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by ubercow13 2485 days ago
Does this still hold up? 95% of my facebook feed is now shared posts that aren’t related to things my friends are doing, and are often posts about products. There is almost nothing I see on facebook that invites social comparison with my facebook friends any more.
4 comments

Looking at products can be pretty depressing, too. There are some 10+ year old items I own that I'm proud to be using through their complete useful lifetime, but it's hard not to feel a twinge of dissatisfaction and self-consciousness when confronted with reminders that the new products look and perform better. Most of my friends (like most normal people) buy new products at a pace dictated by their desire to have new stuff.

Of course they brag about their awesome expensive new gear, including how durable it is, which is ridiculous, of course, but even more ridiculously, I have to shelter myself from advertising to protect my conviction that I'm not really the ridiculous one. When I'm barraged with advertising, I can't even feel good about choices that reflect my values. More and more that yucky feeling stops me from checking Instagram, which was the last social media app I checked regularly. I'm had enough of paying for "free" services by trading away control over my own thoughts and feelings.

From what you describe it sure seems true. You log onto a website looking for social interaction and instead get a face full of corporate messaging? Sounds isolating, depressing.
If your feed is like mine, 90% of those shared posts, political memes, and other garbage are coming from 10% of your friends. I mostly ignore or just snooze those people and end up with a feed of pretty positive life stories.
IMO it still holds true if you consider Instagram as part of Facebook.