After two decades of sharing more online, it looks like we’ve decided to share less. New polling shows that nearly a third of all social media users post less than they did a year ago. That trend is especially true for adults in Gen Z.
YouTube interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN4MNdCAnWA
See if you can find a Discord or three. Still a walled garden; it Zucks less. Takes some actual networking, but I’m enjoying local communities having been off Facebook for over a decade.
i tried this approach but those channels died. discord rarely works long-term from what i’ve seen. you see the activity and if its far too long since someone engaged with the channel then its dead basically - and you have to start a new server; but forget getting non-gamers to put in the effort of joining a new server.
Discord servers come and go. People have lives that change over the years. Also, there’s the definite issue of hesitation to post on a server that last saw a message a month ago, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Beehaw Discord can go days without a post (in fairness, I can’t speak to the #gaming channel, as I have it muted). My college roommate’s ostensible gaming server is the same way. Ditto for the local server I’m in.
Discord – at least the way I’ve used it – is generally for low-volume, low-importance communication with people you know at least parasocially. It’s a completely different beast from the firehoses of social media companies, and I prefer it that way. Also, while it’s far from “secure,” conversations aren’t indexed by Google, providing a certain level of privacy.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to fetch my pipe and slippers, head out to the rocking chair and yell at a cloud.