Is Mumsnet considered to be Social Media?

[MilkToast]

And do you think it has had a positive, negative, or neutral impact on your mental health as a whole?

I’m trying to limit social media but I’m not sure if MN fits into that or not. I also struggle with anxiety / depression hence my other question. Thank you.

As someone who works in digital marketing - yes it’s social media, as it is a platform to engage and chat with others

Anti-Social media maybe

Yes

I'm probably old fashioned and wrong on this but no I don't think forums are social media. I think of SM as being something you do in your own name and share (over share!) details of your life. Whereas on MN we're all focussed on trying to maintain some anonymity.

BUT I think it can be really bad for mental health, both because of the content and the addictiveness. Much like true SM.

No. As you anonymous on here I don't think it is in the same bracket as typical social media sites such as Facebook, X, etc

Definitely see it as social media. I'm anonymous on all SM except FB and I use that sparingly now

I would personally differentiate anonymous forum from social media.

If you were looking at my social media "presence" (bleugh) you wouldn't know if I even had a Mumsnet account, let alone the username. So it's not the same as something like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, which are designed to show off your life, likes, dislikes under your own name.

I appreciate that's perhaps not the technical definition, and obviously people set up anonymous twitter accounts etc but the actual design of this forum is for anonymity - that's how I see it anyway!

It's a forum, similar to Reddit, Tattle, Digital Spy, Pistonheads, etc,

Forums are generally anonymous, SM like Facebook and Instagram are not

Yes it is.

Anonymity doesn’t change that. That’s it’s a forum doesn’t change that. The definition is ‘websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.’

After a fashion and up to a point. I’d say same about WhatsApp on some level

This is a definition of social media from a quick google search:
What is Social Media? Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks**

And MN definitely fits into this. I mean, its a form of media on which people are socialising with each other, so yeah, its social media.

I did however, get ripped to shit on here a while back for describing MN as social media. But it still is.

Yes MN is Social media and is considered to be at the more toxic end of the spectrum.

Yes it is, and for me it's terrible. I delete the app Monday-Friday to limit my use but it's a great boredom buster. Lots of threads irritate me, it makes me lose the will to live seeing the harshness, it doesn't bring the best out in me either. It distracts me from my kids too which is why I make sure I delete it frequently.

Whether or not it is categorised as social media doesn't matter.
What matters is how using it impacts your mental health.

I am sorry to hear about your mental health challenges. I struggle with those things too.

I would say yes, MN is definitely social media, although it differs from other platforms such as Facebook and TikTok as it doesn't seem to have those algorithms which keep pushing content at users that can lead them down unhealthy rabbit holes.

I have noticed that my engagement with MN, on a number of levels, varies depending on how well I am doing at the time.

Once when my anxiety was high, someone on here accused me of being anti-Semitic, based on a post I wrote.

Other people told them they were mistaken as the politician I was being rude about is not actually Jewish. Of course, bigotry hadn't been my intention; I was criticising his policies, but I shrank from the attack and ran away from MN and didn't come back here for ages.

Whereas when my mental health is good and robust, I am much more resilient and can engage with dissenters without taking it to heart and feeling terrible about being disagreed with.

Overall MN has been much more good than bad for my mental health. I can choose which topics and conversations to engage with and there are some really wonderful, kind, wise, intelligent and funny people on here.

Sometimes if I am very anxious and am isolating myself to the point of agoraphobia, posters on here are the only adults I engage with all day. It is reassuring to see the same names popping up with their comments, and I feel you get to know a little bit about the person behind the username.

MN makes me feel part of a community of good women and that is definitely beneficial for me.

I think of it as SM, although of a different sort to Facebook etc. It's the only one I spend any time on.

I think I'd be happier without it but find it addictive, in that every so often I think "wtf am I doing here? What a waste of time" and delete it and then within a month I'm back again.

Yes it is. And as I regularly delete the app maybe not that good! But actually that's because I look at it too much!

MN is the place to tell people things that you don’t necessarily believe.

Doesn't that depend on your personality? I think I am genuine on here and many others are, too. I personally don't see the point of being deceptive or dissembling or posting purely with the aim of getting a reaction. It's ego-tripping and manipulative and false, all qualities I don't want to embody.

Yes that’s true. Well in terms of mental health, it seems based on replies, for the positive side, MN offers support and connection with others, and for the negative side, it can involve harassment (? not sure if that’s the right word) and create addiction.

Yes. It’s anonymous, so no one is posting Insta photos of ‘my little family’ and their picture-perfect days out, buttocks in bum-scrunch leggings, or extremely clean grey houses.

Whilst it's anonymous it's still boastful, judgemental, ripe with rumours and ill informed assumptions, in someways the anonymity makes it much more concentrated in those areas because people can be those things unabashed. It's not all bad of course, has the positives too for networking and signposting.