Social Media Politics affecting anyone elses mood?

[BoyceyLDN]

I have noticed for the last few years social media for me has become very political and wondered if anyone else has noticed this and if so has it turned you away? Also is it here to stay or change do we now just live in a digital political world where before no one had a platform to air views, so people kept them to themselves? Seems now everyone is a armchair / keyboard political expert. I honestly do not want this post to to into a left / right wing bashing thread and I know over the last 4 years we have had a lot going on and big events and even currently but I just find it all abit tiring and depressing seeing the country so divided to be honest. I can tell it is affecting my mood / mental health and wondered how others view things? Everytime i log onto facebook or twitter it just seems to be either side of the fence trying to bash the other side or score political points. What happened to just contacting friends or sharing panda sneezing videos or memes or banter?

Now i know some will say just get rid but sometimes i get market place or seeing whats going on in local area or I am part of a few Car groups on fb. I also enjoy using twitter as a source of news / info etc for example i like to read what people are saying about the PS5 etc. So I feel abit trapped like I want it for certain aspects but it just gets me down in others. I feel it has been declining for years now and I feel I just wanted to see I am not the only one who feels like this?

 

[deusexlumina]

Nope, not just you.

It has turned me away. It doesn't feel like a fun place for me anymore, it just feels like a battleground where people are posting to show everyone how great their life is or the political point scoring as you mentioned. It got to the point where I felt guilty for *not* commenting on current political events on facebook/twitter, as if by not doing so I was taking a side regardless of what I actually thought. The idea of having to "maintain" my appearance on these sites frankly made me want to vomit a little, and I realized that these things were now an overwhelming negative in my life rather than positive.

This is just my experience and I don't think this is the case for everyone, but the majority of my close friends have stopped using it regularly as well and so now I don't see the point in using it myself.

Video calling and group chats have filled the void and allow me to keep in touch with people on a much more personal level.

 

[BoyceyLDN]

Nope, not just you.

It has turned me away. It doesn't feel like a fun place for me anymore, it just feels like a battleground where people are posting to show everyone how great their life is or the political point scoring as you mentioned. It got to the point where I felt guilty for *not* commenting on current political events on facebook/twitter, as if by not doing so I was taking a side regardless of what I actually thought. The idea of having to "maintain" my appearance on these sites frankly made me want to vomit a little, and I realized that these things were now an overwhelming negative in my life rather than positive.

This is just my experience and I don't think this is the case for everyone, but the majority of my close friends have stopped using it regularly as well and so now I don't see the point in using it myself.

Video calling and group chats have filled the void and allow me to keep in touch with people on a much more personal level.

Thanks for taking time to reply and nice to hear someone else is fed up with it, I think it definatly is not a fun place to be and wonder if that will come back? I sometimes want to get rid but then sometime it has its uses, i find myself spending time thinking of social media and what a toxic place it has become and I feel for when I have kids etc.

 

[Fubsy]

I came to this conclusion almost 3 years ago and as a result started the process of purging my FB and Twitter accounts. I kept my Instagram account, but it barely gets used (think there are 30 posts total over the years I've used it).

I haven't missed wasting the time on them. I no longer get wound up by people that just like to get argumentative for the sake of it, I don't have to worry about the latest bandwagons and what not saying anything means for me and the people I know etc. There's no worry that anything I might post on there could be used against me in the future (I'm sure there could be stuff still around that could), and OcUK is no primarily the only place I partake in any online discussion - and I barely do that as I'm more of a passive reader/lurker as it becomes too much hard work to keep up with the never ending arguments on here.

Overall I feel the internet has made us a lot more 'powerful' in the terms of knowledge at our fingertips, but the result is too many people abuse that to just PROVE that they are right, all, the, damn, time! It's ****ing boring man, where's the fun times gone?!

 

[Efour]

Social media gave everyone with worthless opinions a voice.
Now you can always find another 100 idiots that share your worthless opinion to validate it.
Hence there are 200 genders, men have periods and everyone and everything is racist and if you're not racist, you are also a racist.

Yes the proliferation of social media is probably causing 50% of the Wests social problems now

I remember a time when you chose your best speaker and rehearsed what you said. Now you just casualtly call someone a racist c Word and a bunch of other idle threats and go back to loading the dishwasher.

99% of the world's population are decent folk just getting on with life

I get drawn in to the nonsense too often and yes it definitely Polarises your thought process.

I'm more of an a hole because of it.

 

[Junglist]

I find the key to social media is remember it’s not real life, only add friends you care about and don’t treat it as a news source.

