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Have You Deleted or Will You Delete Your Social Media Accounts?

Have you deleted or will you delete your social media accounts?

  • I cannot decide whether to delete my accounts or keep them right now

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    48
Can't delete what doesn't exist.

Closest I have to social media is FetLife, unless we are counting fourms like these as such.

Sent from my Z982 using Tapatalk
 
Well, let me put my thoughts down via crude analogy. I live in Central California where we have a lot of dairies, but I think this will suffice to make the illustration. People who use social media are like cows being herded into a milking parlour. When you are on social media, it is as though you are being hooked up to the milking machines. Now, the cows do get to socialize with their herdmates, and communicate with one another in the manner that cows and other herd animals do, but that is not the purpose of the milking parlour. They were made to get milk from the cows, whether the cows have a good time socializing or not. Likewise, you get to socialize and gather information from your social media platforms, but that is not what social media platforms were put in place for. They are meant to harvest your data and manipulate your behavior in subtle ways for the purpose of marketing you products and services from companies paying the social media platforms for your data.

Of course, where my analogy breaks down is at this point: the cows do not have a choice whether they can go into the milking parlour or not. They are herded in regardless. We have a choice whether to go into the social media milking parlours. And the social media companies achieve this constant feedback loop by making the use of the platform, if not addictive, highly compulsive. As Lanier explains in the above-posted podcast, social media companies use the same psychological behaviorist techniques that casinos do to addict gamblers.

You are now calling bars, restaurants, and other places people gather as "milking parlours". Do you also suggest that people should not go to bars and restaurants?

Look, if you are unable to manage your social media use, by all means, quit. If you are worried about the information you give publicly being used by the platform you post that information on, quit. But for some one like me, they are not milking me of much, except discovering my hobbies, and that I have cats. I control my social media usage, and what information is available. And I net gain from my social media usage. If facebook gains a bit too, hey, no skin off my nose, they are not gaining in a way that harms me.
 
It is by no means breaking news that there is a problem with social media. It has made the political climate in our country worse; it has exacerbated existing ideological divisions; it has given us purely left-wing and right-wing media bubbles in which people can be hermetically sealed into ideological echo chambers more effectively than ever before while online without ever having to encounter differing viewpoints online; it has allowed foreign interference in our political processes from hostile nations; it has made it so that the worst human beings in our societies have an easier time finding one another and communicating with each other and planning acts of terrorism, from techno-savvy Sunni Jihadists such as ISIS to murderous Neo-Nazis in Christchurch.

But even without touching on the political side of the issue, the way social media presently works is filled with perverse incentives. These free social media platforms and applications as we have learned are anything but free. Most of us already know that the owners of these platforms constantly harvest user data and sell them to advertisers, of course. But the problem is that it does not end there: Companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube also engaging in processes to make their platforms addicting and then engage in subtle and widespread behavioral manipulation and modification. I can only imagine that things on social media platforms will only get worse and worse as we draw close to the 2020 Elections.

For those of you who are interested in looking into the issue further, and are doing your dishes or taking a long car ride, I would encourage you to listen to the podcast in which Ezra Klein of Vox Media interviews Silicon Valley luminary Jaron Lanier about the negative effects of Social Media, and why you probably should delete your social media accounts:



So my question to those here is: Who here has deleted their social media accounts? Why did you delete yours? And for those who did not, what makes you wish to keep it?

For those reading my poll on their cell phones, the options are as follows:

1. I have deleted my social media accounts, or intend to do so

2. I have not deleted my social media accounts nor do I presently intend to

3. I have never even made a social media account in the first place

4. I cannot decide whether to delete my accounts or keep them right now

5. Other

EDIT: And yes, I understand the irony of posting a video/podcast hosted on Youtube (a social media platform) on a poll decrying the use of social media. ;)


no and i have no plans too
i dont know what other people go through but my facebook is not filled with extremists . . my friends are mostly normal people right left and center . . . . . while i see stories on facebook it has never influenced me but itself in anyway because im not a sheep :shrug:
 
I have FB which only has long time friends and some family. It's a way to stay in touch which otherwise wouldn't happen. So no, I won't be deleting.
 
