What happens if you stop using social networks? Psychology of social networks. What happens to people who spend their time on social networks

Today I would like to tell you why I have not been on social networks for several years. Many of my friends are often surprised... Like, how come you’re not on VK?! Why?

To understand why people are removed from social media. networks, we need to figure out why others are constantly sitting there.

The main reason is, of course, communication. People make friends, get to know each other, keep in touch, exchange information.

I will tell about myself))

*We will mainly talk about Vkontakte. Since I have a “special” relationship with this network...

I am not curious and have never crawled through other people's pages to see how others live. Since I had several thousand friends in my old line of work, the news feed was also unreadable.

And to be honest, the “news feed” in social media. networks are perceived by me as a “gossip feed”. Who went where, what happened to whom and who is selling what, and so on...

Subsequently, I made attempts to clean up my friends list. Now, if my memory serves me right, there are about 500 people left as friends. All others were converted to subscribers. But the tape did not become cleaner, oddly enough))

Time

When you work on the Internet, being unconstructive and chatting about this and that takes up a lot of time. I treat correspondence as a means of communication on business. Not for entertainment, but for information exchange.

I'm an introvert and communicating a lot is not really my thing. And in general, messages like “Hi, how are you?” are annoying. Especially from strangers or people you barely know.

It’s better to chat with friends live, or on the phone. And when you have time for this, and not constantly be distracted by short messages throughout the day...

When I completely gave up photography (and this happened gradually), then in social media. I began to go online less and less. At some point I even wanted to delete my account completely, but then I changed my mind. Because sometimes you need to contact some person, but there are no contacts. And the easiest option is to write to him on VK.

Business

When I was doing photography, I spent time on social media. networks I had to. I visited VK especially often. Moreover, I had a fairly well-promoted and live group. And I can tell you that orders came from there with enviable regularity.

Thanks to social activity, I quickly developed a “sundress”. And the season (usually filming from May to November) was fully scheduled.

After I changed my occupation from photography to web development, I had to start almost all over again. Updated my personal page. Gradually I cleaned out the albums with wedding and other photographs.

I created a new group, filled it with content, invited interested people, screwed it up a few bots for the base number, advertised.

But you know what? As a photographer, I promoted exclusively in my region and it was not difficult to do. There was competition in the city, but few people understood SMM then. So I had an extra advantage. Well, I didn’t seem to take bad photos))

I fundamentally decided not to advertise web design and website creation in my city. There were reasons for this too. Most local customers were not willing to pay the already low price. Friends wanted a website for free or for a nominal sum.

And if, as a photographer, I could sometimes afford free photography for friends... Then making websites for free, sorry, was not part of my plans.

And even now, when I have been doing web design and website creation for several years, I periodically receive messages from VKontakte of this type: “I need a website. How much is it worth?

When you work on the Internet for a long time, already from the first message, you can determine whether you will work with this person or not) So, of course, I answer such messages, but I don’t work with them further.

Therefore, from the point of view of the channel for orders for my services, I have social. networks are not working now. And if so, then I don’t see the point of sitting on VK.

Entertainment

Music

Some of my friends explain their presence on VK by the presence of “free” music. Like there’s a big playlist and all that... When I cleaned my profile, I also deleted all the music. Now I listen to YandexMusic, online radio or from my PC. And I don’t feel any inconvenience about this...

Groups and publics

Previously, I subscribed to several public pages, but none of them were of an entertaining nature. I remember I signed up for a group on targeted advertising, and something else about design and fonts. But all this is also on the Internet. And like me, most of the content in VKontakte groups is not unique, but is copy-paste from other sites.

Acquaintance

Dating can be personal and professional. And here things didn’t work out for me with social networks either. In the first case, I prefer to meet new people in narrower communities rather than in global social networks. networks. And as I wrote above, I don’t respond to messages “Hi, let’s get to know each other.”

In professional communities, acquaintances occur after communication, and not because of a beautiful avatar. And this is much closer to me.

Privacy

Finally

And I didn’t delete my profile completely, only because I have people in my friends whom I can only contact through a social network. That's basically all.

How much time do you spend on social media? networks? Or don't you sit there either? Write in the comments.

That's all I wanted to say.

In contact with

I’ll make a reservation right away by “freezing” I mean aimlessly reading the news feed, “jumping” on the pages of friends and strangers, conducting lengthy dialogues in comments or messages without a clear goal (not to be confused with the sublimation of real communication - when, for example, you miss someone , it is not possible to meet with anyone).

So. If you justify endlessly scrolling your feed by searching for a good book, movie or music, think about whether this search is taking away more time than just gaining cultural experience? After all, in the half hour for which you are stuck in some film or book community, you could easily watch a third of a good film or read 50 pages of a good book. It’s easier to create a list of films/books/music to “watch/read/listen to on occasion”, and between tasks, write down something there that is recommended to us by friends, the history of world culture, or digests that we read one way or another.

