[mbesto]

I am very critical of social media but this is far too of a myopic take. There is a ton of real life social benefit to these platforms.

Simplest example - someone posts a picture/video of them in a city that I also am in and now I know they live there / traveling there and I can meet up with them.

[PaulHoule]

I fell out of touch with my relatives in New England and got back in touch because I got back on Facebook so something social does come out of it once in a while.

[Ajedi32]

Yes the social aspect does definitely still exist, it's just half buried by all the other nonsense.

[switchbak]

What annoys me is this is how a lot of people expect social interactions to happen - so if you want to stay off the corporate platforms to maintain your attention/mental health, etc - you get treated like you're snubbing them.

[everforward]

This is bizarre to me, because anyone I know well enough to link up with on a trip also knows where I live and vice versa.

That’s just a really odd relationship to me. Maybe it’s a social media thing.

FWIW, I hear things like this but have never heard of any of my friends that use social media actually doing it. In the same way that you could use an Emmy as hammer, but nobody does.

[mbesto]

> trip also knows where I live and vice versa.

Do those people also have access to your travel schedule? Mine don't.

Maybe you're just not as globally social as me? I've lived in 5 different countries and have friends all over the world and in probably 20 different US states that I can name off the top of my head.

Do I have close friends that I regularly contact? Do I send them a message when I'm in town to see if they are there? Absolutely. But it's not mutually exclusive with a cohort of people I will link up with when I'm traveling.

> well enough to link up

It seems bizarre to me that you only limit yourself to these people. I regularly try to meet up with people I don't know super well but want to get them or their city better. Social media has absolutely helped facilitate this.

[everforward]

> It seems bizarre to me that you only limit yourself to these people. I regularly try to meet up with people I don't know super well but want to get them or their city better. Social media has absolutely helped facilitate this.

It’s bizarre to me that you can’t find enough people locally to be inundated in events (unless you live somewhere remote, which is an aspect of social media I hadn’t considered).

I don’t even consider myself particularly social and I’m inundated with events and people I need to text because it’s been a while. I had to cut back because it was too much. Magic on 3 separate work nights with different groups, an event every Sunday with the locals from the bar, a family event most Saturday’s and friends if not.

And then trying to weave in the new acquaintances into existing stuff, because I’m a lush and 3 beers in I’m everybody’s friend and am setting up a grill out with a stranger to see if his jackfruit tacos actually taste like chicken so I can tell if he’s just a vegetarian or a vegetarian _and_ a liar!

There are something like a couple million people within a half hour drive of me, I really don’t have to use Instagram to find someone doing cool stuff around me.

[shimman]

Yeah I agree with this. It's great being social in your community because those are the people you routinely run into periodically. It makes relationships easier to maintain too, especially when you're just a walk away from people. The cost to maintain these things (time + energy) are extremely low when everything is local.

[Insanity]

Yeah this is my feeling as well. I have a handful of friends in different countries, when we are near each other we just send a quick text.

I don’t need Facebook to tell me someone I vaguely remember from high school is in my area to then meet up with them. If I vaguely remember with them I hardly care.

And if I am actually close with someone, I don’t need Facebook either as we’d be in contact over text or discord.

That said, social behaviours do differ so YMMV. For me personally, I’m glad I’m not on social media as it seems like a huge waste of time with more downsides than upsides.

[pwndByDeath]

Sounds like adict talk to me ;) Seriously though, the legit claims of benefits are from people who need outreach and don't want to pay for advertising. But your favorite taco truck gets attention while you get to slip into depressive oblivion.

[mbesto]

There are legitimate benefits. I just think its very easy to argue (which I agree) that the benefits don't necessarily outweigh the harm for most people.