Ask Lemmy

I still have an Instagram account because that's where my friends / past friends are. I've backed up and removed all my posts, and even when I was "actively posting," I hardly used it. Now it's only for communicating with people with whom I have no other way of speaking.

I still use YouTube, and do, in fact, use YouTube Premium. I'm on a family account, and while there are decent clients that I situationally use, there is no real alternative for the platform itself due to the nature of user-generated content platforms.

I no longer use my Reddit account, but I do read threads when they come up in search engine results, and many times, I do specifically narrow my search to the Reddit domain. Too much information there to completely ignore.

My Discord account is still active, although I have successfully managed to get my best friend off of there, which was like 99.5% of my Discord usage. But unfortunately because the informational age of the internet is dying, many products and games choose to use Discord for official support, which means that information is no longer indexable and only exists in the neutron star that is Discord.

So when people ask if I use mainstream social media (I can count on one hand how many times this has been asked), my quick answer is just "YouTube."

We asked in our instance census about use of lemmy-like platforms (reddit, hacker news) and most people said they still used them in some respect. Only 7 our of 49 who answered this question said they never use them, over half use them equally or more than Fediverse alternatives.

Personally I use Facebook messenger, well I normally use Beeper because I don't have facebook on my phone but I still use the platform to connect with people. And video call on my laptop from time to time.

wasnt using it before, thanks to fediverse i can use at least some.

It's a reality that not all niches have sufficient content here, so yes I'm in fact still using Reddit for select topics.

I still use Reddit for news, because the bigger userbase means a richer comment section. Which is the real advantage of this type of platform over RSS feeds from news sources.

I still use Reddit to participate in discussions in my native language.

I still use Reddit to follow leaks for the games I'm interested in.

I still use /r/redditalternatives and sometimes search the site for mentions of the fediverse in hopes I can help others come here. Also to represent and mention Mbin, since everyone on Reddit always forgets about it existing.

I also still use Discord instead of Fluxer because friends refuse to move despite me recreating our server 1:1 perfectly...

Other than that, I'm not using Reddit anymore, nor am I using other social media platforms.

Mainstream social media is my mindless scroll mode, but when I’m actually serious about learning something , like figuring out the ins and outs of buying a used yacht , it’s straight to the niche forums. Nothing beats real people talking about their actual experiences, no algorithmic fluff.

I only look at comedian short specials on Instagram and whatever other racist stuff, Trump's mental farts and genocide that come up on my feed

Unfortunately yes. I use Wechat, for that it has been stupidly made a required app for people living in PR China. Worst of all there's ID verification, and they ban your account for alternative front-ends. I hate and absolutely despise it.

Other than that, not really. I have a TikTok account for a streak (sending someone a message every day with them replying to you, consequetively for many days). Its stupid and I have thought about deleting it, but the other side having the streak would be upset.

Reddit I guess. I don't post there though.

Forums, reddit, and lemmy. That's it since 1995.

Maybe some slashdot and fark too, but that's basically the same as reddit

Only YouTube.

I was pretty addicted to Reddit for a while, but eventually I got banned for basically no reason and that was enough to get me to almost entirely stop checking it.

• Youtube as it's really unmatched for anything video.
• Instagram (just stories) to catch up with what my friends are doing
• Facebook marketplace for 2nd hand stuff
• LinkedIn for work
• Reddit for very few niche communities that don't exist anywhere else on the web

I don't really use Instagram or Facebook but I do have profiles for my bussiness there. Other than that, Twitter and YouTube are the only ones I still use and have a personal profiles on.

I only use Lemmy and YouTube. I miss Reddit sometimes because of the niche subreddits that are nonexistent here.

No.

I use a couple of subreddits specific to Japan because that's where the knowledge is for legal, visa, financial, DIY, etc. advice and people refuse to move over. I technically have a bluesky which I haven't updated in around a year (it's for business purposes anyway). I also have a linkedin for job purposes. All other social media (FB, insta, twitter, tiktok, whateverTheKidsUseTheseDays) I either never had, deactivated, or fully deleted my account years ago.

Edit: some people are mentioning YouTube. I don't really consider it social media, but I do use it if that counts. I try to watch more Nebula, though.

I reluctantly log in to Facebook once a week, because so many things about my kids are organized via there. I also log in to LinkedIn from time to time just to keep up with where former colleagues are working, as it's a large industry with many companies but with not that many key people involved.

