Consider Lemmy as a global village and a chill hangout place, where you have no face. You comment, you reply to whatever you like, maybe have a talk with someone relatable. Maybe ask questions for queries too specific or personal (in appropriate community) and that you cannot find an answer for on internet.

We will never have a discussion platform as busy as Reddit again, because of a few factors, which end up making it worthwhile to stick around in Fediverse. Reddit has been conveniently the place Digg users migrated from, that was a more civilised 4chan, and that forum users of pre-2010s ended up flocking to. There have been cultural movements/incidents over time like MGTOW, Gamergate, the rise of alt-right and eventually liberals and leftists leading to Twitter-tier dramas, a lot of redpill/bluepill shit. There have been communities of various video game franchises and TV shows that used to be the focal point of internet social culture. However, redpill is rotting and dying away, people are becoming fedup of endless consumerism and capitalism, even ending up getting fatigued by the internet itself. Then, post-COVID, you have corporations pulling disgusting moves, products going subscription mode, everything seemingly aiming for the attention economy, drying us up of our liveliness and little joys, and to suck every bit of money off our wallets.

Shit gets fatiguing. But I am glad I got to experience this peak chaos without the AI, because the world with AI is going to be hell, and disconnect from virtual world is going to become invaluable and even a type of skill, as the difference between real and virtual worlds blurs. Stick around, even if anonymously, and observe. Talk to non-AI real people so you can challenge your worldview against that of society’s, to not become isolated and mentally deranged. Foster a sense of collectivity and empathy.

For me, Reddit was my only “social media” for years. It, and Lemmy, don’t really work the way typical social media does. Although reddit is certainly heading in a concerning direction now that 3PAs are no longer a thing. It works more and more like an mindless infinite scroller where actually curating your own content is no longer in the hands of the user, but the almighty algorithm.

That type of social media is parasocial, at best. The majority of users end up spending more time seeing everything and internalizing nothing, instead of posting, commenting, talking, connecting.

On reddit at its best, and lemmy, you don’t really talk to anyone you know irl, instead, you engage with strangers, and the subreddit/community format means you do so based on common interests.

On reddit and now lemmy, I can engage with other people in both appreciation and discussion on and about things I don’t really get to otherwise, at a depth I don’t really get to otherwise.

I also like how it erases nationality and other demographical distinctions, it doesn’t really matter where users are from, a given thread will be populated by people who are interested in it, not around the same area, or around the same age, gender, etc.

The thread format IMO allows for ephemeral, but genuine, connection and communication. And without an algorithm around, I can curate my own content through my subscriptions and votes. If I want to adjust down, I find stuff to unsub from, if I want to adjust up, I go to “all” and pick some new things to sub to.

If you want to adjust how you engage, consider switching “subscriptions” to being your default feed, and carefully choosing what you do or don’t sub to. You can make your social media experience as minimal or all-encompassing as you want. And unlike the commercial equivalents, there wont be an algorithm trying to get an ever-increasing amount of hooks into you.

When a community piques your interest and pulls you deeper, it’ll be real. Not time-wasting dopamine-bullshit designed to make you tolerate the ads it sandwiches.

TikTok has unfortunately popularized a version of social media that tells you what you want to see, instead of asking you, what you want to see. The question was the gateway drug to thinking, to be aware about what you do with this universal tool of global communication. And in the name of convenience, it was removed like a speed-bump on a street where kids play.

If you are feeling like social media may be a negative factor in your life at the moment, then take a break. Intentionally stepping away for a week or more helps me from time to time. There is also nothing wrong eith deciding to skip lemmy/kbin/etc for now and only using a server/platform that you find most helpful. Some people hate mastodon but love firefish. Theyre both pretty much fully federated eith each other and offer microblogging, but the experience is different. Kbin and Lemmy have some key differences, too, which can chsnge how you experience the fedi.

