I agree with your position - but I don't think it necessarily means you disagree with the other post.
I've completely stopped using FB because I want to connect with my friends and family. After using the product for many years I realized that idly surfing past pictures of children, weddings, BBQs, etc, that despite FB's loud insistence, that's not connection. Even commenting on friends' posts isn't... really connection?
It was idle voyeurism, or drive-by socialization.
Now I make an active attempt to keep in touch with people by, well, directly talking to them. This isn't some brilliant insight on my part - let's be honest, online socialization has been moving towards this for some time. The group chats I'm a part of, and the virtual/IRL meetings are far more fulfilling to me than any amount of FB feed surfing.
That's true, I have group chats in in as well, but FB and IG serve somewhat of a different purpose for me. See my other comment:
>I also get messages or pictures from people I'm friends with, but for people who are more acquaintances, I follow them on IG and see what they're doing, and if it's interesting I'll comment on the post or message them, and catch up with them that way.
>It's also somewhat of a hassle to send messages and photos to people when you want to share it broadly, such as a trip you went on or something. People might also not necessarily want to see what you're sending all the time, so an IG post is an easy way for people to follow you and what you're up to.
>You can almost think of it as RSS for your friends and family.
I prefer direct communication even though the surrounding culture seems to be less comfortable with that these days. While I will still post an update
on FB every few months, I got annoyed with how the algorithm made the feed harder to follow so many years ago. In the early days I was a big proponent of blasting out a post to whoever might see it, but I have too many “friends” and even if I curated that list I’d still miss so much amidst the clutter because the algorithm made it so some important-to-me stuff will never appear in my feed. And so often the people I want to see something don’t see my posts. Hence directly texting and emailing them photos! If there were a social media tool that had my best interests in mind, perhaps I could trust it to show my people the content I want to share. Maybe I’m old school since I appreciate getting email and snail mail letters from people, but now if I want to tell people something I send it to them directly. If there are too many people to email/text/call, maybe I should rethink what I’m doing and why. Some people respond positively to that and I’m guessing others find it too forward, but I don’t feel bad about being too forward. Decades ago we used to knock on front doors without telling them in advance that we were dropping by, so I don’t feel an unsolicited texted photo of my baby is so uncomfortably forward compared to that. :)
I've completely stopped using FB because I want to connect with my friends and family. After using the product for many years I realized that idly surfing past pictures of children, weddings, BBQs, etc, that despite FB's loud insistence, that's not connection. Even commenting on friends' posts isn't... really connection?
It was idle voyeurism, or drive-by socialization.
Now I make an active attempt to keep in touch with people by, well, directly talking to them. This isn't some brilliant insight on my part - let's be honest, online socialization has been moving towards this for some time. The group chats I'm a part of, and the virtual/IRL meetings are far more fulfilling to me than any amount of FB feed surfing.