After a lifetime against, I'm considering joining social media. Any advice?

I’ve never had a Facebook account or any other social media. I know they keep shadow profiles, but I’ve never given permission. I never had any interest and frankly still don’t.

The problem I’m having is that I don’t exist online when people try to look me up. When someone tries to check me out, there’s nothing there and apparently that’s considered abnormal these days. I think it’s starting to affect my life negatively for various reasons I’d rather not get into.

I’d just like some advice about where to start if you wanted to dip your toes in and check it out. LinkedIn, maybe?

Varyk, (edited )

I’d say if you aren’t on them and don’t need them, there’s no reason to dip your toe in.

It’s okay to be a little weird and save tons of time and not have to read worthless comments.

I was part of the main ones, but got rid of everything, LinkedIn Facebook, all of it. They are useless or detrimental personally, and I don’t need them for my job.

This is the extent of my social media now.

Potatisen,

I know how you feel but joining in now might be a mistake. The trend at the moment is people leaving social media, soon people won’t care if they can find you or not.

Stay away!

otter,

People’s situations can be different, OP is asking how they can join while minimizing the harms

We don’t have to not join something because the trend is people leaving. Worst case scenario they meet the immediate need and leave alongside whoever they need to connect with

SorteKanin,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

The trend at the moment is people leaving social media

Eeeh… Is it really? I know that’s what many people on Lemmy would like to believe because that’s what they largely are doing, but lemmings are a minority. I think the vast majority of people don’t even know or care about how bad social media is these days and continue using it.

CaptainBasculin, (edited )

Linkedin is the only social media I would reccomend to put yourself out (as in, put your successful projects in) as it’s used more as a networking tool to land yourself in better jobs.

Fuck other social media. Anonymity is best.

krashmo,

LinkedIn is getting shittier all the time too. I check it out twice a year or so and every time I look at my feed it reminds me a bit more of Facebook. It’s the only social media I haven’t deactivated and is likely to stay that way for a while longer at least but it definitely feels like it’s getting further and further from that professional vibe it once carried, and not in a good way.

pastermil,

It’s like the place where your bosses put lame boomer-styled memes and motivational stuff.

themurphy,

The only reason your boss ever posts something ‘motivational’ is for their own personal gain of earning more money off you.

He never posts “Try to enjoy life. Maybe take a day off sometime to be with your family on an extended weekend and forget work for a while.”

RootBeerGuy,
@RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

They recently switched some feed algorithms and it became completely useless. At least in my case if I use their “adjusted” feed, or whatever it is called, I sometimes see the same posts up on top for several days! I anyway prefer the chronological feed which you can luckily still set as standard, but there I get so many results, I do tend to miss those “high impact” posts of some of my connections.

So, neither is great and I have no idea how they think its usable in any way. Not using their app by the way, so maybe thats the issue, but I refuse to put that on my phone.

SomeGuy69,

LinkedIn has become a Tinder like hookup platform. Lol

Vipsu, (edited )
@Vipsu@lemmy.world avatar

I second LinkedIn.

You dont really have to be all that active there either. Just login every now and then to add / accept new connections and to update your profile.

LinkedIn for me is basically public CV that recruiters can view. Depending on your profession you can also link your github, stackoverflow, portfolio, blog or something similar there to direct people to channels you prefer instead of social media.

DestroyerOfWorlds,

Ignorance is bliss.

PopcornPrincess,

Yeah…isn’t this social media? lol

A_Random_Idiot, (edited )

No, Its not.

crsu,

Social media is so dead. Everyone has one yeah but it’s a placeholder. The novelty is gone

Sheeple, (edited )
@Sheeple@lemmy.world avatar

Seriously I kind of miss the “Internet playground” era of 10 years ago. It felt like you could easily find not just one but multiple close knit groups for ANYTHING you might enjoy. It was easy to engage with people without huge effort.

Nowadays it’s monolithic corporate groups. Soulless without the close interactions. Content is at an all time high yet simultaneously true interactions are dead. Forget about trying to find multiple groups, they all have been cannibalised into a singular Uber corpo group if it exists at all.

A_Random_Idiot,

i miss the mid 90s internet.

Where the internet was a curiousity, not yet exploited by companies and advertising, where to find new websites you had to click next on ring networks or find a website directory cause search engines werent even a thing yet, but every website you found was someones passion project and rife with the interesting and bizarre

Sheeple, (edited )
@Sheeple@lemmy.world avatar

For me it’s the early 2010 internet. Where technological advances made navigating it easy and you could with no effort find several groups chatting about topics you liked. Information was easily available yet it felt extremely personal too.

That was before everything became ultra monolithic and corporate. You’ll be lucky if you find even just one active forum for something you like and more often then not it’s been cannibalised by one of the megacorp pages like YouTube or reddit where interactions are all dull and dead, soulless posting only for menial engagement instead of making friends

A_Random_Idiot,

The internet has definitely lost its wonder, and more become a thing of dread due to bullshit, ads, spam, etc etc.

TheGalacticVoid,

I honestly disagree, even if it’s a lot harder now. Discord kinda took the place of forums and other niche groups.

drd, (edited )

I’ve been thinking about it as well, I think if I were to do it I’d probably post and immediately close the app, and disable notifications, to prevent addiction. Go for it, it might be fun who knows.

Phen,

It’s not standard to still expect to find anyone on social media these days. If someone mentioned they couldn’t find you and that was important to you maybe you should ask that specific person for advice?