I only really gave Instagram I deleted Facebook about 7-8 years ago

 

[EddScott]

Personally, I'm not unhappy with FB. I don't really use it to see what others are doing. I use it mainly for my hobbies etc.

Twitter on the other hand is awful. I put it on my phone couple of weeks ago for stock tips but the tone of nearly every post is so aggressive and politically motivated. Don't think I've read one pleasant tweet.

 

[Kreeeee]

.

 

[Somnambulist]

Unfortunately if the planned SJW revolution - where every single thing is political - and kickback from the extreme at the other end is allowed to carry on unchallenged by the moderate people in the middle, it won't just be social media, none of us will be able to ignore it unless we have a lot of what is known as '**** you money'.

The West is in danger of committing collective civilizational suicide.

 

[LOAM]

I was quite late to the Facebook party so it's always been heavily politicised. I probably have less than 10 posts on FB in the last 5 years and barely read it because of the volume of fake news which then propagates through what appears to be a largely uneducated user base. I used to find it quite sad that many people who I was friends with back in the place I grew up, are largely quite stupid and will believe almost anything they read on social media without even a semblance of critical thinking.

With regards feeling sorry for kids using it, we probably won't allow our girls anywhere near it until they are old enough to understand it for the pit it is. The wife has never had a FB (or any Social Media) account and is seriously against it.

 

[Skillmister]

My usual stance is it's fairly easy to make social media a place where you don't need to moan to an internet forum about how toxic it is by keeping it relatively well purged and therefore mostly see what you want to/are happy to. This has served me well for years never having felt like I need to "get rid" as many on here have felt they need to. It serves a purpose for me and would make life more difficult without it.

However that is being seriously tested at the moment having 3 heavily political and divisive issues on the go simultaneously (Brexit, COVID-19 and BLM). Arguments springing up between close knit groups of friends on all topics, some of which are getting extremely personal. I do fear that a lot of friendships and families won't make it out the other side intact. I decided some time ago to steer clear and not get involved but I'm having to hide multiple posts a day sometimes from people I both agree and disagree with, but mainly due to the arguing going on within them.

 

[Em3bbs]

I've muted a load of words on Twitter which helps a bit, but it does seem pretty relentless now so I'm using it less.

 

[Jono8]

Using twitter has literally radicalised my mum into a right wing racist idiot.

 

[Efour]

Using twitter has literally radicalised my mum into a right wing racist idiot.

Lol my mum too turned into a nazi since heavily using Facebook... It's brilliant.

 

[chorse]

I find social media useful for news, if segmented entirely. Facebook is pure social, and I don't read any political stuff on there, and snooze friends as necessary to maintain it.

Twitter is just for news for me. I find it more useful for following quite niche experts on broader news topics. You can also more easily curate a more balanced view. Takes discipline but if you can follow two experts with opposing views on the same issue, that for me is better value than reading a biased newspaper, and much less an echo chamber than a social group.

 

[Yadda]

Using twitter has literally radicalised my mum into a right wing racist idiot.

Lol my mum too turned into a nazi since heavily using Facebook... It's brilliant.

I have a relative who's quite new to tech and social media and is a heavy Facebook user. She's now a lot more right-wing and has also given up meat.

What a time to be alive.

 

[Yas786]

Definitely has turned me away, pretty much deleted all my social media especially Facebook.

 

[rare]

I’m only on a few car groups that sort of thing on Facebook. I’ve come off Instagram and Twitter. They are poison.

Twitter is the absolute worst. Frankly it’s turning decent reasonable people in to fringe lunatics (on both sides).

I found Twitter was having a profound impact on me for a while. Elevated stress, racing heart, anxiety. It’s a constant battleground and no one ‘wins’, it’s just constant, threats, intimidation. For the love of god, come off it!

 

[mmj_uk]

I find the key to social media is remember it’s not real life, only add friends you care about and don’t treat it as a news source.

It's spilling out into the real world though, all of the youth who have been brought up inside social media bubbles and think they need to destroy their country to bring about paradise are now going out onto the streets. Western nations are the most accommodating and tolerant countries on Earth but you wouldn't know it to listen to people on social media, China are literally throwing ethnic communities into camps and they not only get a free pass but a lot of social media users would probably prefer Xi Jinping (a self appointed dictator) to rule them, over our current democratically elected western leaders.

 

[Narj]

Nope - staying away from social media and also not having a smart phone= better mental health IMO.

I've been feeling a bit ground down by the news, so now I'm avoiding that too.