Why have social networks transformed from a place to find and connect new and old friends into unregulated news portals?
Many of my generation and younger don't remember much, but I still remember how I first signed up for VK at age eight. I found friends from school and friends from across the world there. We played games, chatted about everything, even adding fictional cartoon characters as friends and chatting with them. Back then, I believed they were real.
Then came Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and around age 12, I realized that social media was turning into bullying, no worse than school.
After age 17, I stopped actively posting my photos and posts on social media, daydreaming about depression, and realized it would be better to focus on finding friends in real life, although back then, I trusted the internet more than real-life friends.
Since the early 2020s, I've realized that social media is no longer a platform for communication, it's even worse than news portals, where people just repost and swear in the comments.
I realized I have no use for them anymore. I refuse to accept that social media is no longer a platform for making friends, so I simply deleted it.
Social media is now extinct for me.
I value peace now, and I don't need the crap from news portals, especially with the comments under posts from brainless readers, anymore in my life.