Which Social Media Platforms Do You Use?

[Orius]

I don't use social media in general. Never seen the point. If I were running a business, it would be different because it's an advertising platform.

I use YouTube but that's to keep track of videos and such. I'm not a significant content creator.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't use social media in general. Never seen the point. If I were running a business, it would be different because it's an advertising platform.

That's a good point. Most "social media" platforms these days are more about ad distribution than anything else.

One objective of a social media platform is to connect the user with other people with similar interests, sure. But their main objective is to gather personal information about the user and sell it to advertisers, who will then use that info to post targeted ads in the user's feed. Some platforms are more discreet than others, but yeah...this is the business model. The 'connect people with each other' is an afterthought at best (or bait, at worst.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, you can make a distinction between what the purpose of the people hosting it and the people using it are. They're often quite different (i.e. the old "if you're not paying for it, you're not the market you're the product" line is true, but people find their own uses for platforms).

 

[schneeland]

Excluding forums, I'm registered on 7 of them that I use at least from time to time. However, if we talk about active use, then it's really only Discord, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. And I don't really treat the latter two as part of the social space and more as content delivery networks.

 

[Guest 7034872]

I try not to. I haven't seen much decency come from them.

 

[Bohandas]

I don't think Youtube really counts in most cases. If you just have an account but aren't uploading videos it's really closer to a streaming service or video on demand.

 

[Bohandas]

I used to have a mostly blank placeholder Facebook account way back when, solely because it was necessary to be able to read some stuff online, but it got terminated when they decided you had to use your real name on it... they wouldn't let me start a new account with the same email address and I wasn't about to bother getting a new email address just to set up an account I was never going to use anyway.

I too absolutely refuse to use my real name online.

I think it's a travesty that companies like facebook are even allowed to request that, let alone require it.

 

[Bohandas]

I would say that I avoid Facebook and Twitter like the plague, but since 2020 I've come to realize that that's an understatement

 

[Zardnaar]

Mostly YouTube with a bit of reddit and very little Facebook.

 

[Bohandas]

Excluding forums, I'm registered on 7 of them that I use at least from time to time. However, if we talk about active use, then it's really only Discord, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. And I don't really treat the latter two as part of the social space and more as content delivery networks.

I agree. I'd say that Youtube is if anything, closer to a being a streaming service, albeit one that's as supported rather than subscription based and that acts as in intermediary for third-party content creators rather than creating their own media in house or licnesing corporate works