this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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Most people's relationship with any given corporate / algorithm driven social media platform is akin to a drug addict.
Start viewing people who can't imagine quitting cold turkey as drug addicts, and it makes a lot more sense.
This is what happens when corpos have oodles and oodles from data on how to drive 'engagement'... and then they do that, via algorithmic content feeds and dark patterns and other kinds of manipulation.
These people are addicted to convenience, to the dopamine hits, to the rage bait, to their validating echo chambers.
They don't care that it makes them stupid, misinformed, angry, takes all their time, ruins their attention span, makes them feel like ugly failures amidst a sea of beautiful, rich influencers.
If you can't stop 'voluntarily' doing something that's bad for you without a giant fuss, without needing a guided intervention, you're an addict.
Yeah, but...
Having experienced and overcome actual addiction, metaphorical quasi-addictions like social media have never been a challenge. Yeah, there's a sort of stimulus/reward feedback look, and the sites are structured to encourage compulsive use, but I've never spent a week in bed feeling like I'm going to die when stopping. And some substances I was fortunate enough not to get hooked on, such as benzos and alcohol, are even more deadly: they can literally kill you if you try quitting without medical support and supervision. You won't die of seizures when quitting Xitter. At worst, you might try finding something else to waste your time doing.
I was on reddit for several years. One day I started getting hit with bans for nothing because one of the mods had it in for me. There's no way to win in such a situation. So I replaced the text of every post and comment in every alt with lorem ipsum, then walked away. Nothing of value was lost and I don't miss it. Lenny is fine, and in the instance I'm in, the mods aren't power-mad zero-tolerance assholes.
Quitting Facebook was similar. Again, I replaced all the content I'd ever posted on the site with gibberish before leaving. I've kept my account, but don't use it. The elderly relatives I used to keep in touch with on FB have mostly died, and I told everyone else who mattered how they can find me. That part didn't take long. It was, however, interesting how much dark-pattern bullshit Meta throws in your path when you attempt to disengage.
And if Lemmy and other less toxic social media weren't there, I'd just do other things. Nobody needs social media, anymore than anyone needs cigarettes.