The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

I'm certainly an anomaly but since to me the downsides of social media have always been quite prominent and seemed to outweigh the benefits by a margin, I never jumped on the social media train.

But I've got to say, it's getting harder and harder to keep that up. As our kids get older especially, almost all of their social activities are somehow tied to social media one way or the other: no matter what they're joining, minimally there's a WhatsApp group. My wife has reluctantly joined WhatsApp and if it wasn't for that, it feels like we would pretty much be destined to become social outcasts.

In one recent instance, we weren't even aware of a parent group for one of our children's school class until someone asked us (in person!) why we didn't come bowling the previous night. We had no idea, and no-one sees the necessity to include someone who - for whatever reason - is not on WhatsApp.

I can see the argument that we are inconveniencing others by not wanting to be reachable to what has now become a standard means of being in touch, and that we cannot expect others to jump through hoops just to include us. But a few years back, I was quite deeply involved in privacy research and I definitely feel no inclination to share all of my communications (and pictures) with Meta.

It's not that bad or that hard to avoid social media. I'm in my early twenties and never had much social media. You're right in that WhatsApp is almost everywhere (in certain countries) and hard to avoid. But WhatsApp is still a messaging app and not as bad as Instagram, TikTok etc. I'd say, use something like Signal for all your close communication with family and close friends. If those are close friends I'm sure they'll use Signal to communicate with you too. I guess keep WhatsApp installed but use it only for those groups and not really for any personal chats.

As for the really attention grabbing social media like Instagram and TikTok, if your kids want to get on there I'd say provide a good alternative. Something they can use or open if boredom strikes, because there definitely are those moments when that happens and one just grabs the phone. For me it's mostly been HN and books, some YouTube channels with NewPipe and some podcasts.