Im moving my email away from Google. The final frontier.

I've managed to kick all social media except Github. That for me is the most difficult if you want to collaborate on software projects.

No, I don't consider hacker-news to be social media, rather a news aggregator with a message board. Although, I would frequent here less probably if I was on other social media.

My first thought was why would someone halt their socials? Too much holiday time? Then I realized this was social media :-P. Socials to me are precisely NOT social media. Is this a common language usage now?

Already broke it unfortunately by posting on HN.

Does RSS count? I've appreciated having NetNewsWire and its iCloud sync. Having no urge/obligation to comment or retoot is a different experience.

Damn, I might try this, just to get a better perspective. Does HN fall within “socials” though? :-)

I just stopped using Facebook, a number of months ago. It just wasn't giving me anything, and half the posts I made, were flagged as spam (of course, with zero appeal ability; when you appeal, and every time, it's denied, then that's no recourse). I tended to do "Lookit this!" types of posts, where I either referenced a project that I'd released, or some Web site that I thought was worth sharing.

I've never really used Twitter, and I don't browse YouTube, or bother looking at comments.

I had stopped reading my feed, a couple of years ago. It was just old white people, screaming at each other.

> set my YouTube to stop suggesting to me via algorithm

This suggests a less-than-total commitment to backing out. I would consider "no social" to mean not even visiting the site, or running the app.

In my case, this is about the only place I engage in anything like social media. I would have to stop reading HN to be "no social," and I'm not interested in doing that.

Also due to being dissapointed with social media, especially how it always makes you feel that you know more while you actually go deeper in your bubble, I created a mini blogging platform mostly inspired by X/BlueSky called fx [1]. You can use f**k X as a mnemonic device for the name. It's running for a few months now and works very well for me. Whenever I have a random thought that I want to publicly write down, I use my phone or computer to quickly put it on my site. Unlike X or other social media sites, the post is fully under my control. I can edit it, delete it, share it, link it, and it's all backupped in GitHub.

[1]: https://github.com/rikhuijzer/fx

My last remaining social media account was with bluesky and when many of their visible employees took the opportunity to belittle and dismiss their community with that "waffles" horseshit, a month or so back, I dropped off of that one too.

I really thought they were on to something with the "make it a protocol" thing. Now I see that no social media will satisfy me. I don't WANT a platform where "everyone can say anything (so long as its legal and you don't say anything bad about fascists so the fascist government will leave us alone)". I WANT a platform where productive people show what they produced and discuss it along with the things other people produce. Even if that product is "jokes" or "writing". I just want a marketplace of ideas that have some grounding in practical reality. Not a hyper-void filled with nonsense thoughts and ideologies that can withstand rounds and bouts of academic scrutiny but would wither instantly in any practical application.

I don't want a place of arguments and gossip and attention. I want a place of content and challenge and speculation and application. I don't want social media, even for what it purports to offer. I don't want to "be in a room with everyone in the world". I want to "be in a room with people who are doing wild an interesting things and want to do so in a community of others like them."

I don't want the unwashed masses. I want self-selection and communities.

tl;dr: I want forums that work like feeds. Small groups of like-minded people engaging with one another. I just want it to WORK like social networks, with following, and topical follows (hashtags), and content feeds.

HN is social media.