First of all, before writing my opinions - if you want a quick answer, try going to Prism-Break.org, choose your OS, and scroll to the āSocial Mediaā section. Lots of more trustworthy alternatives there, although I doubt any of them are comparable to what youāre used to they could at least be a start.
Iām not nearly as social as most people so take what I say for what itās worth.
But Iāve thought for a long time that people need to change their outlook on what a healthy social life really is. Things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr are terribly unhealthy in my honest opinion.
Why? Well, three main reasons.
First is that itās turning peopleās social lives into a game of numbers. Nobody can really be friends with more than roughly 150 people (see Dunbarās Number - I personally believe it to be far less, but I think the number depends on your social energy level and personal interest level in maintaining your social life, and mine is probably lower than most). People are adding anyone they happened to have passed in the hallway once in middle school. Itās just stupid and insane.
Second, it makes people compare their entire lives to only the highlights of others. Making people worried about not achieving as much as others. Itās also making people care about all kinds of other things that they normally wouldnāt care about, and extends peer pressures and bullying to home - you can never escape it anymore, if youāre a part of these.
Lastly, itās reinforcing peopleās vanity. Everythingās a āLook at me!ā contest. This is a smaller nit-pick and has been how humans, especially affluent ones who lack self-awareness, have been for a long time - but social media is really exacerbating it to far worse extents than ever. Itās really bringing out the worst in people.
Overall, I think people who are on social media find that many of their interpersonal relationships are empty because they donāt bother to focus on building just a few meaningful ones, and theyāre more often depressed because they compare themselves to others too much.
The solution?
You donāt need social media in the way that Facebook wants you to think you do.
You just want to be able to communicate with your close friends, to have a channel youāre able to talk with them over at any time even though youāre not physically in front of them.
Just get a good chat client and add your real friends to it. Donāt worry about the thousands of fluff people that really donāt bear much meaning in your life.
Iād recommend an open-source Linux client (see Prism-Break.org - choose your OS and scroll down to the āSocial Networksā, Instant Messaging", āIRCā, or āVoIPā categories), but I know that getting people to join those things is nearly impossible. Skype and Discord are what Iāve had to deal with. Theyāre not clean of evil either, but itāll have to do. If youāre really sensitive about security, just be sure to run them on a separate device and network band (preferably different router entirely) from your secure one.
Itās far better than messing with actual social media sites.
I donāt have to listen to people go on about their vacations, āthe gymā, or post āI Am Very Deepā poems or song lyrics and other vaguebooking nonsense from people I barely know. These are frankly people I can do without.
Now everyoneās right there in my chat client and I can just ping them whenever I want to talk.
And thatās all in addition to the massive security / privacy issues⦠which are the real main point, but you all already know about that so it wasnāt worth bringing up.