Don’t.
Seconded! Don’t use for profit commercial social media at all.
exactly
Turn off all notifications, ignore like counts, post less, and ultimately use it less.
In general phone notifications should only be people directly contacting you and stuff like reminders. No group chats (except mentions), social media, games or any crap like that.
I’m baffled how many notifications people leave on and then they don’t see important stuff or get stressed out by their phone.
Def turn them notifications off lol
For me, deleting Facebook and only subscribing to respectful common interest threads has helped A LOT.
I like Lemmy and Mastodon. No ads or manipulative algorithms. Somewhat social and usually polite. Turns out that when you don’t automate the incitement of anger and invective in clever ways that people can actually be pretty civil. Whoda thunk?
Curate.
Block liberally. Especially block any community that is focused around hating something - even if it’s a thing that deserves scorn, the vibe will grind you down, over time, especially if there are many communities like it. Block users who are assholes, after reporting them if it’s bad enough.
Subscribe/follow/equivalent-action things you are genuinely interested in; cut out the really general categories unless you actively enjoy browsing that topic. Smaller communities are usually better, if they have enough content to be alive.
If you have any sort of hobby, try joining a space about it. If it’s too toxic, block it, but if not, it is a good place to destress and perhaps even make friends.
Curate, it can’t be overstated enough. A lot of sites don’t let you sufficiently curate your feed, and if they don’t, you should leave em.
Don’t take it seriously. Don’t put up with toxicity. Don’t be afraid to do without.
A feed full of cats.
Social media usually has all sorts of people, even if it’s only 1% shitty people, that’s 1 in every 100 interactions. And the percentage of shitty people is probably much higher. It’s going to be difficult to avoid.
For Lemmy: You can use an account on beehaw.org to reduce negativity. Downside is that they also defederated from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works. Or alternatively, you can use another instance that federates with them all, and just browse mostly on beehaw communities.
Block obnoxious people immediately. Don’t engage, don’t plead, don’t try to convince. Block.
Obnoxious people and spammers deserve a block for sure. I think that sometimes people take it too far and block over some minor things
Imo if you only see things you agree with you are in an echo chamber
Agreed about echo chambers.
However, I’d add a couple of specific categories to the instablocked: people who is “JAQing off” and sealions.
No commercial content, no endless scroll.
Emphasis on engagement and discussion, rather than producing or consuming content.
Lemmy has cut out my doomscrolling more than I estimated. I knew it would decrease, but usually I don’t scroll for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time, and it never interrupts me doing anything else. Makes me look back and realize how unhealthy those algorithms really are.
It’s comments like these that make me wonder if I’m the weird one. I spend the same amount of time (hours upon hours, probably) on Lemmy as I ever did on Reddit, Instagram, Discord, or Tumblr. No algorithm, yet here I am.
Being in charge of your social media experience. Any site that decides for you what you see is a fucking trap.
If you see content other than what you’ve subscribed to/gone looking for, get the fuck out.
Don’t read the comments. Ever.
And if you catch yourself reading them, stop.
And if you catch yourself repl- well, shit.
I totally agre… shit.
Yeah we fucked up.
Don’t do social media with family, friends, or other people you actually know irl.
Counter point: only do social media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc) with people you know.
It’s the other crap, mostly commercialized, that is toxic.
Group chat with family on the other side of the country. Bad idea.
I also have a group chat with my family. I wouldn’t call that social media. I’m thinking about actual social media, like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, et. al, not just texting. Of course I communicate with my family.
Ya I know it isn’t quite the same. But it’s close. And the warning fits.
Be happy before you join
