I've had it blocked at my DNS for years because I got tired of my eardrums being blown out every time I clicked a link because Instagram didn't (or still doesn't) have a volume slider for desktop.
I decided to delete mine today. I could not stand the homophobia I'm seeing this month, and the only reason I'm there is for drag queens,, so I'll just watch Drag Race instead.
I feel like we’re at the age of the internet where a strong minority (see: Lemmy users) care deeply about all the ugly exploitative and anti-consumer nature of big tech, but the vast majority of the population just… doesn’t care… and shrugs off (and enables) the continual downward spiral.
I've seen it. It's almost like a form of ADHD training. Make sure the person's attention is never on something for too long, and make sure the attention snaps to whatever ad pops up.
It's a big corpo site with a bunch of normal people using it. Theirs no hope in them leaving no matter how bad it gets because "mai friends are all on it".
When I deleted my Instagram, I was initially hesitant because "my friends were all on it." But when none of them ever spoke to me again outside of Instagram, I understood that they were not friends.
For being part of meta, Instagram is relatively good (Instagram let's you pause suggested post, can easily modify your algorithm by telling it what not to show or what to show, can skip ads, for now, and it's the best way to see good tik toks without going to that site), so it was just a matter of time it got enshitified
I dropped Instagram, and couldn't be happier to have left that cesspool behind. No Facebook, no Instagram, no Tik Tok, no Snapchat, no LinkedIn, no no no. I'm done with the bullshit. Need to contact me? Then you probably already have my phone number, text or call. Don't have my number? Sounds like you probably don't need to get in touch with me, then.
Wait, is that why I struggle with this? I’m an engineer and I just don’t really get non-forum style social media. I can kinda grok tumblr, but lemmy/reddit is really all I’m good at
That's cool. I'm also testing some stuff myself. For instance, I'm testing not uploading fake pictures of fake happiness and uploading them to receive fake praise from my fake friends. Going good so far. User feedback is 100% positive.