no way i would vote. it's demeaning to me. and basically i don't give a fig. 😉

Professionally yes, personally nope

Qualified neutral outcome. Some positives, some negatives

nah. If it all burned down I wouldn’t care. I have trouble with self control and do way too much scrolling. Interesting contacts, sure, but most of what’s on my feed I could do without. Barely relevant, often ragebait, steals my attention and time.

it DID twice. Maybe five times.

But the other 900 million interactions are misery driven. Social media made me want to kill myself a lot. Not anymore ❤️

on a personal level, somewhat. On a societal level, some good but a lot of damage too, including in ways we don't understand yet. I think social media corporations have been reckless with our emotions, relationships, and society.

Social media has the potential to be much better for us.

that's an interesting very sharp peak

there are times in the last, say, two years i would have voted differently than i voted here

I found it very hard to differentiate between where my qualified no and qualified yes boundary lies. Either way, there are a lot of qualifications. Because both yes and no, with lots of ands and buts.

depends on which service. I think Twitter was making my life worse, so I quit and came here, and I find it calmly enjoyable.

I have to imagine that, this being a social media hub and all, the answers to this poll are going to be slightly biased in favor of the 'yes' options.

You did not include my answer in your list of radio buttons, but I am a strict agnostic in these matters. I have no fucking clue whether it makes my life better or worse, and neither do you or anyone else.

It had a lot of positive effect between about 2005 and 2012.

Now ... 🤷🏼‍♂️

Feel like there should be a neutral option in the middle.

Qualified no… The #birdsite takeover was a blessing for me, not even in disguise. It was both a time suck and a mental health tragedy. It has brought me this place, though. The jury is still out, however, on if social media should not give way to even more IRL experiences

qualified sometimes

Up until recently, this would have been either a qualified no/strong no. But since I mainly moved over to mastodon, it's now a qualified yes, as there tends to be so much less drama & depressing stuff pushed at me on here than there was on other platforms (*cough* bird app *cough*). I guess it's because of the lack of an engagement-based algorithm.

Plus, the lack of advertisers and brand accounts is a very nice change.

Qualified yes because if it wasn't for mastodon I'd probably have been in the strong no and had no social media by now..

Professionally and personally it has helped me learn about people who are not like me and who live outside my bubble which is normally expensive and difficult.

Algorithm media has always made me a worse person. Cruel, unkind and revelling in anger in a fashion which I find distasteful and shameful.

matodon isn't that bad, at least real conversations can be had here but they still feel somewhat limited compared to what we lost with the death of forums, not really a fan of all conversations basically being forced to be non-threaded and bite sized, but being decentralized is nice

I said Q No, because I think it's neutral, mostly. Like it, but if I didn't have it, would be equally good.

I learn so many interesting things, see and share so much art on social media. I met my partner, and so many friends this way. I’ve gotten jobs through social media connections. That said, global disinformation and networking done by scary people has made many things worse both in the Big World and by extension for me. I can’t imagine a world without it at this point.

This one does. The ones with a self reinforcing negativity algo: hard no.

Qualified yes.

It's a randomizer, essentially. A couple individuals stand out as valuable social connections but largely I lean on social media for the introduction of random new topics and trains of thought into my headspace.

Essentially I'm here fishing for thoughts.

If #SocialMedia is commercial and centralized on a tracking platform, it is harmful in my eyes.
If SocialMedia is possible on the basis of a free #SocialNetworking like in #Fediverse with friendly users and constructive contributions, then it is valuable for my life.
Since SocialMedia is not equal to SocialMedia, I did not tick anything, but then posted my view here.

probably some selection bias here, right?

There have definitely been some positives, but overall, I look at how social media in general seems to have made many of us (Americans, at least) stupider and more angry, and how demagogues and idiots have been able to expand their reach and influence, and I think it's been a net negative for the society.

I am an introvert. A sociable, exhibitionist one, but an introvert nonetheless.

My mind is not good at reading non-fiction literature.

I would never have learned so much about the world and myself and had so many lasting social connections if I didn't have access to an asynchronous medium with such a large pool of people with niche interests.

Social media, and I'm talking Fedi here, has probably literally saved my life at least once. That's a Strong Yes.

And @Evan Prodromou , you should take that gratitude personally for setting up the seed for all this ... and now I'm literally sobbing. Thank you. 🥰🥺

For me, if we didn't have social media, we'd have to invent it. Maybe I'd have been in some pen friends network or read and written a lot of newsletters had I grown up in the 19th century.

Qualified no, because I think the Fediverse has generally been positive, perhaps along with other open platforms like LiveJournal -> Dreamwidth; but that has not been the majority of my social media experience. It's not the majority of social media in our society.

Even if the Fediverse is the majority of my social media activity today, the negative effects of social media destroying / enclosing the open web, spreading disinformation, etc. across society continues to negatively affect me.

Meh

This form of social media does more than others, so far.
Others throw outrage at me, so I’m better off avoiding them to be a happier, more present person for my family and real life people.

can i vote once for Strong Yes and again for Strong No ?

Strong no, and the reasons won't matter to the many as much as they should.
https://goodmarriagecentral.wordpress.com/2017/10/08/our-positive-disintegration/

sometimes

So …

60/40 Yes/No
80/20 Qualified/Strong

All up pretty neutral I’d say.

A good poll.

It's made my life pretty good.