The “are forums social media?” debate has been pointlessly raging since the term “social media” first popped up.
Personally they seem pretty different to me, but I wonder if it’s an age thing like if you didn’t grow up with forums you maybe think of them as just another form of the same thing, whereas if you experienced both worlds you see them as very different? Idk this is just a random bedtime hypothesis.
I think the big difference is that forums are focused on conversation and sharing information which can be positively stimulating.
Other social media like Facebook or Twitter do not get used in the same way and only serve to share extreme opinions, or compare your life to the shallow posts of others.
This is a bit dramatic considering not everything on those sites is so negative, but I see a lot more of that elsewhere and not as much on forum sites.
To me anything that fosters doom scrolling is social media, so lemmy is no exception. If I were feeling like how OP describes I would certainly take a break from lemmy.
Don’t mean this as a gotcha, but a genuine question as I see many people talk as if Lemmy isn’t a social media
Do you not consider Lemmy a social media?
The “are forums social media?” debate has been pointlessly raging since the term “social media” first popped up.
Personally they seem pretty different to me, but I wonder if it’s an age thing like if you didn’t grow up with forums you maybe think of them as just another form of the same thing, whereas if you experienced both worlds you see them as very different? Idk this is just a random bedtime hypothesis.
I think the big difference is that forums are focused on conversation and sharing information which can be positively stimulating.
Other social media like Facebook or Twitter do not get used in the same way and only serve to share extreme opinions, or compare your life to the shallow posts of others.
This is a bit dramatic considering not everything on those sites is so negative, but I see a lot more of that elsewhere and not as much on forum sites.
I think even old forums count when they meet certain criteria, the principal onesb eing being phone alerts/notifications and having dedicated apps.
To me anything that fosters doom scrolling is social media, so lemmy is no exception. If I were feeling like how OP describes I would certainly take a break from lemmy.