social media ick

Every woman I know who intentionally avoids having social media is super high value. That’s not a coincidence, rather these are women who know their worth and have excellent boundaries around who has access to them and their personal info.

I can relate! I've always hated social media because everything is so fake. Unfortunately, I've also found that deleting my social media has resulted in a type of isolation from people who I thought were my friends. Funny how no one checks on you if you are not also giving them validation via 'likes.' Men who use social media also give me the ick. They cannot distinguish between real versus fake (pornsick) and almost always are using it to look at and entertain women.

I feel this way. I used to share a lot but now I buy photo albums and print pictures every month. I have one album for my life with my son and another for trips with my girlfriends. I think it’s important to share images (I think it does something good in our brains) but aside from a few in the family WhatsApp, that now means piling onto the sofa with my son and my mum to look through the album and talk about the memories together. I loved looking through my nephew’s baby book and my sister-in-law wants to see the album I just completed for my son’s first three years.

Social media convinces us it’s the only way but it’s not. We each need to find the way that works for us to capture and share our experiences. There are infinite physical and online ways to create albums and journals. And then we can selectively choose who we share them with. Nobody reads my journal, only my immediate family look at my albums and everyone who visits my house sees the ever changing snapshot collection on the wall.

I feel exactly like this now.

I made an insta account last year after being convinced by a friend and immediately deleted it in 3 hrs. I couldn't stand it. I felt like I was suddenly lying down in a gutter.

I could relate to this too. I deleted the IG app last week and I feel lighter. I found myself comparing my life to others but I have to realize that we’re all on different wavelengths. I’m an incredibly private person, so even on Instagram, I never posted anything or shared anything on my stories—my last real post was during the summer. I only discuss my life with my parents and my closest friends. I also agree with @Unimpressed how it’s funny that no one checks up on you without social media—you really do get to understand who your real friends are.

Without Instagram, I feel safe in a bubble, no one can penetrate it. I enjoy making moves in silence, having no one know what is next for me in my journey.

Yeah, I don't have much social media and I don't post much. The thought of getting/doing more just makes me feel ill. I feel like sharing photos of myself with my friends would devalue the memories. It's the same with personal photos of myself. You just know some scrote will probably find them and use them for his own perverted reasons 🤢 I prefer printed photos and personal photo albums.

I really don't understand the urge to share everything about your life with borderline acquaintances and strangers. It's like you're taking away the authenticity and suddenly everything is staged. It just gives me the ick.

I feel the same. My policy is to never post any pictures of myself. Anything else is fine (pets, sunsets, food) but no pics of me. There is something about offering oneself up for scrutiny that I am over.

i have almost zero social media presence except a couple of bios on my contractor’s/employer’s websites. i’m not sad about it.

i watch YT videos sometimes.

my life is my content, and i’m focused on making it as rich as possible.

I don't remember when I deleted my social medias, it's been months, maybe a year? Or soon. But I swear to God I feel so much better now that I don't have s/m anymore. If I will get married in the future, I want a man without social medias either. Too many attention whores on there and all that fakeness. I want to live the real life, not a virtual life.

I left social media when Trump was elected and haven't missed it one bit.

I saw a significant surge in my mental health, productivity, and ALL my relationships when I left and have heard similar things from my sisters (who left social media even before I did).

I don't want to bear witness to stupid opinions. I don't want to see racist, sexist garbage. I don't care about keeping up with the Joneses. The petty fights and drama on Facebook were unreal.

I don't care to share my inner world with people who don't deserve it. I don't want to keep in touch with people I haven't seen since high school. If you're in my inner circle, we're already talking several times a week anyway, so why tolerate Facebook as the middleman?

I don't want to put my safety at risk by sharing my image, location, or private life to the internet. It's CRAZY to me how we've normalized sharing the most intimate details of our lives - stuff that can directly lead to stalking and identify theft.

It's even worse now with the rise of DeepFake technology. Men can now steal your photos off your social media and create fake porn of you. If you've got public images of you out there, seriously consider privatizing them immediately.

Funny thing happened when I got off Facebook in particular: I lost touch with SO many people I wasn't close to anyway. It freed up so much mental bandwidth for me. I started spending more time going out and doing things with friends and being productive on shit that actually mattered: reading books, leveling up at work, learning new skills.

Social media has few useful help cases outside of organizing disaster response and social activism. I really think in the coming years, we'll look back on the early 21st century and view social media the way we now view smoking.

Yes! I relate to this so much,

I have social but never posted anything on it, I don't know why I would be showing private memories to people online whom I don't even like, for what purpose??

I unironically almost got cancelled by an insane person on social media so uh, yeah fuck social media. I don't think most people realize how crazy a lot of people are out there, because the anonymity of posting on places like FDS, reddit etc. can shield you from most of it. I never used it much to begin with and the rare time I did someone tried going for my job for posting an opinion LMAO (thankfully my job didn't care because it was some rando with 0 affiliation with us).

Most social media are low value (especially Tik Tok). Instagram was great a couple of years ago, when it wasn’t pretending to be Facebook, Snapchat, and Tik Tok all in once.

I used to post pics not for others to see, but for myself - to store all the highlighted moments as a memory. But now, I only use it only sporadically to exchange messages with people who don’t use other messaging apps.

As a woman, I don’t understand not having a private profile, especially if you’re sharing pictures of yourself. I would not allow myself in good conscience to post a pic of myself knowing that some scrote can touch his dick to it.

I periodically delete my social media, unfortunately I need it on Mon-Fri to manage my works social accounts, but I wish I could get off it permanently.

Social media is designed to either sell products by making you feel inadequate, or to provoke engagement with controversial topics and by encouraging trolling. The entire algorithms of most of the major platforms are set up like this.

It's not normalized. I've never posted anything publicly. All my social media revolves around my hobbies. I only post my projects publicly. If I want to share personal photos with friends and family, I do it privately.

Even on LinkedIn I put a photo up only when I'm looking for new projects.

What shaped my feelings about social media had to do with being stalked more than once. I got rid of my (what I perceived as a) very locked down Facebook and decided that enough was enough. After the stalker situation was resolved, I deactivated and never looked back. Five years ago I decided to make an Instagram. What drew me was how "This Profile is Private" meant that nothing could be seen. Period. I could use a throwaway email address, keep the username as vague as possible, and only have friends on there.

I didn't update frequently at all. I was in a relationship at the time except that I made it a point to take a picture of a place that we had been to together, not showcase pictures of us. After our relationship ended, I didn't want the temptation of checking his Instagram. My friends weren't even updating theirs and ultimately I realized that I grew out of the "I have to have an online persona and share it!" mindset.

When I got my new phone, I chose not to reinstall or log back in to Instagram. Safety aside, I am happier not feeling like I am "missing out". It was reinforcing to myself that social media isn't realistic and comparing myself to others was going to demean me, not build up my self-esteem.

I didn't have your exact experience with social media, but I'd love to delete my FB, in a way. I'm addicted to it even though I hate it and do nothing on it except look at my profile (as if it would ever change just by looking at it) and scroll in my feed for about 10 to 15 minutes, pointlessly. The problem is, abstaining from social media has not worked for me yet because I end up getting "addicted" to doing something else on the internet, whatever that may be. I'm in a mess.