Far too many take their news from social media and never know if its accurate or not. The younger you are it seems the more you use it.
 
I have FB which only has long time friends and some family. It's a way to stay in touch which otherwise wouldn't happen. So no, I won't be deleting.

It's an awesome platform for staying in touch with folks you would otherwise have lost.

What upsets me is my generation. I am 65. Virtually no one I went to school with is on Facebook.

All my contacts are younger friends.

How great is it to be born in say 1995 and never having to lose touch with all the people in your life.

Social media is a wonderful thing.
 
Back in 2010, I created a Facebook account as part of a campaign I was managing for state rep. This was something new for me and I have stayed away from things like this. Within a short period of time, two former girl friends contacted me and wanted some sort of on line relationship despite me having been married since 1971.

No thank you.

I have not used it since.
 
Well, let me put my thoughts down via crude analogy. I live in Central California where we have a lot of dairies, but I think this will suffice to make the illustration. People who use social media are like cows being herded into a milking parlour. When you are on social media, it is as though you are being hooked up to the milking machines. Now, the cows do get to socialize with their herdmates, and communicate with one another in the manner that cows and other herd animals do, but that is not the purpose of the milking parlour. They were made to get milk from the cows, whether the cows have a good time socializing or not. Likewise, you get to socialize and gather information from your social media platforms, but that is not what social media platforms were put in place for. They are meant to harvest your data and manipulate your behavior in subtle ways for the purpose of marketing you products and services from companies paying the social media platforms for your data.

Of course, where my analogy breaks down is at this point: the cows do not have a choice whether they can go into the milking parlour or not. They are herded in regardless. We have a choice whether to go into the social media milking parlours. And the social media companies achieve this constant feedback loop by making the use of the platform, if not addictive, highly compulsive. As Lanier explains in the above-posted podcast, social media companies use the same psychological behaviorist techniques that casinos do to addict gamblers.
I like your analogy and your op. These platforms ( not my cup of tea by the way) offer valuable services that are hard to replace efficiently and effectively but they do so for profit. These companies have to get something of worth to stay in a business we have already decided to patronize. We as a society stand to lose a lot of instant and broad communication, if social media is successfully undercut and left ineffectual. I think your question should be how can we change the model minimize the ill effects you describe?
 
I like your analogy and your op. These platforms ( not my cup of tea by the way) offer valuable services that are hard to replace efficiently and effectively but they do so for profit. These companies have to get something of worth to stay in a business we have already decided to patronize. We as a society stand to lose a lot of instant and broad communication, if social media is successfully undercut and left ineffectual. I think your question should be how can we change the model minimize the ill effects you describe?

Glad you asked, btthegreat. I would go with Jaron Lanier's recommendation: to make them low-paid services, in which users pay a nominal fee for the use of the product based on their usage of the service. When we are talking about a user base that numbers in the billions, even a small monthly charge can reap massive amounts of profit for these gigantic social media tech firms. Only speaking for myself, but I would gladly pay for the usage of Youtube and Google, based on my usage of these platforms in exchange for not having my personal information hoovered up or being subject to behavioral manipulation.
 
I've never had any social media accounts and never intend to.

I only use the internet for sports betting with the intent of scalping/arbitrage & to get the news.
DP is the extent of social media for me. Never joined Facebook or Twitter or any of the other social
media known sites & don't intend to. I don't have the time nor the interest!
 
Not planning on deleting my social media accounts - but I've sworn off of political involvement through them.

Mostly I use FB to post pictures of my kid for faraway relatives and organize my gaming group.

I used to be more political on there, but I got tired of getting passionate about something, posting about it, and finding out that my conservative Uncle thinks I'm a jerk, or my liberal cousin thinks I'm a jerk, or … well, you get it. Being non partisan on social media is the best way to piss off everyone...hehe...

