[ubermonkey]

My wife and I have taken opposite approaches, kinda, to curtailing social media.

She removed the FB app from her phone, so she only takes a stroll through that feed at night, while we're watching TV or whatever. She left Twitter entirely (well, her account is there, but she neither reads nor posts anymore).

I still participate in Twitter, though I've moved some of the prolific accounts I enjoy to Feedbin so my feed isn't impossible. It's about evenly split between "people I actually know" and "entertainers / writers I like who are clever." I don't go in for rage-Twitter or whatever.

I wish I could abandon FB entirely, but the network effects keep me there. The biggest one is cycling. I'm an avid road rider, and in my city pretty much ALL the coordination for cycling events (group rides, out of town trips, even happy hours) is on FB. If you leave FB, you're out of the loop.

So in a real sense, FB is both healthy AND unhealthy for me.

[ssully]

I did the same thing your Wife did with Twitter. I found myself checking it at work whenever I was stuck on a problem or basically whenever I was slightly bored. It's great on keeping up on things and getting some good laughs, but it was also draining in many ways as well (politics, being up to date on every terrible thing in the world, etc).

I still check it every other night on my computer/ipad at home, or I'll login from my phone if something big is happening. But not having the app on my phone has made a huge difference.

A minor aside, but it was almost pathetic how the first day after I deleted the app, without thinking, I would open my phone and click where the Twitter app used to be. It took me about 2 days to get over that habit. It truly is an addiction.