No regrets. Facebook was fun for a while. Then it stopped being fun, so I deleted my account. The others I either tried but never saw the point so deleted almost immediately, or couldn’t see any appeal and so never tried at all. Perhaps if I’d stayed on Facebook longer I would have regretted not having deleted it sooner.

I have stopped using most soc-networking sites mainly because everything is endless ragebait. The human brain tends to focus more on negative feelings than positive ones and algos sure know how to optimize that for their own profits. Not to mention it creates a warped sense of view of humanity and seeing demons in people when there is none.

I regret that we don't have sufficiently strong operating systems. I don't know what I could have done differently over the past 40 years to have changed that, I doubt there is anything. This is, in my estimation, the root cause of much of the grief we now suffer with the Internet in general.

Because we can't run our own servers without substantial risks, almost everyone is forced into the walled gardens where network effects make it feasible to economically run the servers, and the administrative staff to keep them running, and somewhat secure. This provides the honeypot that then draws in advertisement and all the ills that go with it, as we're not the customers, we're the product.

I would hope that we can collectively get our security act together, which will as a byproduct make it easy for everyone to run their own servers without risk. But that's always been 20 years off, like fusion power. Everyone seems to think that Linux is good enough, which it isn't, but here we are. 8(

I'm just going to copy paste a comment I made in a different thread.

One problem for me about leaving social media is that it limits my chances of getting updates about jobs, and if I start a business, social media is a good way of promoting the business. I wish I was in a financial position where I didn't have to bother about this.

I've been limiting my use of social media (aside Reddit and HN) for almost two weeks now and I've been reading books and doing other things with my time rather than consuming content that isn't beneficial to me.

Check out the Wikipedia article - The Shallows

"""

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. The book claims research shows "online reading" yields lower comprehension than reading a printed page. The Shallows was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

"""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shallows_(book)

Stopped using them when I realized I had stopped seeing posts from my actual friends and family.

It’s mostly endless reels and ads now and I have to scroll for way too long before I see a post from someone I’m connected to/friends with. Bored of it all.

No. Not at all.

My life has been made better through social media use.

I am more connected to people who live far away. More connected to people of different backgrounds and have connections to people who I never would have met but for the ability to discover shared interests online.

Do you know what was really detrimental to people's lives, being tied to the land by birth and laboring for the benefit of the Pharaoh, King, Lord, Brahman, Sultan, Emperor, etc. And only if you were lucky, you weren't killed in some dumb war, by famine, or just for shits and giggles. Good luck.

I do regret using my government name or some version of it on so many accounts.