After using one of Options' posts for a bit of a chuckle, I guess I should make a good faith contribution to the thread. I think all social media has it's uses, and it depends how they are used.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was using Facebook mainly to interact with people who I know or have known personally. There were a few people in there who I have not met, but with whom I share common interests, but the overwhelming majority are folk who I actually know "in real life". With a few exceptions, they all have largely the same political views and outlook on the world. Not sure how I pulled that off, but it has helped to make FB a harmonious place for me. However, with all the current political divisiveness both in the US and abroad, even the folk who have similar views to me have been bugging me with their regular political rants. The well-informed ones weren't so bad, but the simplistic ones (often from intelligent people) were a bit much. Added to the fact that I haven't seen a lot of my FB connections in a long time, and it was all adding up to a lot of information that didn't feel relevant, so I deactivated the account and took a break. It's been 2 or 3 weeks now and I haven't missed it, though it was fun for the 7 years that it lasted. However, I did start a new account, in the name of one of my former cats. I only have 2 friends on that account, and use it mainly to join groups and read news and info from the various sources there.
Twitter has been my biggest surprise. For a service with a rather diminutive name, until I began using it, I wrote it off as a place where nothing of substance would take place, and no real connections would be forged. To the contrary, I have found it to be a very useful tool. My account is strictly for my ham radio and shortwave listening activities and, in particular, my interests in low power (QRP) operation and building my own gear. In sharp contrast to FB, I know almost none of my Twitter contacts in real life, but use it regularly to exchange ideas. You'd be surprised how much of substance you can communicate in 140 characters and when more is required, there is no character limit on direct messages. I often use it to exchange ideas on circuits, and the progress of homebuilding projects, with other hams, as well as the occasional signal report when my ham friends check into nets and they aren't able to hear me on the air (we're experiencing really poor propagation conditions at the moment).
I haven't found a use for Pinterest or Snapchat, and Instagram doesn't really do it for me either, but they all have their happy users. I had big hopes for Google+ but, for some reason, it doesn't really light my candle. Ello and a thousand other services came in with big fanfares, only to never really fulfill their fantasies.
![:-\](https://www.early-retirement.org/sk/forums/images/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
