People on here think that most "normal" people are going to figure out how to sideload apps.
No.
I visited my parents church at the beginning of this year and very few people were talking about that. What they were talking about is giving up on smartphones and social media altogether which is probably not a bad idea.
> What they were talking about is giving up on smartphones and social media altogether
That's incredibly encouraging to hear. It seems to be a common feature of "I quit Facebook/Twitter/whatever" accounts that once you break the immediate addiction there's no real urge to go back, so if this does happen it should have a decent chance of sticking.
(And as a mobile refusenik I sometimes feel like the last holdout left, so a bit of company would be nice.)
Assuming from the subtext that GP means they're wanting to give up because of (app)(?) censorship. Having a whole strata of society no longer participating in the conversation is not healthy. Politicians are now looking to these platforms to guide policy decisions, so anybody not on them has no voice.
Surely politicians aren't using social media as the main driver for policy? The demographic who votes the most (the elderly) is also the demographic that has the smallest presence on social media, so only listening to Twitter seems like shooting yourself in the foot.
Anybody not on them still gets to vote. If anything, I suspect that making these platforms increasingly unrepresentative will end up hurting pols who pay attention to them, by giving them an increasingly distorted view of public opinion. If you optimize your messaging for Twitter, an actual electorate is going to drop you like third period French.
Yeah, I totally get the enjoyment of not being "always available". I have had lengthy periods without a phone, and it teaches you that; no, you don't have to be always available, and no the world will not end etc.
The only "social media" I use is Reddit, but it isn't/I don't use it as they person centric networks like boomerbook/twitter.
Reddit is by far the hardest to quit tho. I get constantly dragged into the shitshow, but can't really get off, because there is useful information there, I can't find anywhere else.
In a similar way, I can't quit smartphones for encrypted messaging and navigation (not even Google Maps, but OSMand).
