I find that, what web services people do or don't count as social media can be flimsy. I didn't use to consider Discord social media, but then I also wasn't against social media (unless it was like, Facebook, and anyone and everyone I knew IRL would see my posts and stuff. I never got why you'd want that, I go to the internet for interests and communal connection I can't find IRL, so it'd feel pointless to just message the people I talk to IRL anyways). I've seen people say Tumblr isn't social media, because it doesn't have an algorithm. I've seen people argue that forums are social media, because it's a website where you socialize with people and post images and stuff.
In my senior year of high school, I started getting big on browsing Reddit, and I was a heavy Reddit scroller for a good few years, and I ended up gaining bad habits because of it. Namely, I started pulling out my phone and browsing Reddit for a while any time I climbed in bed to sleep, which eventually became so problematic that on one night when I was unemployed, I got into bed when I was really tired, pulled out my phone and scrolled Reddit for another 5 or 6 hours, and then just got back out without actually sleeping at all. I did end up getting back in bed and actually passing out a few hours later, but I still decided that Reddit had become a problem for me so I just deleted the app off my phone and never re-installed it. It was a step in the right direction, but it never fixed my underlying bad habits I had gained. The next night I just ended up pulling out my phone again immediately after climbing into bed again, but with no Reddit to scroll, I found myself starting at a new tab for like 3 minutes with no idea what to look at before deciding to open up FiMFiction, and I just ended up replacing my bad Reddit scrolling with reading My Little Pony fanfiction instead (which helped for a while. Hard to understand the words your reading if you're too tired to retain them for more than 2 seconds, so I feel asleep much sooner than I did with Reddit).
That was like, 3 years ago now, and I still haven't curbed my "phone in bed" habit, and have come to despise the way most social media is designed to waste as much of your time as possible. Now I just stick to whatever has a good balance of "respects my time and attention span" (so I'm not stuck on it for hours and hours, and I get an "exit point" eventually), and "provides real social connection" (so I'm actually making friends and engaging communities, not just mindlessly scrolling a fuck ton of reposts without actually interacting). Discord is one of the best value'd social media out there in that way.
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Build a man a fire, and he's warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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