Social Media Wagon

[Off The Reservation]

Here are my thoughts on specific networks.

Whatsapp. #1 essential business tool right now. Last week I received a signed contract on it, this morning a foreign business guest messaged me he landed in country, etc. I see that some people consider this a social network but in my case it's what you make of it. (It is also my preferred tool to communicate with chicks.

FB. I am considering deleting this then once in a while someone reaches out to me via its messenger who doesn't have my phone # etc. It's rare but that's most of why I have kept it. I could go to to "almost never" login but the messenger would still be logged in on my phone tracking my every move and sound as it seems they do. I think I have two people who consistently use fb messenger to message and call me but I could get them to use another network I suppose. I do log in or check it on the phone and it seems to be just a random time sink so it is a candidate to delete.

IG. Top candidate to delete, useless except I share my own photography which used to be fun.
IG Work account 1. Useless and also could delete
IG Work account 2. Same as above

YT work. I have some fairly high views on some things and it doesnt make sense to delete this.

Twitter work 1 and 2. No reason to delete.
Twitter personal, never use, one retweet in 3 years, no tweets.

LI. I dislike using this and rarely log in but I have over 7,000 industry friends or whatever they are called on LI and I suppose someone somewhere looks me up there and it shows I am in such and such industry. Never did business from here but have been talking to someone for several years which will eventually pay off.

Skype, A few people use this to call me so its just another telephony app.

Update

I fully deleted my personal instagram, two work instagrams and one instagram for a project that I never completed. FB is likely next but I need the time to go through the people one by one and make sure I have contacts. When you decide not to interact with the digital "profiles" of people and opt instead to interact personally the decision is easy.

 

[redbeard]

Similarly I deleted all of my social media accounts. My focus, productivity, and mood have all improved greatly.

Everyone should ask themselves what they’re trying to get out of the TIME you waste on social media. What do you want?

The truth is most people use social media the same as TV - mindless consumption, that produces nothing of value.

If you’re a jacked billionaire spinning five HB10 girlfriends, sure, go ahead and scroll through some memes and booty pics. But if you’re like me and unsatisfied with your life, cut off the social media dopamine drip and get to f***ing work.

 

[tier9]

^so your have more contact not less with more distant people?

Off The Reservation, sorry, just saw your reply some 6 months later.

And no. Ever since getting off social media, I have less frequent contact with more distant people.

However, I have more meaningful contact with more distant people when we actually do meet up again in real life or speak on the phone, rather than the more frequent superficial contact that I found social media provided.

If that makes sense.

I have found that it's a quality over quantity type of thing that has resulted from me not using social media. Because it actually takes effort to reach out to somebody, it requires a person to be proactive instead of just passively Facebook scrolling or what have you.

 

[redbeard]

I am in agreeance with Uprising. Most people don’t use social media beyond superficial posts and travel pics. You can’t REALLY tell what’s going on with someone’s life from their posts.

The only downside is you may forget to check in with people, it just takes a bit more effort.

 

[Days of Broken Arrows]

@35:50

Trends amongst teens compared to 10 years ago

Face-to-Face Interactions: Down 70%
Dating: Down 63%
Blowjobs: Down 50%

Almost spit my drink all over my monitor when he said that shit.

I figured sexual activity was down because of technology, but was pretty shocked it is to that degree at this point.

But think about it, even phone sex has to be approaching extinction because talking is too awkward for the majority of teens. Sexting is the lamest shit ever. How can you even cum when you have to stop wanking or flicking your bean every 5 seconds in order to type a paragraph of sex talk?

I wonder what attending junior prom must be like nowadays.

I'm surprised this doesn't get brought up more on the forum. I know there are guys here (Gio) who go after college girls all the time. Go day game at a major university in the US. Sure, there are the party sluts. No question. But there are far more girls who will stare at their shoes when you talk to them. I was hanging out with this 22-year-old girl a few months ago who refused to talk to people on the phone. If she couldn't text someone or do some kind of online chat (for customer service, for example), she wouldn't do it. There are more and more of the social phobia types than ever before.

There is another thread on the forum about raising children and social media. You really have to look out for the future trench coat mafia types with the amount of zombification that happens on these devices and services.

As to the prom aside, I have heard several stories (including, I believe, some on the forum) of administrators having to bribe kids to show up at school dances. The girls all socialize together and the guys all socialize together and they really want nothing to do with one another. I know at my alma mater, they have done away with everything but Homecoming and Prom. We used to have 10-12 dances a year.

Funny you should mention this. My local paper runs galleries of prom pics for each high school and I've noticed that in the last few years there are fewer photos of couples and more of "groups" of just girls or just guys. I have a friend whose daughter went with four other girls.

