I know a few people who have actually left social media behind, but a lot of the time people who argue for exiting social media mean one thing by it, while participating — sometimes quite heavily — on another: no Facebook, but plenty of Mastodon; no Twitter, but loads of Instagram; no TikTok, but knee deep in Reddit. It’s a bit like people who mention with some frequency how there’s no TV in their home, but thanks to the “it doesn’t count” screen called a laptop or a tablet, they’re more than fluent when it comes to the latest prestige series.
Like many things, social media in moderation — both in frequency and subject matter — can be fine. This was all on my mind as conversation unfolded on a post I made the other day about a hand-me-down Sony cassette player-recorder — not here, but on Instagram, where the benefits of #hashtags brought people I didn’t even know to the post. And they, along with others I do know, shared their experience with cassettes, including (see the screenshot above) tips about the object in hand.