard to see it happening until it's happened.
znpy 8y ago
> As I grow older I find that I really don’t care about maintaining superficial relationships with acquaintances This.
qwerty456127 8y ago
> I deleted... If you delete your account, doesn't it mean somebody else can register an account with the same name to impersonate you?
- mrweasel 8y ago
  Can't they do that anyway? I mean there's more than one John Smith in the world, there's nothing preventing all of them from having an account. What normally prevents impersonation is people checking if you have the same set of friends.
  - Yizahi 8y ago
    You can't complain to Facebook about impostor account if you aren't registered already. And deleting you profile won't delete you shadow profile that FB collects on everyone, so it is kinda pointless action anyway.

Rotdhizon 8y ago

To your second point, I also experience this. Being completely serious, I use IG to just follow cute animal accounts, mostly birds and pigs. Every now and then some promiscuity gets included in my feed. If I dare click on one of those pictures, my feed changes and starts showing me every other wannabe model or pornstar on the app. I just want to see cute birds, not humans.

roel_v 8y ago
On pinterest, I have something similar, except that I'm mostly following cooking things and some 3d art here and there, and then every few weeks they sneek in some bible verses and anti-abortion propaganda. I'm sure some algo somewhere is binning me with some of those people based on me looking at dumpling recipes, but jeez.
technofiend 8y ago
Imgur front page policy is no selfies and no NSFW posts, which results in lots of comics, animals and silly gifs. Might have some of what you're looking for?
hoorayimhelping 8y ago
It's so frustrating, because the only reason I click photos like that is find the menu that lets me click "hide photos like this." Lately, my entire Instagram experience has been look at my feed, see four new photos, look at explore, see mostly soft porn, click hide on few, see that it did nothing, give up, don't look at Instagram again. Facebook has completely ruined Instagram and I've basically written it off at this point.
tanilama 8y ago
Oh here comes my YouTube anxiety. They should really have this guilty pleasure button that doesn't count as your historical interests.
hackerbabz 8y ago
I like instagram because it doesn't force me to look at the public feed. I only look at posts from people I follow and I only follow people I actually know + a few podcasters I really like.

viburnum 8y ago

When I used Instagram the search tab did a really great job of showing me great architectural and historical photos, but if I looked at the page too often, it just turned into hot women and dumb memes. I'm guessing that if it runs out of interesting content it just shows you popular content. I am happier now without Facebook and Instagram.

anonymous5133 8y ago

Completely agree. Most of the people on my facebook are just old coworkers. None of these people have reached out to me through messenger so I would say facebook is a waste of time. Worse yet....facebook is a huge distraction and will prevent you from actually reaching your goals. I've deleted my old facebook but I created a new one. I don't use the news feed anymore and instead visit a select few groups that actually benefit my life but those groups are mainly focused on making side income and the such. Also worse yet is the amount of data that facebook is pulling in from all over the internet. Facebook has effectively created the largest non-governmental surveillance system on the web. That's a huge threat to your personal privacy. They've gone too far and need to be stopped.

spoondan 8y ago

It’s funny. I know the front-facing camera followed demand and was at least partially meant for things like FaceTime and taking photos with friends. But it also fed back into and catalyzed the normalization and popularization of selfies and vanity. Throughout most of my life, we would break out physical photo albums or an occasional VHS to reminisce. They’d be group photos, vacation pictures, captured moments from a birthday or wedding. I can’t imagine how we would react to a friend pulling out a photo album that contained the stuff many popular Instagram accounts post. They would seem psychotically narcissistic. Yet, we aren’t that far removed in time from selfie sticks being a joke. And it feels like we are an eternity apart in how our attitudes have adjusted.