In my experience the expectation these days is for people to be available in some chat apps online (depending where you are: WhatsApp, signal, telegram or iMessage).

helmet91, (edited )

When it comes to Facebook, Instagram, and other mainstream social media, just stay away, it’s not worth it. I had Facebook, and it was just full of trash. I haven’t had Instagram, but it’s not very appealing either.

A LinkedIn account, however, for professional reasons is very much advised. Or Glassdoor.

Although over the recent years I saw some decline in quality on LinkedIn, as it’s getting full of shit posts, but you can completely disregard what’s on the feed. What you need LinkedIn for, is to build a professional profile, have your former and current coworkers in your network, and find and apply for jobs. Or even just let opportunities come to your inbox once you have an impressive profile.

The most amazing workplace I’ve ever had was possible thanks to LinkedIn, with almost no effort on my part. I have to say, this isn’t typical though. It’s only likely happening in countries where there’s a labour shortage. But a recruiter (among tons of others) found me from a well known company, their opening looked good to me, so I gave it a try. After just one interview I was hired, and I didn’t even have to apply for the job.

My most recent job was with a relocation to a different country. I can’t even imagine how this would’ve been possible without LinkedIn or Glassdoor. But I achieved one of my big life goals.

A career advice I got about ten years ago: create a LinkedIn profile and always keep updating it. If you do so, you’ll see it’s kinda awkward to go back in time and retrospectively edit things and connect with former coworkers. But since you haven’t had an account yet, I don’t see any other choice for you.

As for Glassdoor, it’s maybe a bit less popular than LinkedIn, but nowadays you can find opportunities there too. The best strength of Glassdoor is that you can find reviews of companies, sometimes they’re also reporting their salaries so you know what to expect. In some cases, individual reviews may be misleading as they’re forced by the company (which is btw against the terms of use), it can be a good indicator if you find thousands of good reviews or thousands of bad reviews.

Regarding the fediverse (Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, PeerTube, etc.), they’re much better than their corporate equivalents in terms of quality, but they’re not immune to misinformation either. And also not immune to the user’s own stupidity. Obviously, don’t share what doesn’t belong there.

Edit: added notes for Glassdoor

ultra,

It would be better to host a site.

rockSlayer,

For the most part, stick to the fediverse.

  • Lemmy/kbin = reddit (you are here)
  • Mastodon = twitter
  • Pixelfed = Instagram
  • Friendica = Facebook
  • Peertube = Youtube

The only standard social media account I’d recommend is linkedin, literally only because it’s meant to network for jobs. Don’t get me wrong, it’s full of desperate corporate worship and therefore miserable to use. However, the real point is networking for career advancement and job listings

aeronmelon,

You owe the internet NOTHING. You do not owe it posts at a certain interval, you do not owe it media, nothing. Only post what you want to post, when and how you want to post it.

Social Media should serve you. It should make you happy, it should make it easier to communicate with people you care about or share interests in. If it doesn’t serve you or makes you unhappy, you should not feel any shame or regret in just walking away.

If you don’t know whether or not you want to use “insert platform here”, go ahead and sign up for a free account to reserve your name then just leave it until you find a need for it. If you end up not needing it, you can delete the account or just abandon it in place.

I would also say something like ‘don’t be afraid to ask questions’, but you’ve already got that one down.

Have fun! :)

QaspR,

Honestly, I’d stick with the Fediverse. At least on here you have some rights and no one (probably) will sell your information to advertisers. LinkedIn is an okay platform if you’re looking to grow your career through social media.

stoy,

I have never had a social media account under my real name, apart from Linkedin, which is just there to show me for possible employers.

When I google myself, I only get results about my address and my Linkedin profile, so I do atleast exist.

As for advice about joning something like Facebook…

  1. Stay away from politics.
  2. Don’t just “like” random stuff, be selective and only “like” stuff you really enjoy.
  3. Do not engage with dickheads, people will be mean to you, block them and move on, don’t engage, you can just leave.
  4. Stay away from politics.
  5. Never post photos of your kids/family without explicit, preferably written, consent.
  6. Be open to take down any photo of a person if said person asks you to.
  7. Stay away from politics.
  8. Avoid posting content about vacations before and during them, bruglers have been known to use that info to know when a house probably is empty.
  9. If you are a woman, please be extra careful posting images of your face online, people have and will continue to take faces of women in particular and photoshop them into porn, it is sad, but is a reality.
  10. Be mentally prepared for a lot of hate, whatever you post, you will sooner or later annoy someone online, or even just come to attention of certain people, and they will swnd you hate filled messges, block them and don’t engage.
  11. Stay away from politics.
otter,

Great advice, and thank you for answering the question :)

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

if you have no desire to 'participate' on a social media platform, but want people to still be able to 'google' you, perhaps a personal web page on your own domain. with a brief bio, your cv, and perhaps some interesting tidbits from hobbies or work projects.

solitaire,
@solitaire@infosec.pub avatar

LinkedIn isn’t a terrible idea if you just want to come up in search results. It’s quite useful for a lot of different professions for networking. You’d likely just make a profile and never look at it again.

Facebook can be almost mandatory depending on where you live. I currently live in a city where Facebook is the only meaningful source of networking, local news and information on events online. It’s not uncommon for businesses, even quite larger ones, to have their only media presence online be a Facebook page. The city is also kind of infamously hard to break into socially so you want any advantage you can get.

I don’t currently have any social media but it’s become a hindrance and I might need to reactivate. I end up using social media by proxy through family and friends anyway.

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