I used to take my online privacy really seriously, having no social media, not using google or its services, using fake email addresses and fake names, always erasing cookies and site data, all the protections one can take to be tracked as little as possible.
But sharing my life is something that I love, and I don't want it to be private. I find it so awesome that thanks to internet, random people can know what you are doing and who you are. What I don't like about Instagram and other social medias is that I'm giving my data away for free to big corporations and they can do whatever they want with it. To put it another way, I'm not scared about someone random knowing where I live and what I like. Rather I'm upset that people are making money over where I live and what I like.
So lately, I caved in. I stopped making all these efforts to protect my online life because they were tiring, isolating and stripping me of something I liked. And for a few weeks now, I've been using Instagram again and it has been wonderful!
This has made me question myself about why my life with social medias is significantly better when most people seem to say that social media are making their life miserable. And I've come to the conclusion that this is just a question of how you interact with it. Since I haven't had Instagram for years, I have lost the habit of doomscrolling, and I never got into short form content cause it scares me too much. (It's way too addictive and I know I would be stuck like a slug to a window in a matter of minutes). This means that the way I use Instagram now is pretty positive and healthy. I watch stories, catch up on what the few people I follow have posted (Cause there thankfully still is a "following" tab) and post my own pictures or stories. Then I'm done, I close the app and go on with my day, I'm never trapped in the cycle of eternal scrolling since I don't even start scrolling at all.
This has meant that discovery has been happening through people's stories. I see they repost something and get intrigued, so I go on the account that posted the thing initially and sometimes, I follow them. This is in my opinion a great way to organically discover relevant content without letting the algorithms decide for you. Another side benefit from this way of using Instagram is that I feel way less lonely and isolated than I've felt for years. That's because before, the only way I had to find out what events were happening around me was through family and friends. That meant I was missing out on all the events they weren't a part of, and that's quite a lot of events! Since getting back on Instagram, I've had several moments where I simply look at stories and they share some gathering that is happening that week and it gives me opportunities to go and engage with other like minded humans and meet lovely people.
Overall, this has made me reconsider my position on social media a bit. I used to think they were like a bomb, nothing good comes out of them and it only profits rich assholes. But now I see them more like a knife. Very dangerous if you aren't careful but also extremely useful when used for the right reasons. Of course it still profits rich assholes (and that sucks), but it also profits me! And that's a small victory I'm more than happy to take :))
What's your opinion on social medias? Send me a mail so we can talk about it :))