All kinds of motivators, demotivators, smart sayings and “stories from life” that should inspire us to great deeds at work. We all, deep down in our souls, understand that either they are written by not too smart people people (a highly successful person is unlikely to waste his precious time on such work). This is someone's job to increase traffic to the community/blog/site. Yes, yes, sit and rack your brain, what picture and quote to choose in order to get a thousand “likes” and “reposts”. Are you sure you are ready to pay for this work with your time?

Friends on social networks are nonsense. Most likely, with those people with whom we really communicate a lot (our relatives, if we are on good terms, loved ones and best friends) there is no communication at all on social networks - why not? It’s much more pleasant to call or meet them in person. Why do you need contacts, all communication with whom boils down to congratulations on your birthday? This function is successfully handled by spam bots of services where we indicated our date of birth during registration.

Probably, frequent viewing of other people’s photographs and reading correspondence in the comments can serve as a kind of “pill” for confused feelings, bad mood or boredom. But, if you think about it, such a pastime is really a black hole. You can spend several hours and not give birth to a single fresh thought. I am sure that if you take a person’s encephalogram at the moment of “hanging” on social networks, the amplitude of the impulses will be minimal. The ratio of the volume of information to its content is strongly in favor of the former. In total, we get a salad from a large number of ingredients in minimal concentration. It looks like crumbs from a table that haven't been swept away for weeks. Tasteless and harmful.

The most honest answer that a person who hangs out on social networks can give to the question: “Why are you doing this?” - "I I do not know what to do, I don’t want anything.” It seems to me that this is a problem of our generation. Making a living, even if you are lazy, is not at all difficult. There is no need, like 100-150 years ago, to work hard from morning to evening in some factory in order to reach the subsistence level. We all dress and eat well, we can afford to vacation abroad and buy almost everything we need to feel happy. Messages fly instantly (and you don’t have to write letters by hand!), you don’t need to spend hours in lines for groceries, you don’t even need to look for the right word in the dictionary - 5 seconds are enough to type it into the search engine. The era of imbalance - labor has not yet depreciated, although there are no more resources in a global sense. Most likely, this phenomenon will not last long. Therefore, since we are lucky enough to live in a state of surplus free time, we need to come up with a worthy use for it: taking care of our health (through physical exercise), learning new skills, earning money (while it is so easy to get)…

Social networks have quietly entered our lives and become a “ritual” for everyone who spends more than 1 hour a day on the Internet. And if 6-7 years ago you could meet those people whose profiles were not on the Internet, now you can find everyone there!

There is a social network for everyone. A person can choose for himself the resource that is most convenient and understandable for him to use and, of course, which includes all his friends and relatives. Thus, 9 out of 10 people sit on this “igloo”.

When we feel good, we are on social media. networks. We sit there even when we feel bad. After all, there will always be someone in your friends whom you can write and “cry” on your virtual shoulder.

WHAT IS WRONG? On social networks it is easier to build relationships, it is easier to break relationships, EVERYTHING is MUCH EASIER there than in real life. That’s why they meet a lot there, sort things out, gossip, insult, flirt, get jealous, etc. Agree, much of the above is much more difficult to do live, looking a person in the eyes. That is, the appearance of “turbulent” relationships is always there, but in fact you cannot build happy, strong relationships on social networks.

Moreover, you can always simply remove a person from your friends as from your life. It's that simple!Social. the network is a form of social connection without risks or obligations.

WHAT WELL? Weak people quickly become addicted to various kinds of addictions, including social networks. And they waste all their time. But there is a category of strong people who know how to use social networks as tools to achieve their goals. And for such people, social networks are good. They get rich, build business relationships, find like-minded people, etc. Their time on social media is never wasted.

LIKES ARE A FORM OF RECOGNITION

This is the simplest way of interaction between two people or a group of people on social media. networks.

WHAT IS WRONG? The bad thing is that this method is so primitive and easy that instead of pleasant, meaningful words to a loved one, friend, acquaintance or even a complete stranger, we get used to stupidly “liking.” Very soon people will forget how to competently express their thoughts and feelings to each other. What for? After all, you can just “like” and he will understand everything!

WHAT WELL? Thanks to this method, a virtual connection is established between people, even if they are at a very long distance. By “liking” I show that “I exist and I am with you.” Well, how true this is is another question... We have already created the appearance of this good-natured gesture.

PERSONAL PROFILE IS THE HIDDEN DESIRE TO BE A PUBLIC PERSON

And how actively a person maintains his personal profile, posting various photos and materials on it about himself and his opinion, so strongly does he demonstrate his desire to be a public figure, famous, popular, if he actually is not one.

After all, this is exactly what all TV stars, actors, politicians, etc. do! Most of them have personal blogs where their personal lives, thoughts, and ideas are presented. All people want to have the same popularity and fame. According to Maslow, no one has canceled the human need for respect and veneration.

