to think there is nothing positive about social media

[meloncotton]

I am trying to find anything positive about social media, we all know the negatives but are there any positives?

YABU - There are positives which outweigh the negatives
YANBU - Social Media use negatively affects people overall

If you have voted YABU please could you say what makes social media positive overall.

I'm a bit in the middle

There are some positives but I don't think they outweigh the negatives

I'm in my mid 40's so I'm a boring user if I'm honest. I look at farrow and ball colour inspiration, my dog breed group and my twins facebook group, however I really wouldn't want my twin girls (nearly 6) to use social media - it's totally toxic but how do you stop it?

I would delete FB if it weren't for all the local and school events and news being posted almost exclusively there! It's almost unusable now.

I don't really use other social media. Used to use twitter for science communication but don't really like supporting Musk and it's pretty toxic on there now!

There are positives and negatives and those are different for different people.
Mumsnet is social media anyway and you presumably choose to post here.

I am selective in what/who I follow, and find it useful for information, often local information. I ignore all the 💩.

Are you writing an article OP?

Is mumsnet social media? I was thinking more tiktok, snap, insta, facebook.

Definitely not!

I know everyone on my FB friends list in real life.

I have a heavy filtering system set up with keyword blocking and I am only in a few active groups.

I miss all the drama so have no problems with it.

I'm not on Twitter/Instagram etc

I'm an artist, and Instagram is a great place for artists to keep in touch, look at each other's work, and find other artists, local and non-local. It can have it's negatives (spending too much time looking at and being unduly influenced by other's work), but overall it's a positive for me. It's an account purely for my artwork though. I don't use Facebook or any other social media.

Yes, it's essentially SM.

I can see this @happyfish

I can't be arsed with a lot of it really. Don't have the clock app, but I have re-opened my old Instagram as I make and sell realistic historical costumes as a hobby. I don't mind it in parts, but mostly it's tosh. The algorithm mainly sends me quite interesting stuff to do with history or literature these days so that's not bad. When I had a personal account, I kept getting influencer types which annoyed me as it wasn't remotely akin to anything I was posting or interested in. I still can't spend much time on there though or it starts going whacky and winds me up.

Have FB still, though it's locked down and mainly used for photos. My family (and DH's who I love very much) and friends are scattered and don't all know each other, so FB is a nice way of seeing what's going on/posting special events, etc. I have a BlueSky account literally to follow two comedians I find interesting. Don't post and don't look at anything else.

Broadly speaking, I think people use it too much. I know a few in my village who live through Instagram and tik-tok and the lives they put out are ridiculous in comparison to what's really happening. So curated. It really depends how obsessive or odd people get with it, I suppose.

I like FB but I dint take it too seriously . I love all the interactions with my friends and family.

Exactly. It's not black and white. Everything has pros n cons. Social media included.

I enjoy seeing pictures etc from genuine friends, and I use messenger which is a great way of keeping in touch, but I'm inclined to agree.

Before Elon Musk took over and it became full of the far right, twitter as a platform was useful for some things. An example I can give (I'm a mental health nurse) is some advocacy movements. There were a lot of patient led movements on twitter, such as Recovery in the bin, who brought attention to things going on in the mental health world, such as SIM, which was around the criminalisation of 'frequent users' of emergency and crisis services. This programme actually got stopped, in large due to pushback from social media.

So yeah, I think at times it's helped minority groups find community and campaign for things

Personally, I love rats lol, and they have an insta account, and in turn I love seeing other people's pet rats! It's just a bit of fun!

I don't think these things outweigh the negatives and the impact on young people though.

I think there are positives to social media but I don’t think they outweigh the negatives. I use FB for local events and specific groups that I’m part of. I use insta for similar. I rarely use Pinterest anymore and never had Twitter/X. I probably use MN most but obviously this is anonymous.

Positives - I’ve learnt about a lot of local events through FB and insta. I’ve found some products I really like either through people recommending them on socials or through targeted advertising. For my grandma, she connected with a number of school friends through a FB group as she was increasingly becoming more and more isolated and going out less.

But I’ve had a relatives death be shared on FB before we’d even managed to catch a breath and it wreaked absolute chaos. Anything posted on social media travels faster than any other form of communication and some people are so self-indulged they can’t think of anyone but themselves and their own social media profile.

I’m finding FB/insta mostly unusable now. I get a lot of shit that isn’t from my friends or pages I follow. It’s like wading through a maze of junk mail but I use the search function to search those groups and look for information that I might have missed. Although the algorithm obviously still doesn’t show me all the posts I am actually interested in seeing. I don’t really know what the answer is because I specifically look for that information and don’t find it outside of SM.

I suppose I am wondering more about young people.

The fact that cafe's and restaurant's are opening with a USP to be instagramable. Thinking about places such as EL & N etc. People so ruled by their social media presence that they will often forego quality for their online image.

People too interested in taking pictures of their food or filming fireworks to actually enjoy the meal/event.

It’s useful for me to keep in contact with people overseas and I use it a lot for finding new hairdressers, restaurants, beauticians.

But you have to pick your sites carefully. It can be toxic and the misogyny and racism is off the charts.

I've lived abroad all my adult life - facebook (locked down to friends and family) is how I keep in touch with all the little day to day things my friends and family are up to, and they with me.

It's allowed me to find groups of people with interests in common and learn so much from those people

Well, I'm a writer and it sure helps with promotion of books!

There are some positives.

Facebooks groups I belong to are lovely.

I am in one for old school friends.

One for old work colleagues.

One for the place I grew up in.

Different dog breed groups.

Crochet groups.

Political groups.

Miscellaneous groups of interest to me.

I love the school one as we are spread out all over the world and it's a great way to all keep in touch.

Social media is brilliant.

It allows the sharing of knowledge, opens up ideas and experiences that people may not necessarily experience and help those socially isolated.

Social media has changed the lives of many and the technology and platforms that allow that is amazing.

The fact that some people misuse the technology is a different thing though