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Does anyone else find social media boring?

Social media marketing, advertising, and growth

Xeon

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This is what Next-Level Instagram looks like:

Couple beg strangers for holiday cash because getting a job 'isn't an option'

678a0afd90a3e1849186dbd39a199125.png
 
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StrikingViper69

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LuckyPup

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I don't mean as a business/marketing tool. For that I can understand its use.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who doesn't care about social media.

I'm in my late 20s.

Anyone have any comments or thoughts on this?
It's heartening to see that several of you younger guys eschew social media. I've been hoping the pendulum would swing away from it's use for some time. Hat tip to you all!
 

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Took my 21 yo stepson to a Facebook/Instagram for Business workshop last week.

Everything went over his head because him and his buddies meet up if they want to chat. He said he can’t see the point of social media, except for business.

There’s hope for us yet.
 
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Tourmaline

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In all fairness, forums like this are old school social media.

I use social media for groups that talk about things I'm interested in talking about, typically related to my niche or for wisdom.

There's a lot of noise on social media for sure, but there's also a lot of ability to talk about different ideas too. It's an evolution of forums in my view.
 

struka

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I took a break from it and now it’s not as appealing. I still use it just to sell things on Marketplace.
 

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I only use it to make money. I just don't know why so many people get on any of them but I am not complaining. If people didn't use it.... my businesses wouldn't be thriving! But..... none of my family or friends know anything about any of the accounts that makes me money. If I want to know what my family is doing, I'll wait until Christmas and ask them :rofl: ;)
 
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Xeon

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Tourmaline

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Very cool! Amazing really...
 

MattR82

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Facebook has become like one giant big udemy course for me the last 2 years. I love what I've learnt from groups. And I'm thankful to be in touch often with my family while I've been away travelling.

You have to use it correctly.
 
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Suzanne Bazemore

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I took a break from it and now it’s not as appealing. I still use it just to sell things on Marketplace.
Same thing happened to me - I took a break two years ago because I was on a camping trip and didn't have wifi access. It was so peaceful. Now I hate getting on, especially facebook. It's amusing to witness how addicted people are to it.
 

struka

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Same thing happened to me - I took a break two years ago because I was on a camping trip and didn't have wifi access. It was so peaceful. Now I hate getting on, especially Facebook. It's amusing to witness how addicted people are to it.
I felt like mine was a habit. I would mindlessly click on it when I was bored or waiting in line for something. I removed social media from my phone and set up 66 days on my calendar to break this habit. I did access social media a couple of times during this but mainly to check if anything sold or check my contact for something. Other than that, I couldn't access it.

I also started to do this with other apps that may interfere with my focus. I removed them from my phone and have them on my tablet (not social media).
 

Matt Hunt

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I like it for keeping in touch with family & friends who live in other states. Beyond that, I've definitely considered seriously purging my friends list, as there are many on there who I never interact with and likely won't ever see again in real-life. Like people I went to high school with... but we weren't even friends in high school.
 
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Tourmaline

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I purged my Facebook friends list recently. I had people on my friends list from high school or college that I didn't even like or respect!!!!

Removing them felt like relieving myself of a burden. As odd as that may seem. It was like by keeping them on my friends list, I was upholding a lie.
 

struka

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I like it for keeping in touch with family & friends who live in other states. Beyond that, I've definitely considered seriously purging my friends list, as there are many on there who I never interact with and likely won't ever see again in real-life. Like people I went to high school with... but we weren't even friends in high school.

This was one of the reasons I liked Facebook, to see my family in other states and countries but with the new algorithms, I never saw any new things from my family members but useless stuff. I ended up creating two accounts, one old with friends and other with just family.
 

EPerceptions

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I've kept FB strictly to family and real life friends from the start. I originally joined as a way to keep in touch with my kids when they were first deployed overseas. Once my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. also joined, I discovered it was the easiest way to distribute family pictures each time I go traveling.

In the past year or two I've discovered YouTube is nice for learning things, and Instagram can be selectively as well. I've tossed around the idea of creating a time lapse travel YouTube channel as a creative outlet but haven't decided if it's worth it yet.
 
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Matt Hunt

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I've tossed around the idea of creating a time lapse travel YouTube channel as a creative outlet but haven't decided if it's worth it yet.

If it's just to do something creative, I'd say go for it. If you're trying to make money, you may be disappointed. Though there are certainly ways to monetize. I have 2k subscribers on my mountain biking YouTube channel. The YouTube ad revenue just pays for my Adobe suite. Really the best way to monetize on YouTube is to have a product or service you're selling. Then YouTube is actually just a marketing tool.
 

