@LianaBrooks Yes and yes. The only other thing I use is LinkedIn, but it's ️

@LianaBrooks absolutely.

It seems to me that one of the main benefits of Mastodon, the fact that I get significantly fewer low-quality interactions compared to my experience a handful of years ago on Twitter*, can also seem like a challenge.

*and Bluesky too, to a degree, though I almost never post on there so it's hard to say

By low-quality interactions, I mean bots and trolls, but also the regular folk who treat the whole thing like a popularity contest or a battleground. There is a tiny fraction of that on (my experience of) Mastodon and that's not just because of fewer overall users, the ratio is drastically different.

This means that I can have decent conversations with decent people who are mostly trying to engage positively, as opposed to the frequently adversarial engagements I experienced before.

However, there's a small corner of my brain that still seems to be impressed by the raw counts regardless of their quality, a part of me that enjoys feeling popular even if I know its an illusion. I've learned to ignore it but I suspect the same sense might chase away a number of new Mastodon users each month.

Of course this is all based on my experience on here, other folks mileage may vary.

@LianaBrooks
I have Facebook for a few friends and Bluesky to follow a few big accounts and a few more friends but I spend most of my online time here and find it's much more cozy than anywhere else.

@LianaBrooks Absolutely. And it's working great. It takes more to get going, I'll freely admit that, but - yeah, for me at least, it's so. much. better.

Howcome, anyway?

@LianaBrooks
Yes and I like it a lot.
Last week I was helping an elderly neighbor with her phone. Scrolling the Instagram app (where she needed to block some accounts) made me jiggy and overstimulated within 30 seconds. If there were an emoji for "my eyeballs went spring and I wanted to go lie down in a dark room" I would use it

@LianaBrooks Yes, yes.

@LianaBrooks

Primary: yes.

Working for me: depends on the day, sometimes it gets too political / too enraging in a way that is even more toxic than commercial social media. I find it really really hard to remove myself from US politics even though I carefully curate who I follow. That's the disappointing part of it for me. The US gets a disproportionate attention to the number of people I follow who are not in the US.

I agree with others in that it is more educational, but at the same time there's a lot of window dressing going on.

@LianaBrooks yes, and yes.

@LianaBrooks yes
Confused by the “does it work” for me. I’m baffled corporate social media “works” for anyone. How does being a tool for billionaires work for anyone???

@LianaBrooks Yes and yes. It is effectively my only social media. I have an Instagram account still, but I go months without looking at it.

@LianaBrooks me and sure thing

Love it, but it's not perfect. Neither is social anything. Unfortunately a big problem with mastodon are those folks who think it can't be improved and tell you You are Wrong for whatever Obstacle it presents you.

Fortunately ignoring such people is a solid remedy!

@LianaBrooks Unlike some others, I was never on FB, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Mastodon and Pixelfed are all the social media I need.

@LianaBrooks ~ I left Facebook in 2022 and never looked back. Mastodon is my only social media outlet and if that fails me - I am gone

@LianaBrooks
Yes. Works fine. The only other one I'm on is NextDoor and I'm only there occasionally to make fun of my fellow old farts.

@LianaBrooks @paul_ipv6
Yes, and social media is still not a good alternative to real life

@LianaBrooks
It's my only social media

@LianaBrooks yes @autistics

@LianaBrooks I don't use it _that_ much (never used Twitter), but I come on here occasionally, Lemmy more so, and, unfortunately, still use Discord. That is the main trifecta.

@LianaBrooks Yes and yes. I do wish more of my IRL friends were on here too but I still enjoy it.

@LianaBrooks Yes, but I think too well of it to think of it as 'social media', though I realise that it is.