Which Social Media Platforms Do You Use?

GrimCo said:

Why is Whatsapp on the list? It's app for voice calls and messaging. People use it as a substitute for regular calls and SMS. Same with Signal. Sure, you can add status, and they introduced channels, but no matter how much Meta tries to push that crap, people don't really care for those features.

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Both Signal and WhatsApp can be used for group messaging and if people don't like either, then that will be reflected in the responses.

Ryujin said:

Both Signal and WhatsApp can be used for group messaging and if people don't like either, then that will be reflected in the responses.

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Sure, but you can have group messaging via MMS. If that's criteria, than basic message app in your phone is social media. Both SIgnal and Wapp require you, as group chat admin, to have someones phone number in your contacts if you want to add them into chat.

CleverNickName said:

And you are considered to "use a platform" if you have created an account for it, and that account is still active (meaning that you can log back in if you wanted.)

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I feel like this is an un-usefully overbroad definition of "use a platform", I think you should have to have at least actively used it in say, the last six months. Like, I have a Facebook account, have I posted on Facebook in the last five years? No. Have even looked at Facebook in the last six months? No.

This definition is kind of more "Are you the kind of person who goes around deleting accounts you're not using" than "do you actively use a platform".

Like, I have accounts on most things. I almost never delete accounts - who the hell does? That's a weird kind of specific behaviour that like, maybe 5-10% of people engage in. That's not a criticism of those people, but that's like, not "how people act" in general. It's the exception not the norm.

If we narrowed it even further to more than just reading posts, and pressing like, then it'd basically just be message boards, WhatsApp, Discord and Reddit for me. Like Twitch, I don't watch Twitch unless someone I know has specifically pointed me to a specific stream, have never booted it up without a specific goal, but I have a Twitch account.

Also is WhatsApp really "social media"? I guess it could be if you went around joining groups of mostly-strangers, and I guess some people do (and I get to hear horrible stories about such groups lol), but I literally only use to talk to friends and relatives (and occasionally co-workers, but usually only when they cross over into the friend zone).

Deset Gled said:

I'm still a member of an active listserv.

I can't help but feel like people claiming ENWorld and other forums aren't social media is a bit like the folks who want to claim they never watch TV but also swear DVDs/streaming/whatever doesn't count.

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Or the folks who live for their social media addiction on platforms like TikTok, X, Bluesky, etc, need to lump in forums as social media to make the toxic stuff more palatable.

Not that forums cannot grow toxic but I find social media platforms scary like when people on FB are start using the exact same talking points.

Thomas Shey said:

I acknowledge you think so. Now you'll have to acknowledge I think they have considerable overlap in how they work in practice. I've seen discussions in all three that were not meaningfully different than they'd have been in one of the others.

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Sure, I'm not saying they are impossible to use. I used Discord for awhile, I dont know how it is now but I dont consider it 'social media' either, any more than irc back in the day (is that still in use?).

I also admit, that there is potential to find information in reddit, that is not available elsewhere, but the tech itself, how it functions in terms of potentially silencing conflicting or unpopular opinions, I take issue with.

Its not the worst thing, that would be peak Twitter, but its up there.

Scribe said:

Sure, I'm not saying they are impossible to use. I used Discord for awhile, I dont know how it is now but I dont consider it 'social media' either, any more than irc back in the day (is that still in use?).

I also admit, that there is potential to find information in reddit, that is not available elsewhere, but the tech itself, how it functions in terms of potentially silencing conflicting or unpopular opinions, I take issue with.

Its not the worst thing, that would be peak Twitter, but its up there.

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Discord is pretty much what you make of it, I find. I'm on a few fan Discords, but also have a couple that are essentially like a private Facebook for just friends. The same was true of Slack, a few years back.

Scribe said:

Sure, I'm not saying they are impossible to use. I used Discord for awhile, I dont know how it is now but I dont consider it 'social media' either, any more than irc back in the day (is that still in use?).

I also admit, that there is potential to find information in reddit, that is not available elsewhere, but the tech itself, how it functions in terms of potentially silencing conflicting or unpopular opinions, I take issue with.

Its not the worst thing, that would be peak Twitter, but its up there.

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I'm not saying I prefer Reddit or Discords over discussion boards; I find the formats kind of annoying for any extensive discussion in either.

I'm just saying that trying to draw a bright line between them and other social media seems to be off. There are ones that seem fundamentally different here (Pinterest, for example, serves a completely different function far as I can tell, and at least a couple of the others) but whether or not elements of the format push for engagement (I'm not a fan of how FB does this, but it doesn't change the situation in individual FB groups appreciably) does not seem the point.

Ryujin said:

Discord is pretty much what you make of it, I find. I'm on a few fan Discords, but also have a couple that are essentially like a private Facebook for just friends. The same was true of Slack, a few years back.

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Discord, in my experience, works pretty well for relatively small groups, but the larger the active user base of a given Discord is, the more useless it becomes. Even the small ones are suboptimal for extensive discussion on a single topic, though (theoretically the threading option helps here, but not as much as people will sometimes suggest).

I checked the 10 that I have accounts for, but of those I only regularly use reddit, discord, YouTube and WhatsApp. The others I keep but I do not access them (phone apps removed off phone, bookmarks removed) and they are usually kept for keeping in touch with family though I have informed everyone on these platforms that I don't check them and if they want to chat then add me to a WhatsApp chat.

Bluesky and Masterdon have accounts because of the whole Twitter/X malarky and TBH, I never used the accounts after an initial post or two.

Like @CleverNickName said, I found keeping tabs on all those accounts became a mental health issue and also, a massive time sink and stress inducer. These days I only have social media to keep up with friends (WhatsApp) and for subbing to like-minded folks on reddit and some discord servers, and I watch a lot of stuff on YouTube (mostly TTRPG, Astronomy, some musicians I follow, and some CAD / 3D printing stuff).