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+---
+title: "Why Social Media Should Be Avoided"
+date: 2022-07-15T17:56:56+05:30
+---
+
+Welcome to Vidhu Kant's Based and Redpilled Blog. Enjoy your time here.  
+If you have any opinions to share I'd be more than happy to hear.
+
+This one's gonna be the legendary, shitting on social media blog post.
+
+# Social media is evil and is using you.
+
+Okay, I will try my best to not be extreme and try to explain this topic in layman's terms.
+Basically, there are way too many bad things with social media. And I don't see those flaws going away anytime soon.
+There is no "one flaw" there are many and you need to look at these said flaws in different perspectives to understand what I mean.
+
+I won't be covering much about the "privacy" part (I'd love to but that's what everyone does), 
+I'll be explaining how social media usage is bad for your mental health and is very bad for the society. 
+There are many more arguments one can make but I'll leave that up to those people who are smarter than me (especially in the fields I don't cover here)
+
+For clarification I will say, I'm not including messaging apps with my reasoning though many things (especially in the privacy section) do apply there.
+I personally think they *are* somewhat important. I don't like using them but you can't just leave some of these services. 
+(You can take that as an excuse, but I stand with my point)
+
+## Glossary
+
+- SNS: Social Networking Service
+- PII: Publically Identifiable Information
+
+## Social media can manipulate your views.
+
+Social media is very good at manipulating your views. You won't realise but your thinking gets greatly affected by [SNS](#glossary).
+
+### Their recommendation system plays with your mentality
+
+These social networking sites are really good at analysing your likes and dislikes, and manipulate the recommendations shown to you based on that.
+It's a very convenient and honestly kinda cool system. But it's also very dangerous.
+
+This kind of system that adapts to your recommendations would make you fall into a rabbit hole and would make you believe in this one thing and one thing only.
+You'd watch some kind of conspiracy videos and YouTube would recommend more of them. If you're not being careful and are in a vulnerable state of mind
+you'd really start believing in those kinds of things. This is actually a really dangerous thing. On the surface it might just seem like a cool system
+which would help you find something like, music that really matches your tastes. But this kind of system can very easily destroy your mindset.
+I'm not saying this has the potential to do this kind of thing. If you pay attention you might spot victims of this *pretty easily*.
+
+### Our mind seeks validation, social media provides that in excess
+
+Seeking validation is a human trait, and I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. When you do some task you'd try to seek others to 
+give you a compliment, or to praise you.
+Which is a basic human instinct, but social media gives us an incredible amount of validation, which is literally like a trap.
+They want to give you the dopamine rush you need. It doesn't seem too bad at the start but soon you'll realise that you are addicted to it.
+All these "challenges" and "social experiments" and other trends that require your participation, they try to keep you in the community and make sure that you
+don't leave.
+
+This system is designed in this way because they want user retention. You are literally generating the big tech companies money by using their platform.
+And in return you really are not getting anything useful. They try to understand what you like, and collect your data, to fine-tune the ads shown to you.
+To all these big social media companies you're just a slave that can't leave their product, and generates you money and fame.
+
+### Social media forces you to follow what's mainstream
+
+This goes with many things. Some brand that manufactures something, some k-pop group, whatever.
+Social media has made it so that you just have to follow mainstream things. It keeps ~~shilling~~ promoting all these products,
+and these "influencers" promoting random garbage makes you think that you really need to spend money on this thing that you really don't need.
+
+I'm not saying either of these "influencers" or the advertisers are wrong, this is just how social media works, and they know it.
+Everything seems to be monetised at this point. Most of the popular social media accounts are just dedicated to shilling all this mainstream media, 
+mainstream products. And, really, pressuring you to spend your time/money on them too. Which sadly seems to be normal at this point, but:
+
+#### Social media has taken away most people's personality at this point
+
+This is a very, very personal opinion of mine. Most of the social media users I know, (I mean everyone uses SNS at this point, but I'm talking about the hardcore users)
+are living this constant fight to consoom as much memes, and as much information they can. It's like if you haven't followed this particular account or don't like this
+meme you'd be exiled or some shit.
+
+Also, everyone just wants to copy others. They try to copy some famous YouTuber to become the center of attention, things like that. (copying should not be confused 
+with taking inspiration and immitating others to learn from them. Which kind of is a thing in the YouTube community)
+
+It almost seems like people don't even have a personality anymore. They are supposed to believe this one opinion. If you don't agree or do something else twitter
+is literally going to "cancel" you. This is dumb. And this is a reality.
+
+### Social media takes away your freedom
+
+Most social networking services are owned by private companies, they don't care about you. They care about money. And you are a just a tool to make them money.
+To even look at a post they want you to sign up. You need to give your PII (Publically Identifiable Information) in order to register with their services.
+
+You can't just opt out of them not collecting your data. You need to give them some of your most sensitive private info to even use their service.
