I deleted my social media accounts

> Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on

This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post blasted to hundreds (or thousands) of people. Or, to put it another way: if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them.

I'd argue that social media has normalized keeping up with people who aren't supposed to be part of your life forever. But, we should take a step back and realize that not everything should or will last forever. If you cross paths again then you can catch up, but having life updates constantly? No thanks.

>Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on.

TBH I have no idea where or if my friend post stuff on social media anymore. I know maybe 1 person that posted updates often on Facebook, and that was pre-pandemic. Some post more business stuff on twitter.

But overall I just kind of accept that sometimes I'll meet up with someone after a few years and realize "oh yeah, they're married now, took a trip to Japan for 6 months, and is getting some local attention from their band they made a few years ago"

Of course, the first thing men will say after that meeting is simply "I've been fine, can't complain. How about you?". Maybe they'll mention their new job, but the rest will come after some 15-30 minutes of observation and chatting about the newest media.

>but I know a lack of social media meant that I have lost touch with old acquaintances completely. I have a few close friends and that’s it.

likewise, but I'm not sure if social media would have saved that for me. It's definitely a cultural issue, especially with men.

This is just said from my perspective and I understand that others might not share it -

Fine with me. They're acquaintances. Nobody has 200+ "friends", we have a handful of them. Is it nice to know that someone I hung out with a handful of times twenty years ago but otherwise don't really know and haven't said a word to in a decade made a big life change? Sure, I guess, but for the most part it has absolutely no bearing or impact on my day-to-day life nor the lives of those most important to me, and that's where I'm putting my energy.

I think it's perfectly fine to learn about huge life updates from people the next time you actually speak with them. That seems normal.

Seeing people's updates on a wall isn't truly keeping up with friends. Keeping up and staying in touch requires consistent deliberate effort from both parties, via phone calls, messaging, and seeing each other in person. If you're not doing that with someone, then yeah, learning about life updates when you actually chat and catch up just makes sense to me.

Losing touch with old acquaintances is just part of getting older. fwiw, my experience is that I stayed on social media (although I don't post anything, I just keep the account) and still missed huge life updates. I reckon about 80-90% of my FB friends don't post to FB or Insta anymore. They just don't post anywhere.

Yes, everyone uses social media differently and gets different things out of it.

I've got my Facebook feed so well-curated that it rarely causes me distress. And like you, I like keeping up with old acquaintances, seeing their kids' milestones, etc. I get real enjoyment out of that.

Instagram I post pics when I travel and otherwise ignore it.

Twitter OTOH is probably a net negative for me. I still keep it around to follow sports pundits during games, and I usually only follow my sports list. But I do check in on my main feed during major events, and then inevitably end up doomscrolling. For example, the LA fires hashtags are so far beyond toxic - nothing but engagement farming, malicious misinfo, political nonsense, etc. Amidst all that crap, maybe 1 in 10 tweets has good info, but I have to destroy my psyche to find it.

I cannot say much as I don’t know the people.

Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on social media

My impression is „how can one be so self centered” to imagine everyone HAS to know about their big event if they were not part of it and were not invited directly.

Is that person Kardashian family or something ;).

Even if it was a wedding and they posted photos. I wouldn’t remember a week later - if it is a person I see once in 5 years face to face and I was not invited. There are many big life events of such people.

I quit on and off and came to the opposite conclusion. The acquaintances I never heard from, we weren’t really in touch in any way, seeing their posts had just tricked me into thinking we were.

And that’s okay. It means 5 years later when we cross paths for real there’s lots to catch up on.

Agreed. I’ve done this and I’d you have an existing fan base on those platforms, a final post that explains where you are and why you’re not active can help keep those folks engaged.

Plus I feel like I’m still costing the platform the fractions of fractions of a cent to keep my data stored, replicated and active somewhere

There isn't anything unique about your account on most social media platforms. This isn't a "plant your flag" situation like when trying to prevent identity theft. You don't need to register your account before a bad actor does. Sure, I created an online account with the IRS, credit bureaus, etc. before somebody else could. That's important because they are tied to unique identifiers like your SSN, etc. But somebody could just create a social media account impersonating you even if you already have an account on that social network. There isn't anything enforcing the uniqueness.

I have a very common name, and monkey's paw wish managed to get the unnumbered version for my gmail address.

It has been a significant amount of work just dealing with all the derppelgängers out there who use an address they don't own for important things. Medical records. Divorce papers. Mortgages. The short of it is that it doesn't even require maliciousness on someone else's part to be affected by impersonation, accidental or otherwise. So yeah, keep what you've got, because there's no guarantee the next person to get it will not somehow affect you.

Agree. Hold onto them, else someone can snatch them up and you may have to clean up the reputational mess later. See this happen to an acquaintance of mine.

Some, like LinkedIn, allow you to place the account in "hibernation." Which removes the ability to login without reactivating it, but doesn't completely remove it.

They will do this either way. Fake profiles are created all the time that are copied exactly from a real person's profile. If you have an account, and don't log in and check it every now and then, this will probably happen to you too.

I use croissant to cross post on social media accounts but I never use the services themselves to read any content. I’m screaming into the void and I’m fine with it.

It is quaint but if my friends and family each had their own blog that they wanted me to look at, I wouldn't. There's a reason these social media places caught on, because they act as aggregators.

I get it, it's different types of content, one requires more effort than the other, and the argument is that, if you don't have anything of substance to say, don't say it, but it still requires extra effort to read that I probably don't feel inclined to give.

> SM addiction is so 2015

it's more prevalent today than it was then, so no.

> solve the underlying problem instead

that would be to get rid of FB, X etc. altogether; but since we can't do that, we can do the things that we have control over, i.e., our own accounts

What if I told you Hacker News is social media?

My hot take, offered respectfully: The companies attempting to get you hooked on their products have succeeded via the auspices of "FOMO".