I've been a social media hermit for basically my entire life so far but folded in and installed IG a couple weeks ago once I entered university. It's sadly just the norm. Telling someone my age to "just not use social media" seems like a boomer's shriek, and almost every club or association manages does all its' event coordination and stuff over IG.
It's extremely hard to get by, keep up with people, or even make friends without it.
The same could also be said for Discord as well, which I've seen over the past 4-5 years grow from a gamer-exclusive chat platform to what is probably the #1 choice for students nowadays for group interactions.
As far as we've come though I still think these kinds of things are still in their infancy when it comes to their impact on us as a society, so I guess the best thing to do is just wait and see what happens.
I'm sure it depends a lot on region and social circles. I work in tech, and IG is basically dead other than interacting with businesses with my peers. I also have two sisters in high school who confirm IG isn't really a thing anymore for the younger crowd.
I have plenty of people in my extended friend group who are in their mid to late 20s, and most of them are still quite active on FB.
Nobody thinks it's cool or fun anymore, of course. But it's still the go-to spot for sharing life events, family news, anything you want to brag about really. Or any vacation pictures that you'd like grandma and grandpa to see.
IG is still image driven, so it's not a platform you can easily use for relaying text based information to your social network.
My Daughter is 21. Depending on where you read, she's either tail-end Millennial, or early Gen-Z. Her usage of social media is very minimal - She posts rarely on Facebook, never on Instagram or Twitter. She does however have very active Snapchat groups and uses Messenger. Both are simply for conversations with her social group.
Are closed chat groups 'social media'? If we were to say yes to this, then SMS texts and IRC and Forums are also social media. I'm not sure where the line gets drawn.
As an old fogey in his 40s, I do not use Facebook or Instagram. I post to Twitter when I need to reach out to an organisation or a person, and it's their preferred way for contact. I also delete anything I tweet after a few days. I used to use Facebook heavily, but it just became a pointless waste of time, all people care about on Facebook are the likes and shares, and not the actual content.
All social media is based on the emotional feedback loop of 'Share/Post -> Get Likes -> Feel Validated -> Repeat'. 'Likes' create an endorphin hit that many people get addicted to. In this manner it's no different from a class-A drug.
Sharing stuff online is fine, but creators of these platforms insist on gameifying it with likes, ThumbsUps, Votes and Shares, and it's this part of the social media eco-system that's toxic.
The undergrads I work with don't seem to ever mention Facebook, but Discord seems pretty popular. Social media is like everything else: There's the "bad" product which has been ruined by old people and the "good" product that the hip young crowd likes. This treadmill will continue as people join networks, settle in to their preferences, and then age.
Yeah, I guess I more meant "grow up with the internet". Or, really, "grow up with services that goad you into oversharing a curated look into your life". I grew up with computers (well, first one around age 8), and hung out on local BBSes until the web came around, but even by then the worst social problems seemed to come from spending too much time chatting online and not enough time interacting with real people or playing outside.
I think really the point is when people started growing up with Facebook. Given that FB has been around for 14 years now, there's a good chunk of people who are even in their 20s now who were introduced to FB as soon as they were old enough for their parents to let them have an account. Instagram came 6 years later, when some of these people were in their teens. A lot of social behavior gets hammered out in those years and growing up with FB/Instagram/etc. rather than being introduced to them post-adolescence might make difference.
It's still a social media network. People socialise there with the broader world. And socialising with friends and family may be passé for young people nowadays.
I'm Gen X, and unless you count message boards and HN-like places I've never used social media.
Not because I thought "the music of this generation sucks" but because it was easy to see the horrific way the Internet was going to go with walled gardens and centralization. I predicted 10 years ago if you uploaded and tagged photos on facebook you were giving up 100% of your privacy forever, as now every single photo of you ever taken (private or in public) will eventually be tracked to a name. I think generations coming up today really missed out on seeing the potential of the Internet, and what's it's become is nothing resembling the dreams of the 90's.
There are far more reasons to be wary and not participate in social media than "I'm just better than everyone".
And yes - it's a huge hit to your ability to continue an active social life. But things like SMS, Instant Messenger phones, e-mail, etc. still exist. The other downside is you tend to collect friends willing to deal with that, so it can kind of put you into a bubble if you don't reach outside your comfort zone.
I've found dating someone with an already established social media presence (e.g. too late to opt out, why bother) is a decent compromise :)
Try being a single dude in your 20s/early 30s without some "social proof" when trying to talk to 30 and younger girls. They will immediately think you are a weirdo for not having that proof that you're not some sort of loner. I personally use ig for posting things that give me a little more edge over normal dudes - my Olympic weightlifting progress, my trips snowboarding/surfing, my cute dogs, music festivals/shows that I got to...it's helpful. but I'm not gonna post on there about the new Jenkinsfile that I spent a week crafting to deploy a 10 microservices for a state machine. RIP Google+, the Instagram for geeks.
This has been my experience as well. The several younger people I know (high school age) also use it. I was told they use instagram for general posts, and snapchat for communicating.
This overlooks the network effect. If you are between 14 and 24 there is literally _no way_ that you are not on social media. Peer pressure is immense at that age. If you weren't, you would be a social weirdo. To be clear: I agree with your comment, but I'm old, so it's OK to be a social weirdo and avoid social media. :)
I'm sensing that many people now avoid anything that resembles a 'social network', as if they tried it and are now over the whole concept. Facebook left a bad taste in a lot of mouths.
Disagree. Currently helping run a summer camp with lots of < 18 year olds where we try to limit phone usage in group sessions. Snapchat is used for everything, probably sexting too, but as far as I can tell it's the goto instant messaging. When they're on their phones during sessions, they're all snapping each other. Insta is also ubiquitous - aside from following people, lots of them use it to discover smaller/niche bands (eg grime), for example. Facebook? Really uncool. Their parents are on Facebook.
Big component of these apps is the group dynamic. Plays well with the current culture of social capital, messages can be easily broadcast, rated, commented on, shared around. But you also have the option of things being semi-ephemeral.
They use Discord and WhatsApp. “Social networks” as such turned into basically games of meme-meme-ad and that is an awful experience. Social is lost there entirely, it’s just a machine for getting your attention with memes and then showing you ads instead. If you want to communicate with people in any meaningful way, FB is useless. So Gen Z has been using tools that actually help them stay in touch with people and form relationships rather than staring at ads all day. I did a pool recently of a live audience of about 40 18-22 year olds. Two have Facebook accounts, one to pull up her baby pics her mom posted on there and the other doesn’t use his at all. The rest didn’t bother registering. Instagram I think was 4 people, who only use it as a messenger. That’s it.
It's extremely hard to get by, keep up with people, or even make friends without it.
The same could also be said for Discord as well, which I've seen over the past 4-5 years grow from a gamer-exclusive chat platform to what is probably the #1 choice for students nowadays for group interactions.
As far as we've come though I still think these kinds of things are still in their infancy when it comes to their impact on us as a society, so I guess the best thing to do is just wait and see what happens.
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