I still have lots of friends posting political stuff...I tend to skim for interesting articles, ignoring the commentary, as I'm too easily triggered into my own editorialization...and being a keyboard warrior is fun here, but not so fun when you're debating your grandma into the ground... :lol:
 
Have You Deleted or Will You Delete Your Social Media Accounts?

You realize that if one can post an answer the question or tick a choice in the poll, one clearly hasn't deleted all of one's social media accounts.
 
It is by no means breaking news that there is a problem with social media. It has made the political climate in our country worse; it has exacerbated existing ideological divisions; it has given us purely left-wing and right-wing media bubbles in which people can be hermetically sealed into ideological echo chambers more effectively than ever before while online without ever having to encounter differing viewpoints online; it has allowed foreign interference in our political processes from hostile nations; it has made it so that the worst human beings in our societies have an easier time finding one another and communicating with each other and planning acts of terrorism, from techno-savvy Sunni Jihadists such as ISIS to murderous Neo-Nazis in Christchurch.

But even without touching on the political side of the issue, the way social media presently works is filled with perverse incentives. These free social media platforms and applications as we have learned are anything but free. Most of us already know that the owners of these platforms constantly harvest user data and sell them to advertisers, of course. But the problem is that it does not end there: Companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube also engaging in processes to make their platforms addicting and then engage in subtle and widespread behavioral manipulation and modification. I can only imagine that things on social media platforms will only get worse and worse as we draw close to the 2020 Elections.

For those of you who are interested in looking into the issue further, and are doing your dishes or taking a long car ride, I would encourage you to listen to the podcast in which Ezra Klein of Vox Media interviews Silicon Valley luminary Jaron Lanier about the negative effects of Social Media, and why you probably should delete your social media accounts:



So my question to those here is: Who here has deleted their social media accounts? Why did you delete yours? And for those who did not, what makes you wish to keep it?

For those reading my poll on their cell phones, the options are as follows:

1. I have deleted my social media accounts, or intend to do so

2. I have not deleted my social media accounts nor do I presently intend to

3. I have never even made a social media account in the first place

4. I cannot decide whether to delete my accounts or keep them right now

5. Other

EDIT: And yes, I understand the irony of posting a video/podcast hosted on Youtube (a social media platform) on a poll decrying the use of social media. ;)


I use social media. Facebook and instagram. I use them to keep in touch with old friends and family - share pictures - ect. Social media is very easy to control. If someone is posting things you don't want to see, simply remove them. The other thing I constantly see people crying about is privacy which I don't get either. Why would anyone post something online in a social media platform and expect it to be kept secret? Things are so simple. If you don't like the content of someone - don't have them on your list - don't post private information online. Social media isn't the problem; stupid people are the problem.
 
FB exposed too much personal information. More than 5 years ago, I shut down my FB account.

My wife has a FB account. I might access it once or twice a week. I do not post on it.

I maintain membership in several sites specific to my interests and my profession.

I have never had a Twitter account.
 
I use social media. Facebook and instagram. I use them to keep in touch with old friends and family - share pictures - ect. Social media is very easy to control. If someone is posting things you don't want to see, simply remove them. The other thing I constantly see people crying about is privacy which I don't get either. Why would anyone post something online in a social media platform and expect it to be kept secret? Things are so simple. If you don't like the content of someone - don't have them on your list - don't post private information online. Social media isn't the problem; stupid people are the problem.


Woo Hoo !!!! Common sense for the win!!! :2dance:
 
No, I barely use them and I don't give them anything worth selling. It's just a backup set of contacts, incase I manage to lose email addresses and phone numbers.
 
It is by no means breaking news that there is a problem with social media. It has made the political climate in our country worse; it has exacerbated existing ideological divisions; it has given us purely left-wing and right-wing media bubbles in which people can be hermetically sealed into ideological echo chambers more effectively than ever before while online without ever having to encounter differing viewpoints online; it has allowed foreign interference in our political processes from hostile nations; it has made it so that the worst human beings in our societies have an easier time finding one another and communicating with each other and planning acts of terrorism, from techno-savvy Sunni Jihadists such as ISIS to murderous Neo-Nazis in Christchurch.

