I miss when edgy people were just ignored instead of getting hate, i miss blogs, i miss when people did not have to worry about getting cancelled for saying something stupid, i miss when people actually enjoyed hanging out in person more than they did online, i miss when people did not brought politics into everything, i miss when people knew others don't care what you are eating right now.
I am depressed right now, help me.

Edit: I miss when companies were not interested in getting data from people.

this is the kind of thing you might wanna unpack with a therapist, and not with a furry porn enthusiast

I wish I could help you, as I know exactly how you feel and wish we all could go back. If you are really depressed, try talking to a professional. There are free resources out there, like Talkspace. In the meantime, try to limit your time online, the same way you would limit time spent in a garage with an idling car. Both are toxic atmospheres. Spring is coming, try to spend more time outside. “Touch grass” is used an insult, but it isn’t a bad idea.

electricitywolf said:
I miss when edgy people were just ignored instead of getting hate, i miss blogs, i miss when people did not have to worry about getting cancelled for saying something stupid, i miss when people actually enjoyed hanging out in person more than they did online, i miss when people did not brought politics into everything, i miss when people knew others don't care what you are eating right now.
I am depressed right now, help me.

Edit: I miss when companies were not interested in getting data from people.

I mean, actions have always had consequences. Companies have always been out for sales data, none of what youre complaining about has been a result of social media.

Logging off when youre terminally online might be a good play. Wishing consequences wouldnt exist is neither realistic nor reasonable.

I think people really underestimate just how long these problems have been around. I can name instances of Internet cancel culture long enough ago for the target to have been dead for the last twenty years.

The main differences are 1) the cases are more visible now, and 2) we have words to describe the phenomena now.

But war is so much more fun with social media!

mantikor said:
But war is so much more fun with social media!

At risk of dipping into politics, at least one benefit of social media is that it's much easier to publicize whatever atrocities are happening in a war, and share it with a potentially international audience.

I feel you, I’ve always hated social media. I only started using it because my entire family uses facebook and wanted me to join. I immediately regretted it. Since then I’ve also used Reddit and Twitter, and as a result lost my faith in humanity and about 50iq points

Nowadays I stick to random internet forms, such as this one where things are much more laid back. It’s a lot better for my mental health

My suggestion is this: take a long break from social media, or even better, use the nuclear option: delete all of your social media accounts. That’s what I did. Eventually you’ll start feeling better

strikerman said:
At risk of dipping into politics, at least one benefit of social media is that it's much easier to publicize whatever atrocities are happening in a war, and share it with a potentially international audience.

But the downside being that it is also a lot easier to muddy the waters so to say. It's a double edged sword.

demesejha said:
I mean, actions have always had consequences. Wishing consequences wouldnt exist is neither realistic nor reasonable.

I did not said wished there were no consequences. After all, one could always get banned from a web site for breaking the rules, get beaten up at a bar for insulting someone or go to jail for committing a crime.

demesejha said:
Companies have always been out for sales data, none of what youre complaining about has been a result of social media.

I was talking about the kind of data they collect for targeted advertising.

ireadabookonce said:
I feel you, I’ve always hated social media. I only started using it because my entire family uses facebook and wanted me to join. I immediately regretted it. Since then I’ve also used Reddit and Twitter, and as a result lost my faith in humanity and about 50iq points

Nowadays I stick to random internet forms, such as this one where things are much more laid back. It’s a lot better for my mental health

My suggestion is this: take a long break from social media, or even better, use the nuclear option: delete all of your social media accounts. That’s what I did. Eventually you’ll start feeling better

I don't use Facebook, Twitter or similar sites. I sometimes watch youtube and odysee but it is mostly comedy, philosophy, science videos.

I too stick to random internet forums. But when i talk in person with someone, they often bring politics to what should be a conversation about personal stuff and i feel tempted to do the same and often do. Some times i am the one who brings politics to what should be a conversation about personal stuff.

I can't really remember a time without social media. But I was never that deep into the "social" part of it.
When I was young, I used it for games. And that was about it.
Nowadays, I use Twitter to look at furry stuff, if I am bored, and not at home. I almost slipped into politics on Twitter, due to recent events, but I stopped that. Because it makes me crazy. Twitter will stay my "feel good" place.
I use YouTube for getting crazy about politics instead :D But I wouldn't consider it a social media. It's an information and entertainment platform for me.
I have an account on Tumblr, and some older social media sites, I can't recall the names of. They are all abandoned. And since Facebook isn't necessary for the Oculus anymore, this will be abandoned too.

I remember the time before "social media."

It was basically the same as after social media, because before social media, there were imageboards, and before that, forums, and before that, newsgroups.

Edgy people were still hated and did get dogpiled, "cancelling" still happened, and Godwin's Law was invented in 1990 to describe how any online discussion inevitably devolves into Nazi-comparisons.

Your rosy remembrance of the before times simply did not happen.

zellerein said:
There has very obviously been a paradigm shift though and I think you have to be trying pretty hard to ignore that. You can even see the change in this very forum if you go back far enough. Lol. People certainly take things a lot more seriously.

I didn't say culture shifts don't happen. You'd be an idiot to argue that.

I said all the things this person claims didn't happen before "social media" actually did happen, quite frequently, which I know, because I witnessed it myself.

The only real difference is that the food chain has shifted.

(And even then, not by that much.)

Imagine how good the deepfakes will be in 20 years. Feature length films on a shoestring budget with dead actors.

