Is social media worthwhile?
Be warned. I’m thinking aloud here. Any insights you may/may not gain are purely accidental.
I’m a millennial without an Instagram account. At most, I check out Instagram links my wife sends me of cute animals doing silly things. I admit that these put a smile on my face! But not enough to compel me to return to Instagram.
When I was on Facebook and Instagram, I found it easy to become hooked to seeking validation and comparing myself to my peers. When I put up a post, I would often check how many likes or comments I received. The more likes, the better I felt. But when something I put up went unnoticed, that stung. It got to a point where I was curating my image to be perceived as cool, smart, and compelling. The instant nature of social media also made it super easy to go down comparison spirals. It seemed like almost everyone on it led shiner lives than mine. At some point I realised that chasing validation, constantly comparing, and giving away my attention so frivolously did me no good. That’s when I decided to deactivate or delete my accounts.
Looking back, I still feel it was a good decision overall to leave FB/Instagram. I suppose I lose out in 2 ways: 1) missing out on life updates from my social circle, and 2) the latest happenings. As for 1, I think if the updates were significant enough, I would find out at some point. And for 2, yes there’s an element of FOMO but there is already so much that I do have access to that I will never be able to get around to reading anyway. So a win on the whole.
(TikTok and Twitter also don’t really interest me.)
This is not to say I don’t use any social media. I still use YouTube and LinkedIn, for now at least.
YouTube I also used to go down YouTube spirals too but installing plugins like Unhook has been a game changer — I can remove distracting elements like the comments section (which is often a cesspool) and the recommended videos feed (which pulls you into the “infinity pool”). I’ve also disabled viewing history in my YouTube settings so I don’t get served up yet more videos I don’t need to watch. I also make use of the subscribe function, which helps me curate my feed to direct my attention and time towards my interests. While I still go down rabbit holes from time to time, I find my use of YouTube to be intentional enough. (I’m not aiming for perfection.)
LinkedIn I haven’t made up my mind about LinkedIn. When I was on my job hunt, I used it heavily. I reached out to interesting people and connected with teams I was interested in. I also followed thought leaders I found interesting or informative and looked out for good career/life advice. Now that I am in a job, I question whether LinkedIn’s benefits outweigh its costs. There’s still the social comparison trap, only a bit more supercharged. With a few clicks, I can see the many personal, educational and work achievements of schoolmates, army mates, acquaintances, and even 100th-degree (is that logically possible?) “connections”. This cyber-stalking often leads to one question: what am I doing with my life? As you can imagine, this too ain’t particularly good for my well-being. All this comparison does it to feed a sense of dissatisfaction that I have no need for. Nowadays, more and more the posts that end up on my feed appear optimised for clicks or seem crafted to impress. (I can only take so many “humbled” posts!!!) I know there is still value here but I don’t feel like putting in the time and attention to fully unlock this value. And I think that’s okay too. Perhaps no need for a complete disconnect yet but I think I might soon move towards a limited use situation. (Maybe sharing some of my BearBlog posts there?)