Right now, it looks like social media is here to stay. But while the tool has proved useful in marketing products and supporting causes, it has also spawned several annoying activities that make you want to deactivate your accounts and block so-called friends. Here’s a round-up of some of them:
Liking your own status
This Facebook “activity” has spawned pages and memes declaring statements like “Liking your own status is like giving yourself a high five.” Some contend that liking your own status is a marketing ploy to put your post on top of everyone’s news feed. But seriously, if your purpose was for your post to get “Likes” from others and it didn’t, then maybe you should tweak the contents of your post to something more substantial. If you want to engage more followers to your Facebook post, check out this set of basic Facebook engagement tips from the RingCentral blog.
Posting selfies
Hidden Dog Poop Selfie from Buzzfeed
A Thought Catalog article attempts to convince that selfies show confidence and self-assurance; the article asserts that selfies are actually a celebration and embracing of our flaws. Maybe in certain cases it is. However, rather than justifying your actions with hasty generalizations such as this, you might want to actually check your motives. Healthy self-confidence does not desperately draw attention to itself. In an article from news station 90.9 WBUR, Chloe Miller, a sophomore at Newton South High School, shares that profile pictures on Facebook are actually a big deal. She says, “You upload your picture and you can take out all your little pimples and stuff to make it look like your skin is perfect, your hair is perfect.” Miller and her friend Paige Herrer confess that they visit the popular social network 10-20 times per day. Likes on a profile pictures are a huge numbers game, with teens updating these obsessively as they battle for Facebook Likes. Before you take that selfie (in the bathroom, on the beach, while driving, etc.), ask yourself why you actually want to post that picture. If “Likes” are where you get your security from, then you have a big problem.
Food porn and telling everyone what you’re having for breakfast, lunch, dinner…
Don’t get me wrong. I love food as much as the next person. In fact, there was a time when I used to frustrate friends because I wouldn’t let them eat until I’d taken a nice, clear shot of their food. There’s actually a point to this activity: Food photos and corresponding reviews are informative for people who want to discover new places to eat out. They’re time-savers for foodies like me. Constant real-time updates of what you had for every meal, though, are just plain annoying. Quit contributing to the spectrum crunch and start using our airwaves for posts that actually matter.
Twitter spam
The Twitter spam problem has become so serious that Twitter itself had to step up and file a lawsuit against tool providers that let users automatically Tweet posts and send direct messages. Fortunately for users who have received annoying automated DMs and multiple Twitter updates with the same message, Twitter is so far winning in the litigations. Still, there are still a lot of spammers and fake followers on Twitter that reduce the microblogging service to a linkbaiting tool. To find out how many fake and inactive accounts follow you, you can use services like Status People’s Fake Follower Checker.
What do you think of the practices above? What other activities do you think should stop on social media? Sound off in the comments.