xapata 8y ago
Portraits have always been one of the most common subjects in art. In the Renaissance, many were commissioned by the subject(s). Technology has simply made it easier.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  Selfies are not art, but self-portraits are also not one of the most common subjects in art. Specializing in self-portraits made you strange and interesting, like a Cindy Sherman, and definitely made you look self-obsessed, which played into the interpretation.
  - xapata 8y ago
    Do you distinguish paying an artist to paint your portrait from a self-portrait? Both are selfies in my mind.
    - EForEndeavour 8y ago
      They're about as different as taking a horse-drawn wagon to the next town over versus riding there yourself on a racing motorbike.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

Instagram has a feature to mute people so you never see their posts, and it doesn't unfollow them. It's like a soft-block. I do it sometimes for stories and other times for all posts, then if I feel like I should, every few weeks or something I like some of their recent pictures randomly. I mostly just don't bother though. I too uninstalled Facebook, Instagram is a little less obnoxious so I've left it, though from time to time I uninstall it completely for a while as a break period.

bagacrap 8y ago
It's called muting. It's one of many features that IG has available which I think makes it healthier than other sm platforms (others include: stories vanish, so you don't need to be a perfectionist and you get to see mundane details of other people's lives rather than just marriages, extravagant voyages, etc; "all caught up" interrupts infinite scroll; comment threads are by default mostly hidden, so it takes a lot of work to even see any arguments, etc) Overall I think ig is quite a bit better for me personally than fb.

drharby 8y ago

Social etiquette makes you follow people? Ha! Not laughing at you, but the perception of insta etiquette. Its a tool to socialize. People i want to follow, i follow. Noone is entitled to my time, just as i am not entitled to anyone's time

flycaliguy 8y ago
It’s a tool to socialize and socializing is complex.

vlunkr 8y ago

I’m also tired of the “global” culture. Reddit is a terrible offender of this. The same opinions always prevail, and dissenting ideas are pushed out of sight. This applies to politics, religion, humor, pop culture, everything. It rewards conformity and it’s so boring. Smaller subs are usually lots better, simply because there are fewer people there to perform their predicatable voting.

anonu 8y ago
These social media platforms can't win (not that they should...). Either their AI is so tailored to feeding you exactly what you want to see, giving you a myopic view of the world --- or, you get fed the same memes and articles that everyone sees, leading to "mono-culture" and global conformity. Is there a happy middle ground?
- yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
  Yes. A non-algorithmic feed. Twitter was better when it just displayed posts from accounts you follow, in chronological order. Exactly the same goes for Instagram. I have since closed my Twitter account. I had it for 10 years, and I had over 5k followers. The algorithm constantly forced SJW lunatics into my feed no matter how aggressively I muted keywords. I still have my Instagram, but the same problem exists. It’s become super low-quality content, and lots of ads. Instagram was great because the community felt real. Now in my case it’s either soft-porn, or travel-porn. The travel-porn is probably worse. People taking unoriginal photos, with all the same filters, with a completely disingenuous question posed in the caption in an effort to generate comments, and subsequently more network effects by pleasing the Instagram algorithm. Even the adverts displayed to me are often just people’s personal profiles. Is this the real life? People are paying a platform to promote their selfies? It’s madness. Instagram will collapse eventually.
dougmwne 8y ago
I have an odd image that I think provides a good mental model of this. Bear with me... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWR0AS2rW48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWR0AS2rW48 These metronomes start out tick-tocking in their own time, but each affects the other until they are all locked in perfect sync. This is what global digital media culture is doing to us, subtle nudges to conform to a single global monoculture, so gradual that it's hard to see it happening until it's happened.

znpy 8y ago

> As I grow older I find that I really don’t care about maintaining superficial relationships with acquaintances This.

qwerty456127 8y ago

> I deleted... If you delete your account, doesn't it mean somebody else can register an account with the same name to impersonate you?

mrweasel 8y ago
Can't they do that anyway? I mean there's more than one John Smith in the world, there's nothing preventing all of them from having an account. What normally prevents impersonation is people checking if you have the same set of friends.
- Yizahi 8y ago
  You can't complain to Facebook about impostor account if you aren't registered already. And deleting you profile won't delete you shadow profile that FB collects on everyone, so it is kinda pointless action anyway.