+They put unnecessary regulations on you and demand you to share your personal data. You don't have the freedom to choose what is visible to others and what is
+kept private. And then they put up vague rules in their "content policy" to keep you confused. Suppose you post something and it gets removed, they won't
+tell you why it got removed. They just give a vague reply like "this post goes against our terms of service/community standards". They don't give you a reason. 
+They want to keep you confused and afraid that you won't make this mistake again lest they terminate your account.
+
+There are a LOT of platforms that take away your freedom of speech in various ways. They won't allow you to say anything that goes against the moderators' personal
+beliefs. This in a way engineers the society to also agree to whatever they want them to believe.
+
+### Social media gives you false hope
+
+I've seen this case irl with a few people and it infuriates me.
+You might think that these bullshit services teach you life hacks and different things, because "internet is a great way to share information"
+which it is, but social media definitely not one of those places.
+
+People absolutely believe that scrolling through instagram would give them access to news, and facts, and various scientific knowledge which also trains their mind
+to believe that there's nothing wrong with using instagram (or whatever). It doesn't cross their mind that they might be making use of this particular service/app
+a bit too much. And social media is designed that way. Again, it's supposed to keep you on it. It'd brainwash you into believeing that what you are doing is right
+and you should never leave this particular service. In my opinion these "big tech" are just abusing their users. Manipulating them into using their service more
+and more and get them addicted to it.
+
+I cannot stress this enough. To big tech you are a tool to generate money (and fish personal data out of). You should avoid them whenever you can. You should always
+be in moderation of what services you use and what personal data you share. You are much better than this. Don't fall into their trap.  
+It's your right to be in control of your personal data and they take it away. 
+
+## ~~Social media~~ most of the services on the internet strip away your privacy.
+
+Apart from the psychological aspect, they are collecting your data. Which can be considered a massive breach to your privacy.
+
+I like to call the modern internet a "privacy shithole". Every other big website is just after your personal data. And this "I have nothing to hide" 
+and "Privacy is for criminals" mindset is very toxic towards yourself and is making the situation worse.
+
+### Before allowing a site/app access to your device, decide if it really needs it
+
+Whenever you install an app on your phone, or visit a website, they ask you for various permissions. Look at them and think about it - does said app/website
+really needs that access? And do you want to allow it?
+
+Take facebook for an example, when you install the app, it (at least on android) asks for a bunch of "App Permissions". Those include things like
+
+- Microphone access
+- Location access
+- Camera access
+- Filesystem access
+- Gyroscope access
+- many more (I don't use fb so I don't fully know)
+
+This seems pretty normal, most people are familiar with the "allow \_\_\_\_ access to \_\_\_\_?" message. Many even click allow without even reading it. 
+Which is by far one of the worst things you can do with your phone.
+
+When you see such message, think. *Do you really want facebook to have access to your microphone? Why would it use the mic?*
+Surely if you are using the calling or video recording feature you might need mic access. *But are you even using it?*  
+If not, do NOT give mic access. It's your right to decline mic access to them. They are spying on you and you should take an initiative to go against them.
+
+I'm saying this a lot, but this is a really effective way how facebook fishes out your data. It's listening to you. 
+While you are using their app they would record your audio and analyse that, to generate better ad recommendations for you. 
+It's totally a system designed to act against you. It's a very dangerous thing that they are recording your personal data. 
+Things you might not want anyone to know, they are recording it all. You should not use such apps. It's a dangerous concept.
+
+Your data needs to be private. Even if you think you "have nothing to hide", hear me out:  
+**They are making money with YOUR personal information.**
+And you aren't even getting anything in return! What did they give to you? Mental stress? Jealousy? Desire to spend money/time/mental energy on something useless?  
+Trust me, social media is not worth it for its downsides.
+
+# But how are we supposed to exchange information on the internet?
+
+Normally I'd explain how easy it is to set up a website (without even knowing any programming!) but this is supposed to be an article for *everyone*, 
+wether you understand tech or not. ([tell me](/contact/) if I managed to do that!) So while I don't 100% agree with it, I'd recommend everyone to use social media under moderation, and try to minimise the usage, 
+share as little personal information as possible. But really I'd just say - don't use social media! Don't base your lifestyle around it. 
+There are better things out there. There are many more things to explore on the internet!
+The internet is full of very informative websites without the garbage monetization and useless features included with social media.
+But you need to explore. Try out <https://wiby.me>, it's a search engine which only allows personal, small websites without many ads, etc.
+If you know other websites without unnecessary trackers, etc, you can also submit them to [wiby](https://wiby.me)!
+
+## Advice for organisations/businesses
+
+Also, this is advice for organisations/businesses, etc. Set up your own websites. You can totally do that. It doesn't have to be one with a very modern UI.
+Focus more on the content, not aesthetics (but also don't make it an eyesore!). 
+Make your users want to re-visit your website. Host all the useful info related to your brand on the website.
+When someone asks, just give them your website. You are free to do whatever with your site, you don't have to comply with any other service's terms of use, 
+and it just looks MUCH more professional!
+