I was happier when I didn't know how ignorant people in this country are, so I can see where you're coming from with social media. Sites like Facebook and Twitter may have not started that but they made it much easier for people to say whatever the hell they wanted to the largest audiences possible, no matter how ignorant and stupid it made them look.

lance_armstrong said:
Imagine how good the deepfakes will be in 20 years. Feature length films on a shoestring budget with dead actors.

Especially so now that technology is already emerging where we can deepfake entire bodies. The technology is clearly still in its infancy, but given the great strides made to facial deepfakes so quickly already, it's only a matter of time before this gets advanced as well. 20 years of development down the road, and these fakes will be basically indistinguishable from real life.

electricitywolf said:
I was talking about the kind of data they collect for targeted advertising.

Honestly I'm more concerned with what they're selling.
I started getting unsolicited calls from a market research firm that only knows my Facebook name. My phone number has never been public there, so they had to have bought it.
But hey, my job agency ^(probably) sold my phone number to Swiss scammers. They run the same scams as the Indians but it takes you longer place the accent.

magenta-magic said:
Especially so now that technology is already emerging where we can deepfake entire bodies. The technology is clearly still in its infancy, but given the great strides made to facial deepfakes so quickly already, it's only a matter of time before this gets advanced as well. 20 years of development down the road, and these fakes will be basically indistinguishable from real life.

Heard the same thing 20 years ago.

I miss when communities had their own sites instead of everybody being stuck using the same three or four platforms.

To be honest, I have a Farcebook and a Twitt, which I only have in case I need my foot in the door. Both are neutered as much as I can manage with the Twitt stubbornly devoid of any twit messages. In other words, I've done what I can do to turn at least part of these things into asocial platforms.

I consider myself - I said that in a former thread - a somehow antiquated guy... as a fact, but not in spirit. Technology and our ways to communicate and relate changes, and it is hard to keep up. The goal posts are also not fixed.

However, we live in times where you could spend your time in internet reading "conspiracy theories" a la Q-anon, or studying something exciting, and useful, and profound.

For example... Do you know that many Universities put their courses in YouTube? If you want, you could "virtually" assist to the MIT, to Harvard, etcetera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jANZxzetPaQ&list=PLUl4u3cNGP60cspQn3N9dYRPiyVWDd80G (MIT OCW, Quantum Mechanics, first course).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlVHqq38KJU&list=PLUl4u3cNGP63LmSVIVzy584-ZbjbJ-Y63 (MIT OCW, Introduction to Biology).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yat0ZKduW18&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM (History of Philosophy, Wheaton College).

This Spanish philosopher, speaks about it, about the new possibilities of the process data --> Information --> knowledge --> wisdom, in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjMKV_mYRmg

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I am in this site for a reason... starting, that here is a forum (this), that allows you to elaborate your answers in the length you want, and it is moderated (some will say that too much).

I used to post in a Mexican forum for many years... but it was sabotaged (by a pot-smoker and his friends, that I also mentioned in some thread)... and then I tried some spanish-speaking forums were there abounded Spaniards and South Americans ... but my software "behaved strange", if you know what I mean

=(.

So I am here... partly as a "refugee" =(, ... and because I am a furry =).

I have never considered the option of Facebook or Twitter. But YouTube has its advantages. =).

I don't shy away from political discussion... but nowadays, that has reduced to insults and unproductive and unnecessary stress.

mexicanfurry said:
For example... Do you know that many Universities put their courses in YouTube? If you want, you could "virtually" assist to the MIT, to Harvard, etcetera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jANZxzetPaQ&list=PLUl4u3cNGP60cspQn3N9dYRPiyVWDd80G (MIT OCW, Quantum Mechanics, first course).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlVHqq38KJU&list=PLUl4u3cNGP63LmSVIVzy584-ZbjbJ-Y63 (MIT OCW, Introduction to Biology).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yat0ZKduW18&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM (History of Philosophy, Wheaton College).

This Spanish philosopher, speaks about it, about the new possibilities of the process data --> Information --> knowledge --> wisdom, in this video.

If only the system was focusing on long-term skills one can gain and benefit from...

funeralopolite said:
If only the system was focusing on long-term skills one can gain and benefit from...

I myself believe that it depends of your needs, or how you perceive your needs at any given moment of your life. One could also question if it is worthwhile that a young person walks out of University / College indebted in the way it is styled today.

I myself, in this moment of my life, cannot see a most relevant academic course that one that could each about the fundamental basis of Reality or develop your personal Ethics or how to learn new stuff by yourself,... or how to find fortitude to withstand the blows that inevitably life throws at you.

And so, again in my case, a course like that of History of Philosophy (link above) would be for me the most relevant, right now.

i'm in the same exaclty situation

flash games :(

strikerman said:
this is the kind of thing you might wanna unpack with a therapist, and not with a furry porn enthusiast

If only it wasn't as common as an epidemic. Mass therapy? XD

lonelylupine said:
I remember the time before "social media."

It was basically the same as after social media, because before social media, there were imageboards, and before that, forums, and before that, newsgroups.

Edgy people were still hated and did get dogpiled, "cancelling" still happened, and Godwin's Law was invented in 1990 to describe how any online discussion inevitably devolves into Nazi-comparisons.

Your rosy remembrance of the before times simply did not happen.

There's always been kooks and angry mobs, but now it feels like the nuts get amplified on purpose. I guess every generation has it's fools.

We've been writing about blackmail for, eh, at least 130 years...

Sometimes i cannot sleep because problems that are not mine.