The Enshitification and Appification of friendship, love & connection
When I first read the post above it blew my mind. Previously I had realized about half of the connections and premises but never really had the whole picture. I had never totally grasped at how far reaching, and absolutely dehumanizing, it all is.
I likely (also) did not realize the full extent of it due to the fact that for many years now I have resolved to use as little Social Media as possible and practical. Essentially: only Reddit, messengers and watching but never interacting on YouTube.
Hence about half of the apps or sites that are mentioned in the post, I have never installed nor used, or in one or two case I stopped using them or deleted them years ago. All the social media apps (besides Reddit), I did once have, I sincerely wish I had never ever installed, despite 90% of my real friends having had or still having far more social media than I then and even today. I still remain friends with them, we meet up, communicate and are aware of each other's lives. Getting off the social media treadmill, has not been a problem for me, it has been a boon.
Generally I endevour to every year have a little less screen time rather than more. And to be deliberate about what that screen time consists of: really quality series enjoyed with my girlfriend and inspiring or educational blogs and YouTube videos are great. Mindless, repetitive, depressing or rage-but-0-action inducing content, not interested.
I often have pondered: "Is there an almost direct correlation with how many actual friends, IRL meetups, peak moments and fun I have and how little of the apps and sites mentioned in the above Reddit post I use?" The answer for me certainly been a resounding: "Yes!"
Real life got better, when I chose to switch my focus to real life, to only use a few online things, to try and bring (new) connections to the real world as quickly and as much as possible. All my actual friends I talk to more now, online (when geography precludes in person chats) and IRL, than when I still had more social media.
I would be very surprised if for many people it would not prove the same.
Here I write a little about some a number of different and possible ways and activities to make memories and friends, at any age:
https://anon0.bearblog.dev/you-are-not-dead-yet-live-make-friends-memories-at-any-age/
This post is about how to built really successful and sustainable group of friends to play D&D with:
https://anon0.bearblog.dev/howtocreatettrpgroupsthatrunanythingbut5e/