My relationship with social media
This is a traded post I got from Kami, She gave me this tittle and I give her one too: Stop generalizing people. I read about this idea in her post and find it fun!
My use of social media has change many times through the years but in general, it was always something in the background, it didn't took much relevance of my life, I'd say it'd oscillate between no using it to check it a few minutes at day.[^1] I always been an observer in social situations in general and that translated to my social interactions online. Until a couple of years ago, I would just watch publications of others or conversations in discord without participating at all, not even comments on YouTube, a like was all you could get from me, I was ok by just being an audience.
Engaging in social media never seem appealing to me, I created a Facebook account back in the day but I'd use it mostly for the games to be honest, I would see my friends at school so I didn't see the point of checking what they published online, I didn't need to catch up or something since I'd see them everyday. Texting apps count as social media? I didn't used them much either, just for esencial communication for school projects. Perhaps It's just that I'm not a very social person.
I also used Instagram for some time, mostly to follow musicians and artists I like but then as I did with Facebook I stop using it, one day I just deleted the app because I didn't used it anymore and even if I want to go back again I can't because I can't remember the password (for Facebook too) and I'm too lazy to recover an account that I probably won't use. Scrolling through social media never was my thing since I prefer longer content like podcasts of video essays, I said it in another post, I don't really care about memes.
Recently I'm using discord, I discovered it some years ago and since then I've been a little more socially active online, I still more of an observer but I now participate if I found a conversation interesting. I also found good friends to hang out from time to time. I think this first step on discord help me to lose the fear of having a presence online, or more like a social presence in general because I started to try being more social in real life too.
Then I found about blogs and felt like the perfect social media to me, sincere writing and people writing about things they love (or hate). For me it's like YouTube but in a writing form, so of course I like it.
So my relationship with social media was an experiment to find what I like, I tried different content until I found my niche. Right now I'm ok with my social media usage, thanks to my past self that has been curating the things I appreciate the most: cool artists, bands I love, writers, etc. Sounds cheesy I know, considering how everyone hates on social media most of the time, but the thing is that I always follow this phrase "If you hate something just don't use it" and I guess that (and my luck) has save me from most of the toxicity of social media? Still, being social on the internet drains my social battery as well just more slower, so I took brakes from it. When I need it I close my laptop and watch some TV, play music or I go out.
Thanks for reading (●'◡'●)