Social FKN Media, the eternal struggle. The Twitters, the Facebooks (or is it the Metas now?), the Instagrams, the Mastodons, etcetera, etcetera. We all have our own struggles and opinions on the matter. While some have gone on to the No Social Media Club route, some others fully embrace it, and some, like me, struggle in between.
Currently, I am in four social media spaces, mostly, Twitter, Micro.blog, Mastodon, and Instagram.
I closed Facebook over three years ago, for obvious reasons, and haven’t looked back ever since. Mastodon has always been around, I am not super-active on it other than all my posts from MB do get crossposted to it. Twitter and Instagram are my biggest struggles. Twitter, I have rage-closed my account twice. Instagram, is the same, at least three times I have closed it just to re-open a new one.
At this point, I just need to be honest with myself and accept that I do find some value in these two platforms. As long as I keep them under control, as long as I keep them boring.
Boring?
Yes, boring.
Boring is good. Let us take my Twitter, for example, I try to keep a very low following count, I believe I am following about two hundred accounts and I am sure, I can go even lower. Most of these accounts are normal folks, with which I actually interact, from time to time, maybe one or two “news” websites, mostly gaming, and pixel artists. And I intend to keep it this way.
Instagram. I closed it, early this month, and reopened it just a week or so ago. I unfollowed most people, I am following about one hundred and eighty accounts, only five of those have a blue checkmark. I muted most of the people's stories and I do my best to not even touch the discovery tab. I am always “up-to-date” within two scrolls, thus, no doom-scrolling. I rarely post anything anymore, it is more of a way to still have some contact with some people and that’s about it. The app lives out of sight, tucked into a folder.
As long as I can get these two platforms boring, I get to keep my sanity.
So far it's been good. So far I haven't felt anxiety or the need to rage-quit.
So far...
