I posted a few weeks ago about how I didn’t feel like quitting reddit just yet. and, honestly, I still have a hard time not opening my phone every five minutes to check it.
but I decided to quit because I realized how much of a negative echo chamber it was. I couldn’t even mute certain words on the reddit app so I had to keep seeing the same shit over and over again in the popular feed.
it’ll be a long road moving from one platform to another, but I’m pretty satisfied not being strangled by reddit’s overwhelming snark and negativity.
dunno if anyone here feels a similar way, but felt like sharing my thoughts.
I feel like I’ll be deleting my reddit account soon. 90% of the feed is anxiety inducing
The initial move feels a bit like you’re giving up on an old friend imo. Many of us hoped reddit would change course or stop sliding towards what they’ve become but it’s obvious now that there will be no turn around. The enshitification will continue until nothing recognizable is left.
With Lemmy and the fediverse you have the chance to make it your own and help shape it as it grows, hopefully avoiding the missteps of reddit.
Welcome to Lemmy mate. Have fun settling in to your new home.
Any suggestions? I haven’t deleted yet (1) because I already have stupid gold and (2) because I want to find replacements for some important to me subs I’m on. Fora forums are close but I’m not all the way there yet. Cheers mate.
The honest answer usually isn’t what people want to hear.
Many people come to Lemmy thinking they can maintain whatever their habits were on reddit. For most people that means lurking and voting, not much else. Lemmy isn’t really big enough yet for that to work unless you’re only interested in the dominant topics here like linux and star trek, so people quickly get discouraged because Lemmy is “empty.” As if every social media site hasn’t started the same way…
For many/most of us the communities we were used to loitering in on reddit don’t exsist or aren’t active enough to lurk in without getting bored. That means we need to shift towards content generation/creation/sharing rather than just consumption. Not everyone is going to be comfortable doing that. It also isn’t going to happen over night.
The only way Lemmy will grow and become what you/we want it to be is by sticking around and participating. For many of us that means doing different things than we were used to on reddit. Lemmy is still very much in the early stages of it’s development and culture and it’s up to the users to decide what kind of place it’s going to be. It takes time and effort, and understanding that Lemmy is not and will never be reddit.
If people want reddit, it’s still there for them. Lemmy is still forming an identity and we’re all a part of it.
I kinda like the chiller vibes of the early stages of new communities. I just joined today, seems cool. I don’t think I’ll be missing Reddit.
Be the change you seek. I get it.
What helped me and my phone habits was the loss of Apollo during the API fiasco, and the immediate emergence of voyager, allowing me to simply replace the “check reddit feed” habit with “check lemmy feed”.
Plus, since lemmy is less algorithms (and users) there isn’t much urge to doomscroll.
Like everyone else, I miss what it was. Now i can’t connect with anyone there. The tone is so toxic. I largely stopped signing in last fall. It was feeling so gross. But I would still check in from time to time. With yesterday’s messages about censorship, I will not be signing in again. I don’t think it’s a coincidence this is happening at the same time as the take it down policy and changes in approach to cyber security
Welcome!
It’s a weird feeling in the beginning. For me I was the same, I realized how addicted I had become to it, almost withdrawal from it. But after a while I realized what toll the constant firehose had taken on me.
You’ll notice we have less here, I view it as a good thing. Less content, but it’s higher quality. I check my phone less but when I do it’s less mindless scrolling. There are actual good articles.
Plus as you see I can actually chat with people here, instead the insta-hate I got on Reddit.
So overall, welcome! Let us know if you need directions :)
I’m having a hard time giving up Reddit yet. I mostly follow smaller subreddits with very niche interests and I really enjoy the community banter. Lemmy is not quite here yet, because you need a critical mass of people to make even the smaller communities feel alive. I’m really hoping Lemmy will take off so I can eventually get rid of Reddit altogether.
I had this as a mindset too until recently. I think what helped me move was realizing that interacting with Reddit was incredibly low stakes and I was only going there for hobby and community reasons.
until I sort of realized that the negative outways the positive. it sort of happened recently where I was a mod of a subreddit and people kept acting like idiots after I took a break from the role, and I realized “realistically, nobody will ever actually give a shit about my efforts here.” and I took one look and left. I don’t really think I lost anything by leaving besides my year old account and 20k karma but, it’s superficial at the end of the day.
If you want positive space you might also check tildes.net (it is actually run by old Reddit admin and it tries to reassemble Reddit from 10+ years ago)
Isn’t this part a bit ironic? “I realized how much of a negative echo chamber it was. I couldn’t even mute certain words”
I would guess that being able to mute entire thesis would lead to more echo chambering. Maybe I’m wrong. I also don’t know Reddit very well
Wanting to not see people debating if minorities should or shouldn’t be killed isn’t creating a echo chamber
Well of course, you’re right on this point. It it was your entire use case then no echo chamber issue, just muting fasc speech
What you say is right if you care about discussing political opinions online. If you only care about memes and general discussions, you don’t create echo chambers