I use Facebook only for Marketplace, because it has completely replaced Craigslist in my area. I sell custom-built Game Boys.
I check Reddit for news and hyper-specific hobbies that don't really have a place on Lemmy, but I don't have an account.
I use YouTube often, but lately I've completely blocked shorts and I've started downloading all the videos I'm watching to my hard drive so I can stream them through Jellyfin instead.

• Xitter: App is installed but only for the @YearsProgress notification (which counts in percentage how far along we are in the year. Just a fun gimmick I could get from other apps but idc enough for to get active)
• Trakt: Replaced by locally hosted yamtrack (It's a forked version and way better than trakt)
• Discord (if that even counts): Only to message friends. I don't engage in public server discussions outside of rarely asking for troubleshooting help
• Instagram: Only because friends send memes. Not much else
• Pixiv: Very rarely
• WhatsApp: Mainly due to family and RL acquaintances
• Reddit: Only at work while waiting for a loading bar to finish. Also I can't always take/endure the high volume neutral-negative leaning posting of political threads of my lemmy-feed and I can't be bothered to login to my lemmy account. But I never engage in the reddit posts with voting and commenting.
• Youtube: Very much so. Just the normal vanilla youtube experience. (And yes, I use Premium because I use it so heavily. Also the creators I watch get compensated more per view and I can't be bothered to subscribe to every patreon)

Edit:
Honestly, the reddit api-exodus helped me get off entirely from both reddit and lemmy and to reduce my reliance on it during lunch break.

LinkedIn and Whatsapp.

Insta: to watch furry femboy thirst reels YouTube: to watch stuff Snap: Nudes Reddit: See reactions to governmental policies. Also, I really love the askeconomics sub.

🙋‍♂️

Does Tumblr count as mainstream?

My main usage is decentralized, but i still use mainstream ones when the information does bot yet exist on decentralized networks (reddit pages with solutions, whatsapp for family, discord for friends, etc.)

I scrape reddit for things that can't be trusted to stay hosted there and put them on the Fediverse. But I don't actually use reddit.

I keep trying to block reddit, but half of the good practical advice and troubleshooting help is trapped there.

If anybody has a giant directory of active messageboards, I'm all ears.

I think you're seeing a loud minority honestly. People who use mainstream socials still (yes, I do) don't tend to shout about it all the time.

Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube. Those are hard to quit for me. I could easily make it with Facebook and Instagram, less easily with whatsapp which definetly affected the number of people I talk to..

Just Lemmy. I have a FB so my wife can tag me in shit and I can sell crap on market place. Haven't posted or made a change in like 6 years.

I'm probably not "the norm", but the only mainstream social media I have ever used was Reddit, and that stopped like whenever the first big exodus happened (2 years? I think?). I never used Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram or whatever else was oo still is used by people.

Now I'm assuming you mean "conversational" platforms that are mostly for talking to other people (or corporations these days). I do watch YouTube (not shorts), but to me and the way I use it that's closer to watching TV.

Decentralisation purist here.

I use discord and piefed and that's it. Discord is mainstream, but I'm just in a couple small servers talking with friends.

I just don't mesh well with most social media. Mastodon and Bluesky confuse me just as much as Twitter and Facebook did.

Yes, Reddit and Discord

No

I don't, I quit Facebook almost a decade ago and then Reddit when they did the API bullshit. I do still end up on Reddit sometimes through search results but I nuked my account and will never create another one. I'm not exactly a purist about FOSS or decentralized platforms but corpo social media is dead to me.

I lurk on some subreddits still. Sometimes I just want to look at pictures of orangutans or neatly organized server racks without anyone bringing up Trump in the comments.

Also if you count YouTube, I still have premium though I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth it.

Yes for porn (in addition to fedinsfw.app), but only slightly for regular use. Mostly just Facebook birthday comments and reading Reddit via search results, which I have to manually change to old.reddit links. I also watch science and tech YouTubers, but block ads.

Nope. Got off all of it in 2017 and I've never looked back

I have discord but I only use it to talk to a relative who doesn't like traditional texting and because some of the help guides for mods are solely on discord.

I had an Instagram and a Facebook years ago and deleted them. Recently I realized I was missing out on updates, information, and job postings related to both my job and my hobbies that are only posted on mainstream social media, so I made an Instagram that so far has zero posts, not even a profile picture, and I don't have it installed on my phone, only on a tablet that stays at home and doesn't have personal info stored on it. I'm still missing out on a lot that's only posted on Facebook but the amount of dread I have when I think about going back into that cesspool has so far kept me away.

If Youtube counts, then yes, it's the only mainstream social media I still use. I miss some of the subreddits, but I can live without them now.