EPerceptions

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If it's just to do something creative, I'd say go for it. If you're trying to make money, you may be disappointed. Though there are certainly ways to monetize. I have 2k subscribers on my mountain biking YouTube channel. The YouTube ad revenue just pays for my Adobe suite. Really the best way to monetize on YouTube is to have a product or service you're selling. Then YouTube is actually just a marketing tool.


Agreed. The pictures are licensed through agencies and/or to publishers, and sometimes sold as prints, so the YouTube would mostly just be a fun thing for road trips that could also double as a marketing tool when desired. Google has a habit of routinely slashing and trashing momentum every few years though, which is why I hesitate to contribute to their properties.
 

Ismail941

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Yes Facebook is almost became a Dancing Monkey & Soap Opera Shows
One thing is for sure that insecure people want external validation like: "Please give me LIKE" on my post
But I think Few FB Groups are helpful like Click Funnel & Sales FB Groups

I have start using TFL Forum from last month. I felt like I am back in Old School Forum like back in the day Board Message Forum thingy in Website. Its awesome!
 
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Xeon

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Mattie

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talk about different ideas too.
I believe it amounts to talking in the sense of socializing like you're in the neighborhood park or festival, chit chatting about everything in life, and becomes a major distraction of anyone really getting anything done. It's kind of like the Baby Boomers used to sit on the telephone landline for hours gossiping about people in town. Really, it never made them any money, they sat on a stool tied to to the wall. That's old school, not the forum.
 

Kevin88660

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I don't mean as a business/marketing tool. For that I can understand its use.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who doesn't care about social media.

I'm in my late 20s.

Anyone have any comments or thoughts on this?
I find youtube good for learning new things. Other than that nothing at all.
 
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lowtek

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lowtek

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Social media is worse than boring, it's destructive to society. It's literally breaking down the fabric of society.

Society is built upon the niceties we show each other in our interactions. Social media removes even this thin veneer of civility and interactions escalate into levels of hostility that individuals would never engage in face to face. The amount of alienation and division along arbitrary lines (i.e. liberal vs. conservative, where each side is little more than a loose collection of corporatist positions).

Second order effects include:

It's allowed disaffected n'er do wells to organize for the purposes of "protesting", which is just an excuse to be violent (ala Antifa)

It provides a mechanism for bullying companies into complicity with the desires of vocal minorities. How many people have been fired for wrong think?

Our data has been sold off to the lowest bidder for stoking the fires of consumption.

It has provided a permanent record for lapses in judgement, that will certainly come back to haunt the person.
 

Tourmaline

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@lowtek Are there any positives to social media? Are forums not social media too?
 
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lowtek

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@lowtek Are there any positives to social media? Are forums not social media too?

Of course, it's not all bad. I reconnected with some long lost family members on Facebook, for which I am eternally grateful. Of course, now I simply call them and don't bother messaging them on Fedbook.

However, on balance, they are a force for social ill. The anti social aspects of it are only the top of that rabbit hole. They are inherently designed to be addicting; to keep the user on for as long as possible (so they can be advertised to as much as possible). They appeal to the narcissism in us, and allow people to paint a portrait of their lives as they wish it to be. This in and of itself isn't so bad, but the end result is that many people feel as if their lives are somehow not as worthwhile by comparison. At a time when almost half the population is on mind altering drugs to regulate their mood, I really don't see how this is a good combination.

You can make the case that forums are a type of social media, sure. There is a significant difference, however. This is a gathering place for a community. We're aligned along a common goal and shared values. We also regulate ourselves to keep toxic behavior in check. This regulation is both horizontal (i.e. if I see people acting out of hand I speak up, as do other members) as well as vertical (i.e. moderators chosen for their enduring contributions). The combination of these factors make this forum, and others like it, an oasis of civility in a desert populated with barbarians.

Forums like Reddit (for the most part, I'm sure there are some good subreddits) are a cess pool due to multiple factors. Moderators are often power tripping, and with no benevolent dictator at the top to keep them in check, they can squash the voices of those who dissent and try to mess up the echo chamber. I get the impression that many of them have little going on in real life and try to compensate by climbing the social hierarchy of Reddit through virtue signalling and adhering to their programming.

