I wasn't clear on this and so received posts such as yours.

I read lots of books, listen to lots of music, hike as much as my disability allows, etc.

I think Linked In might be what I'm looking for, and sites like that.

But I do have a real life. Unfortunately, social media must be a part of it.

Gardening educator and coach. I hate all social media, though - it is a necessary evil. I blame it for where we are in the world today - hence my inappropriately snarky response ( sorry!)

But like you, I need it for professional reasons, which I rather resent but that's the world we live in.

Instagram sounds like a reasonable alternative.

Thanks and best wishes--

Seem to work for me and freed up my time.

Is it just to keep in touch with family and selected friends?
Anything else?
Please share.


I am completely unaware of what value Facebook has, because I avoid all "social media". I do so because they all bury quality in the name of quantity, that is: clicks, endless, brain-wasting clicks.

These sites have reached the "enshittification event horizon" (1)

Some genius suggested numerous easy to set up (falling off a log easy) social sites dedicated to ONLY your family, your sports group, your discussion groups and so on.

Connecting them? Well, do you really want to do that? But I have always liked this idea and there are free forum sites limited to 20 or so users, which is PERFECT for keeping things intimate. and YOU (the admin) control who stays and who gets booted.

TRY THAT WITH TWITTER OR FACEBOOK.

But this is not real yet. Give me a few weeks.




(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

For professional reasons I need to have some sort of social media presence, but Facebook pisses me off no end.

I'm beginning to think Linked In might be my best bet. Perhaps there are other sites such as that?

Enshittifiication is a concept of which I am well aware.

Best wishes.

"Best" respected sites, now that you clarified, might be Bluesky and Mastodon, though they might not have the reach you need (virality, I guess).

I frequent Hacker News, and it's not all VC's and hackers (white hat kind). Many topics come up, and while self-promotion is frowned upon, unless you are showing off some new concept or have some papers to share, it does get one some visibility.

Read the rules (1)

Like DU, I recall that most of the OP's are just links to news sites, but with a focus on tech, medicine, geology, whatever.

I use the two as news aggregators, though the shift from DU to Hacker News seems to lower the emotional temperature considerably. I'd go bonkers following just DU, and have cut back. I try to mostly post activist stuff, because heck, it's war out there.

I'm retired, so I try to add to the Hacker News tech history. A lot of us grew up in the microcomputer revolution, and carved careers out of what was a hobby. I never took a computer, electronics or optics course. But also to gain some cred, in case one of my forward thinking ideas gets some attention. (Oh, and a vast number of OP's are about AI, of course, but quite a few are critical, and some are alarmist. )

I don't know of any other sites with a large and relatively smart population.

Good luck.

(1) Rules? But you did see the notice, didn't you?
- Oh, yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign outside the door saying, 'Beware of the leopard!'

They exist somewhere.

I drop into Bluesky from time to time but up until now just to see news and comments.

Best wishes--

I'm a voracious reader. I was looking for a social media alternative, since Facebook is a pox in so many different ways.

I'm looking for other social media communities that people use.

I rarely use Facebook, am a voracious reader and letter writer, etc. etc.

Even so, for professional and other reasons I need some sort of social media presence.

That's the sort of alternative I need to find.

Thanks again and best wishes.

DU is my only "social media." I find DU just by itself to be occasionally overwhelming.

I actively block sites like facebook, the site formerly known as twitter, and bsky. I really don't want them watching me. Disentangling myself from Alphabet Inc. (google) is going to be a little more difficult. I've been with them since they first promised not to be evil. Those days are gone.

back in November.

I used it for both personal Social uses and for "professional" uses.Over time I realized Facebook was not the tool its cracked up to be for professional use. I was a musician who used it to promote live performances. The band I was in had a couple hundred followers who did visit our FB site often. Even though they were responding to our posts online in FB their presence did not translate into butts in the seats at live performances. I would rarely see any of them at live performances.

I suspect FB itself, by design, is somewhat responsible for this. I believe they've designed the site to "appear" to be useful as a free promotional tool but underneath the hood its true intent is to plants butts in their users computers chairs and keep them glued there in front of their monitors endlessly posting and responding to the vapid crap being constantly shared there and not actually participating in person with any of the FB professional pages the user has followed in their feeds. FB is all about ad revenue and nothing more. SmoKe and mirrors.

Its a shame but that's the reality of FB. A good idea when it started but turned to crap by a CEO who has turned out to be a pretty despicable individual. I hear occasional rumors of a possible FB replacement but have seen nothing concrete yet.