I've ditched facebook recently do to some mental health issues and it's pretty refreshing. As a bonus I find myself not constantly looking at my phone when I'm with other people. I honestly think I had some kind of dopamine addiction to facebook.

Although Facebook knows that I haven't logged in for a long time so they send me teaser emails: "X just updated her status and got 17 likes". People still tend to tag me since I didn't actually deactivate the account.

Conversely, I was off all social media for 5 years and it's surprising how pleasant life can be when you re-introduce FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. I no longer have to fill in someone when we grab a coffee, there's a lot more shared subtext and inside jokes right off the bat. More emotional growth.

I've been using FB to develop a good troll sense / wit & humor bone. For example:

I was dancing salsa but then I stopped because it's weird being a taco sauce and moving your hips at the same time.

Surprising how quickly you calibrate to what's actually funny by using likes as the loss function.

This highlights something I think a lot of people sometimes forget: Social Media is efficient! It's easier for me to write out a story once, and post it so others can see, than it is for me to tell the story anew each time I meet up with someone. It's also easier for me to keep up with what's going on with distant relatives, who I normally wouldn't talk to.

As a privacy enthusiast, I dislike Social Media and wish we went back to things like blogs, but I get how, for most people, social media is the quick and simple way to get this done.

That's exactly right! The first 5-10 times an interesting story is fun to tell but eventually it sinks into your bones and it becomes a performance, even robotic. Better to share the general picture once and discuss the details that are relevant to your mutual friendship and unique to each conversation.

Another aspect to fighting the "waste of time"ness or politics nature is to just treat social media like a game / party that teaches you how to be a funnier and better human being. Here is one of my recent posts:

>>> In case you haven't noticed I'm trying the whole active social media thing after 5 years of blackout.. I will probably hate it and myself shortly but in the meantime feel free to grab your slapping gloves if I say something dumb or emo... and use them to smack yourself in the face. Seriously I know where your thought was going, why would you slap someone for something they said on the internet? You should be ashamed of yourself, sit in that corner with a dunce hat. I will probably join you in a sec

Followed by several days of troll statuses followed by:

>>> In case you haven't caught on I'm treating FB like a giant indefinite party and going around trolling every one of you. If that's a problem it's a good thing literally all of my closest friends aren't on here so I don't care if all you beautiful f*ers defriend me (3 already have but 4 added me so shh bb is ok). Oh wait. You're reading this. On FB. I didn't mean to insinuate that you aren't special to me. I uhh.. love you? I'll buy ya flowers (flower emoji) friends? (bear emoji)

I recently cut out fb/twitter and feel less aggravated all the time. I do feel like I'm less on top of emerging news etc.

After the Snowden revelations my social media presence dropped precipitously. I enjoy Hacker News for the generally high quality of discussion, but otherwise I find forums and social media to be a timesink.