I just did something crazy ya'll. I just signed off all (or at least the majority) of all my social media sites, deleted them from my favorites bar and my phone and I have no intention of signing on to any other for a long while. So what brought this on? Well, for a while now I've felt like social media was losing it's original purpose and gaining a whole new (not so great) purpose. Here are my real feelings about social media sites, get ready for some ranting.
Facebook: Ok, Facebook started out great for me. I used it to actually talk to people and I reconnected with some old friends from South Carolina. But I don't use it like that anymore. When I get on Facebook, I'm not expecting to see a new message from a friend or notifications. I'm getting on only to see whats going on in the lives of people I haven't actually talked to in over 4 years. First of all, that's creepy. Looking in on the lives of people who are not even my friends or relatives is not right. And, of course, if you're doing that to other people, you can pretty much guarantee other people are using Facebook to creep on you. My second issue with Facebook is that the majority of the stuff people post there are random things that have no significance. Why do I care who ate a chicken sandwich for lunch or who has a runny nose? I really don't, but you wouldn't know that by how much time I spend on Facebook everyday. One last thing before I end my rant on Facebook. Even if someone does actually post some major life moment on Facebook, don't you think that if they really wanted me to know, they would contact me. I am willing to give my phone number, email address, actual address to anyone who asks for it (as long as I actually know the person). That way they can send me a text and say "Hey, Bob just asked me to marry him!" and I can respond saying "Wow, that's great! Congrats to you and Bob." Even texting is better than communicating through a change in relationship status. Ok, seriously last thing: people will say "But I use Facebook when I have group work for school and I have to contact the people in my group." Never once, during high school or college, have I used Facebook to contact group members for school work.
Twitter: Ok, Twitter is better than Facebook. I do follow some news programs so at least every once in a while I'll hear some actual news. Also, following celebrities is pretty cool too because sometimes bands announce up coming tours on Twitter and it's always fun to witness a celebrity Twitter meltdown. But for the most part Twitter is even more mundane than Facebook. Twitter is where we read all about what Kim Kardashian had for lunch and how much people drank the night before. I am guilty of boring tweets and every time I tweet something I think to myself "who on earth would be interested in this?" Truth: not many people are.
Pinterest: Pinterest has gone from my favorite to my least favorite social media in a very short amount of time. I would love Pinterest if the only things on there where recipes, crafts and diy home decor. The funny pictures can stay too. But people just can't stop at that, can they? Nothing makes me more mad than the pictures that people pin of women with so much muscle and so little fat that, if they weren't wearing such a small amount of clothing, it would be hard to tell whether they were women or men. And they always say something ridiculous like "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" or "Won't stop until I'm perfect". And then they call it "Pinsperation". They only thing that inspires me to do is get off Pinterest faster. I know you can just follow the boards you're interested and that brings me to my second point on Pinterest. It's a huge time suck. If I only followed boards I liked I would be able to waste entire days on that website. I keep the crazy things around so I have some motivation to stop pinning. Even with the things I don't like, I've managed to waste hours at a time pinning recipes and knitting patterns that I've never made. When I think about how much time I've wasted since I first got on Pinterest, I'm seriously mad about it. I could have done so many other things with that time, like knit some socks or read a book, but no, I was too busy looking at pictures of Grumpy Cat.
There are a couple social networks I am keeping around. I'll still use Ravelry because it's a great place to find knitting patterns and talk about knitting and for the most part, that's all people use it for. I'm also keeping my Instagram because, let's face it, my pictures look better through a filter. This no social networking thing might not last forever, but for know, I'm done with it.
