Yup, I deleted my accounts (not just the apps) for Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Snapchat and Instagram a couple of months ago. It’s extremely freeing.
I switched to reading books more. It feels a lot more valuable than just checking the same social networks over and over.
I still check a couple of video game forums sometimes, but that’s about it.
Oh, another thing I was going to recommend is put a long password on your phone. If you need to take 5 to 15 seconds just to input a password to check your phone then you will check it less frequently.
i think my initial post in this thread may have sounded sanctimonious and holier-than-thou or something, but i’m going to just go ahead and double down on that here. y’all can kill me later.
there are a handful of posts in this thread that suggest better options than twitter - certainly, there are better options than twitter - BUT, i think it’s important to add (again, forgive me) that there are better options than looking at your phone all together. there’s a wealth of information out there that will tell you that constant reading of your phone, be it an RSS reader, a friendly messageboard such as this, twitter or facebook, are detrimental to your mental health. replacing a bad internet thing with a “decent” internet thing might be an improvement for you - and if it is, by all means, get on that, but - there’s a lot of evidence that shows that you’re better off just not messing with it in the first place, or avoiding it whenever you can.
maybe you don’t have to look at the internet for work. if you don’t, i would recommend (not a doctor) just cutting it out wherever you can and replacing with something better. there is likely no need for you to keep up with the “discourse” or to “join in the conversation”. automatic actions like these aren’t as useful as they may feel like they are. try something else. take again, for example, sketching - sketching creates a relationship between you as a person/soul, something you see or imagine, and your creative relationship to it. does any of this internet garbage do the same? doubtful. just skip it entirely if you can.
why even kcin !!!
(exclamations demanded)
I’ve never had a FB account which has always tended to throw people for a loop. I remember a university class in freshman year a piece of paper went around for people to put their info on and when I said I didn’t have any I’m pretty sure people just thought I didn’t like them or something.
I’ve never had any followers on Twitter and it’s been curated to pretty much just be either cosplayers, artists, or fighting game combo videos so it’s not too tragic most of the time.
Genuine question: If people like to complain so much about Abby and Ben and the overall greater GB crew for being so left, why do they continue to follow them?
Because then they would have to follow “conservative” video game personalities and that just sounds like hell. Imagine having to listen to snek boy on the daily. 
I’ve never been much of a social media person and I’m paranoid about online surveillance so I generally never posted much on any platform.
The only site I check regularly is tumblr for fun fanart, memes, and videos. However, I had to consciously make an effort to NOT engage for more than 10-15 minutes lest I get trapped endlessly scrolling through posts. This was a difficult habit to break until I started reading up on ethical design practices.
Once I was more conscious of how corporations profit off of our attention and how their websites and apps are intentionally designed to be malicious time sinks it was easier to make hard stops on usage.
Quick Reads on Addictive Design Practices:
I’ve kept twitter even though I hardly ever engage anyone on it, mostly because I feel like I’m bothering people and I rarely have anything worth adding other than an occasional joke. I also kept it because it lets me post switch screenshots online to share elsewhere. I only follow people I like, and I rarely go off into the weeds to find the bullshit.
As for facebook, I found deleting it to be very easy really. My dad and a guy I loathed in high school tried to friend me on the same day, and I noped the fuck out. I don’t even have a bad relationship with my dad either, we get along great, facebook just went from this thing I did for fun and dicked around with friends to this thing I was going to have maintain and curate because of the people watching and it very clearly became a chore instead of a toy. I never deleted it at my then fiancé now wife’s request because she wanted that status to say she was married to me, and I frankly didn’t care enough about deleting it one way or the other to have the discussion.
Different strokes for different folks, but I never really found the urge all that compelling once I was out, but I’m not a massively social person either. Just have a tight, relatively small circle of friends that you open a slack channel with and realize that you don’t really need to know that much about your extended relatives and voila! You too can be like me with no social media footprint to speak of.
Also, as a general rule conservative gaming memes are terrible. Engaging with conservative gaming communities is probably a real bummer.
I deleted Facebook entirely. I’d like to say it was an ideological decision, but honestly it was just because the only activity there was from distant acquaintances and family I didn’t care all that much about, so it was pretty easy to give up. Twitter however is my main source of news and political engagement, and IT IS HELL. Please help.
I’m with you. Instagram is a social network that is generally positive for me. I mostly follow friends and a few powerlifters, but it isn’t a time suck and it’s a good replacement for FB/Twitter for me. Follow positive people and cute animal pages!
Twitter and Facebook were both making me depressed and anxious. It wasn’t so much the news, I still pay attention to that, but it was the overwhelming volume of bad takes that really took a toll on my psyche.
Other than that, it’s just a habit you’ve gotta break. It’s not always a possibility, but I like sleeping with my phone in the next room or on my dresser not immediately next to my bed. After turning off my alarm I like showering and eating breakfast before picking up my phone. It’s not a permanent solution, but it helps me!
I only generally have Facebook for the services which use it for convenience e.g. dating apps. I never really engaged with the idea of Facebook itself. I use Instagram far more as it allows greater connectivity for engaging content.
For what it’s worth (mod hat half-on here), tarring other forums (like Giant Bomb’s) with over-broad generalisations can lead to folks who are active members in those communities feeling slighted, defensive, or frustrated. I’m aware that folks are speaking lightly and not intending to dump on anyone, but just something to be mindful about. If you’re a frustrated past member of a community, you’ve likely been in the position of being the person trying to push back and change it – there still will be people in that position trying to nudge the dial for it.
Apart from all that, I don’t want to a) give a green light to people in other communities to cherry-pick topics from here and put our users here on blast for them, and b) (as a mod) give the mods of other sites more work to do from folks drifting over (not that any of you would do that 
). I’ve dropped the link out of kcin’s post (quoted here) and would discourage this sort of behaviour going forward.
Part of what makes the Waypoint community a great place to be is folks being considerate and being willing to include the extra nuance, which I’d like us to employ when talking about other social spaces too.
yeah i did a bad again
I just uninstalled reddit from my phone and I already feel better. That was such a time suck of nothingness.
Hey, I found this out a month or two ago: You can delete facebook but keep your messenger account. It’s something they absolutely don’t advertise, but it was a huge weight off my shoulders when I deleted my account without losing all my fb contacts and group conversations.
I would, but too many people I follow and want to know what they’re doing post their status on Facebook. I care about these people, and I like knowing about what’s going on in their lives.
After a day and a half of me-specific depression inducing stuff on my social media just deleted Twitter and Instagram off my phone. We’ll see how long it lasts.
Not gonna lie, it’ll be rough, and it won’t get much better with time.
