For me it’s input. I have a continually thinking mind that feels that I must have something to say on anything. Whenever I’ve gotten rid of a Reddit account or took even a day or two off from activity on the internet. I had an itch to say something whenever something is reported or something I’ve seen while browsing that peaked my interest.

And I feel I have to say something on it, even if small. But yet I try to restrain myself from doing so because of how manufactured social media has become today.

It’s gotten a little better, mainly because you know, after registering so many accounts for so long and having to upkeep so many. It is tiring to do for me so I think I’m finally slowing down from that to where this issue won’t nearly be as big as it once was.

  • Kojichan@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    For me, it’s a lack of meaningful contact with my family on the other side of the country.

    Facebook and other social media sources are turning into just giant vanity “me me me!” and shit posting. Nothing more meaningful came out of it… So I abandoned it.

    It’s hard to keep track of so many different media outlets as well, and got tiring. Especially with a lot of doom scrolling posts… Such a downer.

    • Thomrade@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      I mean, you’re on Lemmy and Lemmy is social media. Granted its user hosted but its still social media, with a lot of the same pitfalls.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Apparently Lemmy, because I’m still on Lemmy.

    My serious answer is similar to yours. I want to talk about things I see on the news, but most people I know IRL either don’t want to talk about heavy stuff or agree with me about almost everything. Lemmy provides a place to debate (sometimes).

  • Biezelbob@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    Reddit, because of the solutions to some obscure problem.

    I have score view off on Lemmy so it actually feels like a forum with worthwhile discussions. I deblocked some users and instances and my experirence is much better right now.

    Also homeservers/instances and federation feel like I have the power over my experience instead of what powerusers shovel into my face. Allthough I do see an incline of “redditness” on the larger instances…

    Im between Reddit and Lemmy I started custom RSS feeds for a while. I still use that too, not really social media though.

  • bigtiddyvampirewaifu@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    I stopped using social media a little over a year ago, except for Reddit. Now my challenge will be weaning off of Reddit, once the paywalls hit.

    • all-knight-party@kbin.run
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      3 months ago

      What do you mean by paywalls? I got off reddit when the whole paying for API by third party apps thing happened and don’t know what’s going on after that point

  • punkaccountant@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Well I haven’t dropped social media entirely because….I’m here. But about 2 years ago I got completely off of FB…I had been off Instagram for a while, never did TikTok and rarely used Twitter or chat style social media. I cancelled my Reddit account during the API thing and came here…but still occasionally lurk without an account there. And the reason is this…what I really miss is other people’s thoughts. Sane, crazy, silly, angry…whatever. I love to learn random facts, I love to watch a tv show and see what everyone else thinks, and I like reading what the average person thinks about world news and yes, even politics (though I always keep in mind that bots and trolls are a thing). I liked it on Reddit because if I read something that seemed off to me, it wasn’t connected to the face of my beloved Aunt, or well intentioned but batty mother. It was a face in the crowd but it was a way to find out thoughts from people outside my bubble.

    Podcasts are helping because a lot are run by just normal people…so I get a bit of a “fix” there. But I love watching something or reading a random book and then just searching it on Reddit to see what other people thought. I really hope one day Lemmy grows enough to fulfill that for me. It’s getting closer for sure.