I think, especially with lemmy and mastodon, that the time i spend is positive. I avoid the busy generic communities and spaces and focus on ones specific to interests. But sometimes fedi drama or a bad actor that moderation was slow to handle can make for a bad time. Or even just bad news in the wider world can make the fedi less of an escape.

With mastodon, i picked a server with a heavy presence of people in my career space and social similarities, but also with a decent amount of diversity, and that has meant that the moderation and especially the local feed are more likely to be neutral or positive than negative. Honestly, time spent on mastodon, for me, tends to be almost exclusively uplifting and informative because of that server choice. I value several mutual connections highly. That’s not to say there isn’t negativity or that I am in a box… thats why diversity was important to me. I rarely found twitter to be uplifting and it was only sometimes informative, and i never had mutuals on twitter that were this active and made social media worth it to me.

If you are seeing a lot of stuff you’d rather not, changing up your server could help. There’s nothing wrong with having multiple accounts on different servers, or even following the same people from different accounts. There’s nothing wrong with being on a server that is more aggressively moderated if that gives you a better experience for YOU. You could have an account for casual use which is intentionally less dense on content to avoid doom scrolling, for instance. Federation means that you can use these platforms as isolated or loose forums in addition to or instead of being connected to the wider federverse.

I mostly used reddit for a small handful of communities. It would not have mattered to me if those communities were on reddit or on forum software. i did most of my browsing from mobile, and i almost never used the website unless i was using it as a search engine. That definitely led me to use reddit far less than if it was an ever present tab on my computer.

If you find yourself doom scrolling too much I would definitely recommend putting it down or deleting it

If your goal is to connect with people, than lemmy is not good platform for you. Same goes for any forum-like platform.
I think chat-style platform would be best for your - Matrix, Discrod, IRC.

I don’t think sites like Reddit are for “connecting people.” The opposite, in fact. I’m not here to connect to people, I’m here to connect to information and ideas. I follow communities due to their subject matter, not due to who is present there. I don’t respond to people because I recognize them, I respond based on what they wrote in a specific comment.

Things like Twitter or Mastodon are for “connecting people.” That’s their purpose, you follow a person because you want to see what they want to say. That’s why I avoid those parts of the Fediverse, I’m not here for that.

There’s a little bit of something for everyone, focus on the bits that are suited to you and don’t spend too much time messing around in the other parts.

The more important you question is: why would you base this decision on what other people say, instead of just doing what you feel is right for you?

I’ve made online friends via the chat rooms for Lemmy communities, that lead to other chat rooms, an online chess buddy, and even a Minecraft server. Perhaps try engaging in some avenues to have more of a conversational style so that you can get to know other users through regular interactions and they can get to know you too. Eventually, you might find a group that you fit in well, and something might come of it.

Yes. Go.

yes

Idk man. I’m just here for the memes.

Some folks get more out of social media than others.

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The only social media I use is kbin, and a bit of Reddit.
I feel like kbin is half the connection I can get compared to a Whatsapp discussion with a friend. But then again, I like the idea of Reddit-based services, I’m interested in different topics presented here that I don’t see in my discussions with people in real life and since I want this place to grow because of all the potential discussions one can delve in here, I comment and create data here myself; use kbin to make that possible for me and others that are interested in using this service.
On mobile I mostly read-only though.

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What comes to other hobbies - life is also about balancing and prioritizing time between different actions, from the beginning to the end.
Yeah, you need to think about what meaning you get from whatever you do in yer life and plan accordingly.

I don’t come on Lemmy to connect with other people, I do it to get content. It’s nice to discuss the content, but that’s secondary.

For me this platform is a source of information and different perspectives as well as a platform for discussion and interaction.

An outside observer is not in my situation. If they deem it awful without considering my situation they’re at least not sympathetic and open minded.

Yes, everyone should probably consume as little social media as possible, if they’re really concerned about their own wellbeing. I mean, I mainly use it for news, which definitely doesn’t help my sanity much…

But I’d say if someone is going to, decentralized is the way to go.