The greatest value of social media, to us, is in its ability to help us build our businesses. Beyond that, I really couldn't care less if all of them disappeared tomorrow. I uninstalled Fedbook from my phone over a year ago and rarely visit it on the desktop. I hardly use Twitter, because it's one of the most insane places on the internet. LinkedIn is tolerable, but every time I get a connection request from a "web developer" it's nothing more than a cut and paste weak a$$ pitch for their shitty $25 / hr coding; no doubt outsourced to the lowest bidder in the third world.

I spend way more time on this forum than any other social media outlet, and my life is much better for it.
 

Andy Black

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Of course, it's not all bad. I reconnected with some long lost family members on Facebook, for which I am eternally grateful. Of course, now I simply call them and don't bother messaging them on Fedbook.

However, on balance, they are a force for social ill. The anti social aspects of it are only the top of that rabbit hole. They are inherently designed to be addicting; to keep the user on for as long as possible (so they can be advertised to as much as possible). They appeal to the narcissism in us, and allow people to paint a portrait of their lives as they wish it to be. This in and of itself isn't so bad, but the end result is that many people feel as if their lives are somehow not as worthwhile by comparison. At a time when almost half the population is on mind altering drugs to regulate their mood, I really don't see how this is a good combination.

You can make the case that forums are a type of social media, sure. There is a significant difference, however. This is a gathering place for a community. We're aligned along a common goal and shared values. We also regulate ourselves to keep toxic behavior in check. This regulation is both horizontal (i.e. if I see people acting out of hand I speak up, as do other members) as well as vertical (i.e. moderators chosen for their enduring contributions). The combination of these factors make this forum, and others like it, an oasis of civility in a desert populated with barbarians.

Forums like Reddit (for the most part, I'm sure there are some good subreddits) are a cess pool due to multiple factors. Moderators are often power tripping, and with no benevolent dictator at the top to keep them in check, they can squash the voices of those who dissent and try to mess up the echo chamber. I get the impression that many of them have little going on in real life and try to compensate by climbing the social hierarchy of Reddit through virtue signalling and adhering to their programming.

The greatest value of social media, to us, is in its ability to help us build our businesses. Beyond that, I really couldn't care less if all of them disappeared tomorrow. I uninstalled Fedbook from my phone over a year ago and rarely visit it on the desktop. I hardly use Twitter, because it's one of the most insane places on the internet. LinkedIn is tolerable, but every time I get a connection request from a "web developer" it's nothing more than a cut and paste weak a$$ pitch for their shitty $25 / hr coding; no doubt outsourced to the lowest bidder in the third world.

I spend way more time on this forum than any other social media outlet, and my life is much better for it.
I like Facebook groups. Some are very well run, have a good culture, and are formed around an interest I have. They have the benefits of a forum, although they’re more “messagy” in nature and content disappears quickly - which I find a bit frustrating.

I log into Facebook a lot to check various groups I’m in. If I could turn off the newsfeed on my phone then I would.

Facebook groups can be different from consuming all the random content in our newsfeed.

Facebook is apparently putting more emphasis on groups and messaging, and less on the newsfeed.
 

luniac

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Maybe you're not following the right accounts?

My IG feed has all kinds of great information that makes me seek out new information and see things in a perspective that I might have not thought of before. In fact, Id say a big contributor to me going vegan was the information and perspective shifts I found on Instagram.

That said, I'm not on it longer than a few minutes per day.

And when I see "lifestyle posts" of stupid shit, I quickly unfollow.

but how do you get your complete proteins and B12 as a vegan?
that keeps me too scared to try.
i am appalled by factory farms and only buy the more humane meats. helps me sleep at night.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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but how do you get your complete proteins and B12 as a vegan?

You're right. I don't get enough protein. Or B12. In fact, I'm gonna die soon from eating all these plants.

Joking aside, my last blood test showed it was fine, if anything, perhaps too high.

Protein hasn't been an issue for me, veganism is not all about salads, kale, and quinoa. I haven't had any issues building or preserving muscle. My vice/challenge is always carbs/sugar ... I went through a period of "vegan junk food" last year that got me a little pudgy, but that's mostly gone now.
 

luniac

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You're right. I don't get enough protein. Or B12. In fact, I'm gonna die soon from eating all these plants.

Joking aside, my last blood test showed it was fine, if anything, perhaps too high.

Protein hasn't been an issue for me, veganism is not all about salads, kale, and quinoa. I haven't had any issues building or preserving muscle. My vice/challenge is always carbs/sugar ... I went through a period of "vegan junk food" last year that got me a little pudgy, but that's mostly gone now.

lol nice.
if you're still alive in 5 years and don't look like Yoda, i may become a believer.
 

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