Had this happened in the 1980s or 1990s, these kids would have been rejects among rejects. This would have been considered a step above taking your sister or your mom to the prom.

Social media is definitely to blame. But it's also the way it lethally mixes with "helicopter parenting." It's a little hard to get a girl's bra off when mommy and daddy are texting you every three minutes about trivial bullshit like "How was the food?" or "Send us video of the band!" Etc.

I don't see how any teenager could live being tracked 24/7 by mommy and daddy, but this especially goes for boys. Think of it this way: Had there been smart phones in the 1980s, the movies "Risky Business" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" could not have happened because the main characters wouldn't have had the freedom to go wild, which set the plots in motion.

No wonder mental illness is "skyrocketing" in young adults. If I had to put up with my folks for more than a few minutes a day as a teen, they'd have had to lock me up in the looney bin.

***

I can't close out without a gratuitous '80s reference. In this case, it's the ultimate Fake Madonna song, "Baby Love" by Regina, which went Top Ten in 1986. Below is the first verse, sung from the point of view of a teenage girl. Who would have thought this ephemeral junk-food-pop would one day symbolize a long-gone era of freedom? Sad!

"Boy, there's no one home tonight
The timing could be right
To forget the rules, we're out of school
Until tomorrow
Now, if only you would stay
There's so many games we'd play
Why should we pretend to be just friends
When we could be so much more?"

 

[Off The Reservation]

^you just made me remember how great it was to take a chick in college and go find a place to hide out in total privacy, no phones, no one in the world knew where we were or what we were doing.

 

[NoMoreTO]

Scaled back my facebook friends from 500+ to under 200.
- I found myself getting into useless arguments with people I barely knew.

I just decided it wasn't worth it, tracking all these people, many of whom I wouldn't make an effort to see, and they wouldn't make an effort to see me. Under 200 was very easy, I have family, actual friends, and people who I might reach out to at some point, or actually enjoy seeing their photos. There is a lot less noise on facebook when you cut out the fat. There are less updates, I use the app less, and see information relevant to people I actually know.

 

[Rhyme or Reason]

I somehow missed this thread. I haven't used any social media in quite a while. I have no use for it, i cosign on redbeard's post as the reasons.

 

[Days of Broken Arrows]

Scaled back my facebook friends from 500+ to under 200.
- I found myself getting into useless arguments with people I barely knew.

I just decided it wasn't worth it, tracking all these people, many of whom I wouldn't make an effort to see, and they wouldn't make an effort to see me. Under 200 was very easy, I have family, actual friends, and people who I might reach out to at some point, or actually enjoy seeing their photos. There is a lot less noise on facebook when you cut out the fat. There are less updates, I use the app less, and see information relevant to people I actually know.

We don't make an effort to see them because we see them every day on social media. This is something people didn't realize would happen. It's insidious. And harmful.

I befriended a girl from high school on Facebook years ago. Throughout the 2000s we spoke on the phone occasionally. Since I was divorced by 2011 and still had her number, I called -- just like I did in the old days.

Her reply? "Why did you call when you can just DM me on Facebook?" Gee, I don't know. Maybe because I'm human and like to actually speak to another fuc*ing human being once in a while and not just stare at a screen.

Experiences like this and a few others have convinced me that people really are the mindless sheep I thought they were in high school. Back then I complained that teens just bought whatever music was being pushed by the major record labels.

Now I'm observing adults buying into whatever technology is being pushed and not seeing the larger, more harmful ramifications. When you have a society where people no longer actually speak to each other AND are being tracked 24/7 by mega-corporations, I'd say the citizens are in big trouble.

 

[debeguiled]

I befriended a girl from high school on Facebook years ago. Throughout the 2000s we spoke on the phone occasionally. Since I was divorced by 2011 and still had her number, I called -- just like I did in the old days.

Her reply? "Why did you call when you can just DM me on Facebook?" Gee, I don't know. Maybe because I'm human and like to actually speak to another fuc*ing human being once in a while and not just stare at a screen.

They aren't mindless robots, they are just intimidated by speaking on the phone, for real.

It is too much pressure, too real time, you don't get to craft the perfect reply for your brand and then publish.

Seriously, I was volunteering at a St. Vincent de Pauls working the phones trying to get donations and stuff, and the coordinator complimented me on my phone skills which I brushed off.

How fucking hard is it to talk on the phone?

And she said, seriously, most of my volunteers don't feel comfortable talking on the phone. There were three young volunteers in the room, and one raised her hand, followed by the others.

DOBA, just by not dying, and lasting this long, you now have an awesome skill that very few have. Talking on the phone.

Unfortunately, nobody wants it, either.