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> Social media is shouting at the void at best At best, social media is an additional way of keeping in touch with people you know and care about.

Retric 3y ago
For a very loose definition of keep in touch with. I’ve found it easier to stay connected after dropping social media, but I value direct communication far more than status updates. Time spent on social media is time not spent directly talking to someone, and it’s really tempting to send a message rather than call.
tambourine_man 3y ago
That's what a social network was supposed to be. We changed the name because it's not that anymore. It's people you never knew and never will producing content in exchange for advertisement.
- skydhash 3y ago
  If I had to build a visionOS version of Twitter, it would be Times Square. Then a potentiometer as a control to move the timeline.
snapcaster 3y ago
No it isn't, unless you define down "keeping in touch" to be so trivial it loses all meaning
- mrmlz 3y ago
  Elitist.
blueflow 3y ago
Honestly, i don't need to see my aunts and uncles posting pictures of themselves LARP'ing what society considers a happy life. Not saying that they are not happy, but all the social media stuff feels so staged and unreal.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Heck, I'd be happy if it were my uncles in my feed. It's not, it's random strangers LARPing at what's obviously a very contrived lifestyle. "Hey look at me in my camper van - this is awesome - oh and I'm wearing a thong just in case the content isn't interesting enough" LOLWUT, I don't need that in my life. I only keep a FB/Insta account to stop somebody else squatting/stealing my name.
  - Kon-Peki 3y ago
    > I only keep a FB/Insta account to stop somebody else squatting/stealing my name. There are probably thousands of people in the world with the same name as you.
    - alistairSH 3y ago
      So? I still don't want some Russia troll farm to squat on an account with my name and likeness.
llm_trw 3y ago
When social media came online in the 00s it was just a way to keep track of your friends. That's it. You made friends, you added them to your network. It's insane to me that we're still using social media to mean whatever the fuck we have now. Today social media, including facebook, is all about a few broadcasting their messages to billions. Mastodon isn't much better. What happened to the social graph? Everyone is on the feed getting shit shoved down their throats because the algorithm decided they should.
- skydhash 3y ago
  > When social media came online in the 00s it was just a way to keep track of your friends. That's it. You made friends, you added them to your network. Current closest to that is Whatsapp( and Telegram). Even though Meta just added channels, but at its core, you only get access to your contacts updates. There are also groups which makes it more like IRC without the flexibility.
  - zarathustreal 3y ago
    Wait, what? WhatsApp has “updates” like a news feed? I thought it was a group chat app?
  - vundercind 3y ago
    Facebook keeps adding crap to WhatsApp, and my friend group keeps ignoring it. Direct and group messages. That’s all. Nobody even uses the status feature they added a long time ago. There are four main-menu icons on the bottom, not counting “settings”, and we don’t use three of them. If they ever try to push the other stuff at the expense of the text-messaging-replacement, I expect we’ll all migrate to something else.
  - llm_trw 3y ago
    Currently there is nothing close to what myspace and facebook were like pre-2010. Telegram and WhatsApp are ways to chat to people, not see what they have been doing, or indeed what you have been doing yourself.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago

Retric 3y ago

For a very loose definition of keep in touch with. I’ve found it easier to stay connected after dropping social media, but I value direct communication far more than status updates. Time spent on social media is time not spent directly talking to someone, and it’s really tempting to send a message rather than call.

tambourine_man 3y ago

That's what a social network was supposed to be. We changed the name because it's not that anymore. It's people you never knew and never will producing content in exchange for advertisement.

skydhash 3y ago
If I had to build a visionOS version of Twitter, it would be Times Square. Then a potentiometer as a control to move the timeline.

snapcaster 3y ago

No it isn't, unless you define down "keeping in touch" to be so trivial it loses all meaning

mrmlz 3y ago
Elitist.

blueflow 3y ago

Honestly, i don't need to see my aunts and uncles posting pictures of themselves LARP'ing what society considers a happy life. Not saying that they are not happy, but all the social media stuff feels so staged and unreal.

alistairSH 3y ago
Heck, I'd be happy if it were my uncles in my feed. It's not, it's random strangers LARPing at what's obviously a very contrived lifestyle. "Hey look at me in my camper van - this is awesome - oh and I'm wearing a thong just in case the content isn't interesting enough" LOLWUT, I don't need that in my life. I only keep a FB/Insta account to stop somebody else squatting/stealing my name.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  > I only keep a FB/Insta account to stop somebody else squatting/stealing my name. There are probably thousands of people in the world with the same name as you.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    So? I still don't want some Russia troll farm to squat on an account with my name and likeness.

llm_trw 3y ago

When social media came online in the 00s it was just a way to keep track of your friends. That's it. You made friends, you added them to your network. It's insane to me that we're still using social media to mean whatever the fuck we have now. Today social media, including facebook, is all about a few broadcasting their messages to billions. Mastodon isn't much better. What happened to the social graph? Everyone is on the feed getting shit shoved down their throats because the algorithm decided they should.

skydhash 3y ago
> When social media came online in the 00s it was just a way to keep track of your friends. That's it. You made friends, you added them to your network. Current closest to that is Whatsapp( and Telegram). Even though Meta just added channels, but at its core, you only get access to your contacts updates. There are also groups which makes it more like IRC without the flexibility.
- zarathustreal 3y ago
  Wait, what? WhatsApp has “updates” like a news feed? I thought it was a group chat app?
- vundercind 3y ago
  Facebook keeps adding crap to WhatsApp, and my friend group keeps ignoring it. Direct and group messages. That’s all. Nobody even uses the status feature they added a long time ago. There are four main-menu icons on the bottom, not counting “settings”, and we don’t use three of them. If they ever try to push the other stuff at the expense of the text-messaging-replacement, I expect we’ll all migrate to something else.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  Currently there is nothing close to what myspace and facebook were like pre-2010. Telegram and WhatsApp are ways to chat to people, not see what they have been doing, or indeed what you have been doing yourself.
BLKNSLVR 3y ago