But even without touching on the political side of the issue, the way social media presently works is filled with perverse incentives. These free social media platforms and applications as we have learned are anything but free. Most of us already know that the owners of these platforms constantly harvest user data and sell them to advertisers, of course. But the problem is that it does not end there: Companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube also engaging in processes to make their platforms addicting and then engage in subtle and widespread behavioral manipulation and modification. I can only imagine that things on social media platforms will only get worse and worse as we draw close to the 2020 Elections.

For those of you who are interested in looking into the issue further, and are doing your dishes or taking a long car ride, I would encourage you to listen to the podcast in which Ezra Klein of Vox Media interviews Silicon Valley luminary Jaron Lanier about the negative effects of Social Media, and why you probably should delete your social media accounts:



So my question to those here is: Who here has deleted their social media accounts? Why did you delete yours? And for those who did not, what makes you wish to keep it?

For those reading my poll on their cell phones, the options are as follows:

1. I have deleted my social media accounts, or intend to do so

2. I have not deleted my social media accounts nor do I presently intend to

3. I have never even made a social media account in the first place

4. I cannot decide whether to delete my accounts or keep them right now

5. Other

EDIT: And yes, I understand the irony of posting a video/podcast hosted on Youtube (a social media platform) on a poll decrying the use of social media. ;)


I have all sorts of accounts facebook, linked in, twitter, twitch, and some others. I got them all one time or another because I was doing something or other and the website or person or what have you required me to have such and such account. I put mostly bogus info in them. Otherwise I don't use them all, they just send me emails about how lonely they are and wish I would use them. Said emails end up in the junk folder.
 
I don't even wish people happy birthday anymore on Facebook because they may be dead.

Assuming people were born is bigotry.
 
I just started my Facebook account about two weeks ago.
 
You do realize that all social media is is a variant of internet message boards, right?

It's more than that. On FB et al, YOU are "the product", and your data is bought and sold.
 
Felis Leo nailed it pretty well with his "milking parlor" analogy.
I used to talk about politics on FB and I still do post some interesting stories on there once in a while but in the last three years I really just pop in about once a day, share some jokes or favorite pics with some friends and that's about it.

So if they're on my tit, they're not getting all that much anymore.
 
The difference here is that we aren't in an 'echo chamber" where everyone agrees. Here, hardly anyone agrees with anyone else, hence the term "debate." Not only that, but we use psuedonyms here, so are unlikely to meet someone in the real world who thinks we're evil due to our political beliefs.

I agree.;)
 
As a computer-illiterate senior citizen, I am guessing that "social media" refers to platforms (is that the correct term?) such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. (I have never visited them and have no wish to do so,)

I am also guessing that Internet discussion forums can also be labeled "social media." Am I right?


I really love the invention of the Internet, for email is great and online buying is great and getting all the world's newspapers is great.

But maybe, just maybe, all "social media" should be removed. In other words, maybe it is better if ordinary people (like me) were not allowed to voice their opinions.


Everyone agrees that incivility is rampant in social media. If we returned to pre-social media days, maybe there would be more domestic harmony in our country.
 
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I have all sorts of accounts facebook, linked in, twitter, twitch, and some others. I got them all one time or another because I was doing something or other and the website or person or what have you required me to have such and such account. I put mostly bogus info in them. Otherwise I don't use them all, they just send me emails about how lonely they are and wish I would use them. Said emails end up in the junk folder.

Years ago when the first grocery store club cards came out I recognized that their purpose was data mining as well as trying to attract and keep customers.

So I started a "program" where I encouraged everyone to get one and then trade it with the person most different from you that you know that has one.

That way, you get the deals, they get customer retention, but the data mineral are left scratching their heads wondilering why grandma is spending so much moneyy on Jaeger and condoms, and why that college kid is buying Geritol and Depends.

Problem solved.

I don't have any social media accounts beyond anonymous forums like this.

I keep waiting for the day I get a knock on the door from guys in black suits asking why I don't and politely but firmly suggesting I get some.
 
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