Before I respond to anything specific, I want to be really really clear that I share a lot of your (dis)tastes, and I understand where you’re coming from. I’m not even necessarily interested in convincing you to change any of your options, only sharing my perspective.

My only real feedback, for whatever it might be worth, is that this comment—discussing how you feel about these social networks—invites a lot more sympathy, at least to me, than judging how others value them differently.

> It's not like I don't understand their problems/goals. Just yesterday the person I was spending time with showed a cat video from Facebook, and as I seemed half interested only, she asked me if I like animals.

> I love animals in real life, but that doesn't mean that I love watching videos of animals on a screen, for me it's not the same experience.

I’m also not very interested in animal videos, and even fairly seldom interested in animal photos on social media. Videos I pretty much only watch if I’m pressured, and I’d say I skip by probably 80% of photos too.

And I’m an enormous hypocrite about this (I don’t really think so, but I would forgive anyone for thinking so). I post photos (and again occasionally video) of my pup almost daily. Partly this is because I am absolutely in love with her and love to share insights into our life, and adorable things she does.

Another part is there’s a small but very interested subset of my friends and family who, I’m certain, gets real joy out of seeing these updates and feels more connected with me through them. They take a different pleasure and emotional experience from not just my posts, but others I see when the algorithm surfaces them. And every one of them, like all of us, needs and deserves more joy in life.

My pup and I also have, I believe, a fairly unusual origin story which I intend to write about more at length, but I’ll share briefly here. I will not be offended at all if you decide to stop reading here (if I have any point in sharing this here, that’s my point).

I have a fairly light touch on social media these days, for a lot of the same misgivings you describe. A few years ago, not so much. I was on Facebook a lot, and Twitter quite a bit more.

I’m pretty much a nobody on Twitter, but I became first friendly and then eventually romantically involved with someone who’s what they call “Twitter famous”. That fact wasn’t a particular attraction for me or a romantic goal, and still not of much interest to me other than it makes the whole thing feel still surreal to this day. In all honesty, of all of the times I’ve been star struck… well let’s just put it this way, “Twitter famous” means about as much to me as finding out some wealthy person I’ve never heard of was in the next town over. It’s just what happened in my life.

Anyway, we dated for a while and we eventually moved in together. I moved to a very cold place at the start of a very cold winter. And we adopted a puppy! Like some people do when they’re in love. It eventually didn’t work out between us (the humans, I hope it’s obvious pup is still with me and well loved). Sometimes things don’t work out with romance. That’s okay.

I’m ever grateful that she decided it was best if pup went with me. I’ve since had—and continued to raise, and grow with—the best companion of my entire life. All because I implausibly connected with someone on Twitter of all freaking places at (IMO) its absolute worst most toxic point, and completely despite a zillion reasons it would be even more implausible (some not in detail here, but some will be written when I’m ready to tell a more full story).

Why am I telling you (and others who might be reading), of all people, this abridged version? I don’t know. I hope maybe it’ll be more valuable to you than if I just found some way to send a video of my pup? And I guess maybe because if you (or anyone) finds this story interesting, I hope one of the things that stands out is… several important life events and one incredible bond came out of me just being open to and pursuing a connection that feels still so unrelatable to me.

I’m not saying you should ask me for a pup video (but you can!), but just… okay yeah the actual point. People are experiencing a much more complex world of social media than you might see. Give them some grace, please?