WHAT IS WRONG? If in reality you are not a public figure, then on a social network you can feel like one. Especially when they comment on your photos, posts, statuses, etc. You feel like they are watching your life and even trying to get into it. The bad thing is that this fake popularity takes too much time and directly drags you into this game. Has this ever happened to you?

Instead of starting to discover new talents in oneself, to express oneself as an individual in a real society, and not in a virtual one, to find one’s own path to developing one’s potential, to move along this path, to grow, to overcome oneself, a person chooses a much easier path - to post photos with another party, sitting on the couch at home, thereby demonstrating your excellent lifestyle.

WHAT WELL? The good thing is that there is a small percentage of people who can reveal their talents on social networks. For example, they find their way of development in opinion articles, the creation of various social movements, charitable groups, etc. And thus they really become readable and gain universal recognition.

CONCLUSION: The social network is useful for those people who know their path and follow it. Such people use social media. networks solely for their intended purpose, and not in order to create the illusion of their own importance and popularity or simply kill their time.

The social network is not harmful for those who have a powerful information filter in their heads against intrusive advertising, meaningless discussions and other mental “garbage”, the reading of which takes away precious hours of our lives.

Every self-respecting user considers it his duty to take pictures of his food and post it on Instagram. Apparently, so that other users will choke on the saliva of envy and make an immediate repost.

Woke up, ate scrambled eggs? Who cares? Social connections? Just call a friend and go out for a drink together.
Daniel Craig

The first reason why stars refuse to use social networks is boredom. Most of them are not interested in gastronomic posts, cats and memes.

Reason 2 - excessive attention

I don't want anyone to know where I am.
Sandra Bullock

Reason 3 - reputation

Party. You come home drunk, turn on the TV, and there, on the other side of the screen, someone pisses you off. You fight back, go to bed. You wake up in the morning and your career is over. Your drunken delirium was spread all over the world before you woke up.
George Clooney

The stars also have their own opinions. The only difference is that sharing it publicly is dangerous.

Julia Roberts

Reason 4 - conservatism

Being old-fashioned is fashionable these days (pardon the pun). Almost every third person misses Soviet toffees and vinyl records. Many celebrities are also “old school” and therefore do not use social networks.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but if I know something about you from social media, I have to make an effort to forget about it and enjoy the movie.
Bradley Cooper

Reason 5 - health

Many of us even sleep with our phones in our arms, although doctors say this is harmful. And many celebrities believe them.

I don't have Twitter, and never have. In my free time, I try to stay away from harmful radiation, which, unfortunately, comes from gadgets.
Shailene Woodley

Reason 6 - teapots

Nowadays, computer illiteracy is almost indecent. However, many celebrities are IT geeks, which is why they don’t use social networks (although they might like to). For example, star spouses Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie admit that they don’t even know how to turn on a computer.

I'm a complete noob. When I see a person treating BlackBerrys like a regular hairdryer, I'm shocked.
Jennifer Aniston

The Russian Internet holding “Mail.Group” published the results of a study of the audience of social networks popular among Runet users. It is known that the most popular such projects in Russia are Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Moi Mir, Facebook and Twitter.

For more accurate results, experts also used statistics from analytical companies comScore, TNS and Brand Analytics.

According to the company, the social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki boast the greatest popularity with figures of about 52 million and 42 million people per month, respectively. Approximately 30 million people visit the My World project at least once a month, and are slightly less interested in the social network Facebook, which is more popular in the West and in some Asian countries. The number of users of the microblogging service Twitter is much smaller - about 11.5 million visitors per month.

Another trend among users of the Russian part of the network segment is the use of several social networks at once. Odnoklassniki users use other social networks the least - about 7%; VKontakte visitors are also not ready to switch to other sites - about 14%. The fewest such users are on Twitter - no more than 1% of the total number. In addition, Twitter itself is most often integrated into the feeds of other social networks, including VKontakte, Facebook and even personal blogs on the network.

If we talk about users who use several social networks at once, then most of them use My World - up to 87% of page owners are also registered on VKontakte, up to 80% of people use both Odnoklassniki and the same VKontakte. About 68% of VKontakte users also have pages on Odnoklassniki, and 90% of Facebook users communicate quite actively on VKontakte; among Twitter users, this figure is generally approximately 98%. By the way, Facebook is most often used to communicate with users from abroad, including Ukraine and some other CIS countries, where Facebook is popular.

Big changes are also affecting user behavior on social networks. Thus, owners of Odnoklassniki pages visit the Internet less often than VKontakte users. In the latter case, there is clearly constant monitoring of news, correspondence and listening to music in the corresponding service. The average time spent visiting Odnoklassniki is approximately 2 times longer than for VKontakte users. Another feature that keeps users on the site is the commercial basis of thematic groups. Currently, VKontakte contains thousands of online stores where you can place an order, contact the seller or ask a question. Thus, for example, you can buy a teddy bear for your girlfriend for her birthday or even order pizza for a party.