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To protect my mental wellbeing, I find that carefully selecting who to follow on some of these services improves considerably my experience. For Instagram and

To protect my mental wellbeing, I find that carefully selecting who to follow on some of these services improves considerably my experience. For Instagram and Twitter, my rule of thumb is to prefer topical accounts to entity ones. That is, accounts that are dedicated to a single topic, no matter how narrow or large the scope, over those of people and/or companies. Personal and business accounts, no matter how focused they are, tend to go off topic very often, and there's nothing to do about it. A designer or an art studio can still post about politics, religion, or whatever the controversy du jour is about. An account about logo design or some python framework, not so much if ever. This allows me to have a feed whose content I sort of control. With Twitter, it gets even better with lists, so I have ones about dev stuff, others about business topics, etc. and the content there is almost on topic most of the time. Since I started doing this, the impact of social media on my mood almost vanished, yet I'm still able to closely follow what's happening on topics I really care about. When I want to see what's happening on the real world, I check my Facebook. I'm sure aware of how bad these companies are with personal data. So it you think it'd be better to delete your account, then, yes, do it.

nathias 5y ago
Yea, I have followed a lot of philosophy professors and when COVID started the accounts started to behave like a botnet really aggressively retweeting anti-trump and covid mainstream media. I really don't know if that was actually a set of hacked accounts or if people really started to behave like locust. But just unfollowing people that just have opinions about 'current thing' will do a lot for the quality of your timeline.
Mikeb85 5y ago
> To protect my mental wellbeing, I find that carefully selecting who to follow on some of these services improves considerably my experience. For Instagram and Twitter, my rule of thumb This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic accounts. Also, I didn't think much about it in the past but now that I split my time between 3 countries and 2 continents, having FB (messenger) is the best way to keep in touch with people without bugging them with my several phone numbers (and charges that may occur, thanks Canadian telecoms).
- nicce 5y ago
  > This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic accounts Well. They do their best with recommendations and popular posts which try to lurk into your feed anyway. The whole TikTok is kinda based in that idea.
  - yywwbbn 5y ago
    I just reported every post FB recommend to me (not from someone I’m following) as spam and blocked the user. Over time it stopped showing crap to me (at least it seems so..).
    - ahmedfromtunis 5y ago
      I wish my experience was similar. About a month ago, Facebook started showing really low quality, and even spammy, content as "Recommended for you". I spent a day or two reporting every recommended post that I didn't like hoping to tell the algorithm to leave me alone. To no avail. I still see these posts on my feed whenever I check it. And it's very bad.
- 31098347 5y ago
  >This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic accounts. Your ability to moderate your usage of these services doesn’t make them not toxic. Your statement is victim blaming. These services are still major proprietors of surveillance capitalism. They sell your future behavior to the highest bidder. This is toxic in itself. Beyond which, your participation in these services is a signal to those who trust you that these services are safe for them to use. They are not, because they are not safe for anyone to use. That you have mitigated the harm through devoting even more of your attention to them doesn’t change that.
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    > Your statement is victim blaming. Really? You're going to equate this to crimes someone perpetuates against another? For weeks I've seen posts blaming Ukraine for being invaded and having genocide committed against them. That's victim blaming. Social media users aren't victims of anything except their own inability to limit and moderate usage. Back in the day people would sit in front of the TV, now it's just a different screen. That's on them. Many people also use social media constructively; to do things like run their business, keep in touch with friends and family, etc...
Forgeties79 5y ago
Can’t endorse this approach enough. I blocked/unfriended about 15-20 people on Facebook and it got exponentially more pleasant. What’s more, I barely use it now because as it turned out…I was mostly using Facebook to have political arguments and I had no idea. I just thought I needed it to keep up with folks. Frankly, it’s shocking how much mental energy some random dude you met once 8 years ago can occupy if you let him on your feed. We choose to not remove them due to some vague fear of “the social media bubble” as if we don’t filter out people and organizations we don’t like all the time with or without it.

nathias 5y ago

Yea, I have followed a lot of philosophy professors and when COVID started the accounts started to behave like a botnet really aggressively retweeting anti-trump and covid mainstream media. I really don't know if that was actually a set of hacked accounts or if people really started to behave like locust. But just unfollowing people that just have opinions about 'current thing' will do a lot for the quality of your timeline.

Mikeb85 5y ago

> To protect my mental wellbeing, I find that carefully selecting who to follow on some of these services improves considerably my experience. For Instagram and Twitter, my rule of thumb This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic accounts. Also, I didn't think much about it in the past but now that I split my time between 3 countries and 2 continents, having FB (messenger) is the best way to keep in touch with people without bugging them with my several phone numbers (and charges that may occur, thanks Canadian telecoms).

nicce 5y ago
> This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic accounts Well. They do their best with recommendations and popular posts which try to lurk into your feed anyway. The whole TikTok is kinda based in that idea.
- yywwbbn 5y ago
  I just reported every post FB recommend to me (not from someone I’m following) as spam and blocked the user. Over time it stopped showing crap to me (at least it seems so..).
  - ahmedfromtunis 5y ago
    I wish my experience was similar. About a month ago, Facebook started showing really low quality, and even spammy, content as "Recommended for you". I spent a day or two reporting every recommended post that I didn't like hoping to tell the algorithm to leave me alone. To no avail. I still see these posts on my feed whenever I check it. And it's very bad.
31098347 5y ago
>This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic accounts. Your ability to moderate your usage of these services doesn’t make them not toxic. Your statement is victim blaming. These services are still major proprietors of surveillance capitalism. They sell your future behavior to the highest bidder. This is toxic in itself. Beyond which, your participation in these services is a signal to those who trust you that these services are safe for them to use. They are not, because they are not safe for anyone to use. That you have mitigated the harm through devoting even more of your attention to them doesn’t change that.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  > Your statement is victim blaming. Really? You're going to equate this to crimes someone perpetuates against another? For weeks I've seen posts blaming Ukraine for being invaded and having genocide committed against them. That's victim blaming. Social media users aren't victims of anything except their own inability to limit and moderate usage. Back in the day people would sit in front of the TV, now it's just a different screen. That's on them. Many people also use social media constructively; to do things like run their business, keep in touch with friends and family, etc...

Forgeties79 5y ago

Can’t endorse this approach enough. I blocked/unfriended about 15-20 people on Facebook and it got exponentially more pleasant. What’s more, I barely use it now because as it turned out…I was mostly using Facebook to have political arguments and I had no idea. I just thought I needed it to keep up with folks. Frankly, it’s shocking how much mental energy some random dude you met once 8 years ago can occupy if you let him on your feed. We choose to not remove them due to some vague fear of “the social media bubble” as if we don’t filter out people and organizations we don’t like all the time with or without it.