Can I just brag for a moment? I feel like I am among my people, and there is a little lesson at the end.
to calibrate: White dude in my 40s, nerdy by nature but non-technical in my education/employment
Twitter - signed up in the early 2000s when it first came out, pretty much stopped using by 2011
Facebook - signed up in the early 2000s when it first got big, pretty much stopped using by 2011, deleted my abandoned account last year
Google +, I’m sure I never signed up, but I had an account that I never used. Google being google negated me ever having to contemplate whether or not I would ever use it
Snapchat - never used
TikTok - never used
Instagram - never used
Are there others? I don’t know.
Reddit was the only “social media” I ever used for a sustained period of time and the only one where I felt part of any sort of community. I left reddit in June of 2023 when I made this account and I’ve never been back.
So, in many ways, I am successfully resisting/avoiding “the algorithm” and I am a good example of high media literacy with good resistance to manipulation by social media.
But, just to emphasize why community itself is so valuable and worthy of exploitation by techbros, here are life changes I’ve made since joining Lemmy, even without any algorithms or dark patterns. Not that Lemmy is strictly causal in all of these, but the relationship is there:
I am now making my way through TNG, and am generally more Trek-literate
Linux, natch
Cancelled all streaming services (honestly most ‘subscription services’) in favor of a NAS running Plex (for now, will probably move to Jellyfin), Calibre, AudioBookshelf, Immich, Joplin, NextCloud, etc, etc, etc
Now using Steam Deck as my daily driver for gaming
In other words, though I prize my independent thinking and avoidance of Big Cloud, and though I think all of these are positive changes representing a positive influence, I am clearly impressionable. And so are you.
Many props to you. I feel like reddit doesn’t count as social media, but I couldn’t energetically defend that position. They are certainly engaging in social media tech bro behavior, so the distinction probably doesn’t matter at this point, but it felt different than social media before it went to shit. Now, obviously when it “went to shit” is a point in time that is highly relative to the observer, but always sometime after the observer joined. That’s just the nature of enshittification.
I am not immune, and I don’t find all algorithms predatory - for example, I log on knowing that steam is selling me a product, but I am not the product. I just said in many ways I am successfully avoiding “the algorithm”, though the scare quotes immediately following a run down of social media networks was meant to indicate a specific type of algorithm that is meant to induce engagement or enragement (both are profitable) and change my behavior because I am the product.
I still have plenty of time for algorithms that serve me up games for that crucial 15% of my library that I bought but haven’t played yet.
Can I just brag for a moment? I feel like I am among my people, and there is a little lesson at the end.
to calibrate: White dude in my 40s, nerdy by nature but non-technical in my education/employment
Twitter - signed up in the early 2000s when it first came out, pretty much stopped using by 2011
Facebook - signed up in the early 2000s when it first got big, pretty much stopped using by 2011, deleted my abandoned account last year
Google +, I’m sure I never signed up, but I had an account that I never used. Google being google negated me ever having to contemplate whether or not I would ever use it
Snapchat - never used
TikTok - never used
Instagram - never used
Are there others? I don’t know.
Reddit was the only “social media” I ever used for a sustained period of time and the only one where I felt part of any sort of community. I left reddit in June of 2023 when I made this account and I’ve never been back.
So, in many ways, I am successfully resisting/avoiding “the algorithm” and I am a good example of high media literacy with good resistance to manipulation by social media.
But, just to emphasize why community itself is so valuable and worthy of exploitation by techbros, here are life changes I’ve made since joining Lemmy, even without any algorithms or dark patterns. Not that Lemmy is strictly causal in all of these, but the relationship is there:
I am now making my way through TNG, and am generally more Trek-literate
Linux, natch
Cancelled all streaming services (honestly most ‘subscription services’) in favor of a NAS running Plex (for now, will probably move to Jellyfin), Calibre, AudioBookshelf, Immich, Joplin, NextCloud, etc, etc, etc
Now using Steam Deck as my daily driver for gaming
In other words, though I prize my independent thinking and avoidance of Big Cloud, and though I think all of these are positive changes representing a positive influence, I am clearly impressionable. And so are you.
Got you beat. 40’s dude who’s never used any social media except for reddit (if that counts). I also have never used a smart phone.
Many props to you. I feel like reddit doesn’t count as social media, but I couldn’t energetically defend that position. They are certainly engaging in social media tech bro behavior, so the distinction probably doesn’t matter at this point, but it felt different than social media before it went to shit. Now, obviously when it “went to shit” is a point in time that is highly relative to the observer, but always sometime after the observer joined. That’s just the nature of enshittification.
Steam has an algorithm feeding you game suggestions
yeah and I gobble that shit up like candy.
I am not immune, and I don’t find all algorithms predatory - for example, I log on knowing that steam is selling me a product, but I am not the product. I just said in many ways I am successfully avoiding “the algorithm”, though the scare quotes immediately following a run down of social media networks was meant to indicate a specific type of algorithm that is meant to induce engagement or enragement (both are profitable) and change my behavior because I am the product.
I still have plenty of time for algorithms that serve me up games for that crucial 15% of my library that I bought but haven’t played yet.
One thing at a time Maxxie.
Fair enough :)