Death of social media?

[birdysong]

Just read an interesting article in Grazia about social media use on the decline.
I find myself feeling irritated when I scroll on Instagram and have deleted my account. Wondered do others feel the same?
I find Social media draining and addictive and I ger annoyed with myself for wasting time on it and I never feel good after scrolling.

I listen to quite a few podcasts about American Politics and came across this organised by Prof Scott Galloway

https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/

His opinion is that the only thing that influences Trump's decison making is a wobble in the marktets. He's suggesting that Americans unsubscribe from most of their online subscriptions as a means to protest against the current adminstrations actions. Scott says it doesn't have to be a permanet unsubscription, just for one month will make a difference.

He's identified the 7 companies who have provided Trump with financial support and who would be the ones most likely to lean on Trump to change course if they saw their stock value fall. Meta is one of the big 7- so it'll be interesting to see if his campaign gains momentum

There always has been and always will be alternative media. Twitter was important during the Arab Spring for example because people were using it to organise and mobilise but those days are long behind it. It's merely a tool for right wing mobilisation now.

I use social media everyday and so do most people I know, even if it's just to browse, send messages or catch up with local events.

I also run my business on social media and my pages are as busy as ever, if not busier in some ways.

I don't think you'll get a very balanced view on here as MN in general is very "anti" social media (despite many people spending hours a day on here!).

Yep, I've uninstalled Instagram and Facebook on my phone. It wasn't that I was really spending too much time on them - I spend wayyyyy more time on MN! It was that I was fed up with the endless adverts, recommendations and AI drivel. I don't miss them at all.

Yep, I deleted Instagram and Facebook and it's great. Just need to use Mumsnet less

Got rid of it all. X was poison after Elon took it over, tried blsky, that was a weird place. Facebook long gone.
I have friends from over the world and some childhood friends who on facebook were quite active in keeping in touch which was lovely. When I deleted facebook, I let everyone know in advance that was leaving and left my email address to keep in touch. Not one person has got in touch in a year! Lol. Just back to Christmas cards. I guess I smell!

This is the article

Interestingly my 20 year old DD told me she deleted her instagram account, though I’d hardy call her a heavy user. Then she found out she missed some important info about a society she’s a member of at uni! So she’s had to reload it.
I don’t use anything other than FB (though some TikTok gets repeated on there), I do watch tutorials on YouTube but have never posted anything, though I might start a YouTube channel in a while to document a year abroad.

Yes, it will pass of course and something even worse may come up.

Interesting. As the author of the article says, there's something kind of pleasing and heartening about the idea that people are just drifting away from socia media platforms in spite of ever more money and effort being poured into making them addictive and lucrative to sell access to our attention. The idea that after years of moral and social panic about it, society might be heading towards saying 'Yeah... no thanks, it's actually a bit rubbish' rather than having to force themselves to give it up. Poor old millionaire/ billionaire tech bros potentially made to feel irrelevant and uncool

Now if only MN could make itself similarly boring I might get more done...

“Join me as I scrape some dried old mashed potato off the corner of the carpet” #ad #affiliate

What I hate most is that people genuinely think they’re experts on stuff they just googled, and if you challenge them you’re a hater.

My 19 year old dd had no social media. She hates it.

She uses WhatsApp but l don’t know if that counts.