Is social media good or bad for the hobby?

JReef3

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I think social media is great for the hobby. Different people prefer different platforms and no matter what platform(s) you use, you can find others with similar interests and share information and ideas. Before social media, we were limited to a few books and a handful of local reefers the help us learn and make decisions for our tanks whereas now, we can share information and experience with an exponential number of people across the world. Just like anything, the user has to look at the source of information and decide if it’s credible info or not and that can be based on looking at their tank, years in the hobby, if they perhaps work at an LFS, etc... I also think a lot of people lose track of how much time they spend on social media and can end up spending more time than intended on it. For me, shutting off notifications is helpful. I only go onto social media when I am looking to kill time or if I’m searching for information.
 

ceaver

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I personally would delineate R2R from something like the AskBRS FB group, for example. I actually just left that group a day or two ago for the very reason that every single post or question has tons of people who comment, many of whom don't seem particularly experienced or knowledgeable, after which it invariably devolves into a bunch of crap talking and name calling.

In my estimation, there just seems to be something different about a discussion forum like this, compared to an app like FB, that promotes only serious, thoughtful responses from particular users, rather than everyone saying the first thoughtless, potentially rude thing that comes to mind. (I say this as a longtime lurker of this site who has only recently joined and begun posting.)

This site is legitimately in a class of its own. Happy reefing! :)
 

ninjamyst

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I love seeing the amazing tanks on Instagram with huge colonies, hard to keep fish, amazing colors, super pricey corals. It makes all other normal people tanks look like crap. Those Instagram influencers are true heroes and what us peasants need to strive to be. I love when they do product reviews so I know what to buy with my hard earn money to get my tank to look like theirs. I come to Reef2Reef to look and laugh at the ugly tanks that look nothing like the insta tanks.

JK!!

Maybe
 

KrisReef

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So I took a little break from forums and reefing social media for a few weeks and it got me thinking. Is social media good for the hobby? Is seeing reefing 24/7 good for your mental well being or is it good for your reefing skills. What I mean by this is being in social media I burnt myself out a bit and wasn’t finding the hobby fun anymore but was searching for that fix on social media. That became a bit like a full time job and was paying less attention to the reef. Taking time away from my reef to answer questions in my DM. Also putting a issue on social media and getting 1000 responses can confuse and even hurt your reef listening to random reefers. I believe a this forum is the way to go from now on with questions because I can just look at their profile to see who is a long time reefer and has more knowledge of certain situations. Let me know what you reefers think
You could have instant messaged me and I could have given you the correct answers without all the confusion.

The world is changing because of the technology of phones and internets. It's all clouds; "Bad weather" if you are on vacation and "Rain" if you are a farmer.

People have not changed, there are bad ones and awesome folks (like KrisReef) on here and how the conversation goes and the knowledge (or stories) is provided is unfiltered by fact checkers so I can spin a yarn and have people dosing lanthanum in the morning and Tree Stump Remover in the afternoon all in the same thread.

The internet has hidden a lot of useful information and classical reference materials behind pay walls. That is not Reef2Reef's fault, and being free they provide a place to discuss and share beliefs, some truth and others not so much. Same quality can come from the same person because no one on here knows everything completely. Users should keep this in mind to help navigate safely through advise.

If you come here for all the answers, I am obviously the best sole source of information. There are other "specialists' who also have a pretty good grasp of certain aspects of the hobby and they deserve to be listened too. I find myself laughing on here, often, as a lot of times people will engage in disagreements with those expert specialists because the answer provided by a specialist does not conform to what a person might want to read/hear.

This forum has a lot of people on it. If you believe people are fallen then a lot of what I said will make perfect sense. The rest is just your wrong opinion, imo.


Guess Well Done GIF
Bummer about that GIF, heres another that hopefully will play
Jimmy Fallon Lol GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
 
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shwareefer

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R2R is exactly social media. It's the facebook playbook in action. Look how many "likes" are from knowledgeable responses and how many are from cool, clever or funny responses and you'll see a pattern. It's a meaningless metric that does nothing more than make some people crave interaction to get more likes. In other words: addiction to social media.
 

KStatefan

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I don't see how R2R can possibly be considered social media. Not once have I run across a photo of someone's dinner. Unless that someone was an aquarium inhabitant.

 

PeterC99

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R2R is exactly social media. It's the facebook playbook in action. Look how many "likes" are from knowledgeable responses and how many are from cool, clever or funny responses and you'll see a pattern. It's a meaningless metric that does nothing more than make some people crave interaction to get more likes. In other words: addiction to social media.
That maybe one side affect of social media.

But I’ve gained extensive reefing knowledge through this site, made new friends, and do enjoy the bantering and discussions on R2R. And I think that’s the difference - common interest shared by many. Facebook is a platform to tell everyone your life story.
 

MiniCoco

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It is like anything else in this World. Balance is the key to having a healthy life. R2R is a resource for those of us that are learning and sometimes need a little outside support. I appreciate the original post and can fully imagine the social media world becoming too much and/or a distraction. I have yet to feel this way and enjoy meandering through information and posts from my fellow hobbyists.
 

EMeyer

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social media is bad for society as a whole, the past two years have removed any doubt of that.

I look at pictures of Easter Island sometimes and think "at least the project that wiped out their society left some neat monuments. Ours will just leave a few Facebook posts floating around in the ether somewhere".

Forums are not social media unless you expand the definition of social media to such an extent the definition becomes meaningless.
 

Purrdy

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If you look at it from the standpoint of corporate networking, most people typically state their Social Followers ROLE, not their industry, when stating what they do.
 

Purrdy

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There are a lot of academic papers that demonstrate how bad social media is for teenagers. Learning occurs when one encounters individuals from various backgrounds and views. A Neo-**** can abandon their views by befriending their black parole officer. Once exposed to individuals of various faiths, Islamic fundamentalists may alter their positions. It's common knowledge that social media is an echo chamber for https://socialfollowersfree.com/guides/. We seek people who share our viewpoints and don't challenge how we perceive the world. Given that extremists thrive in echo chambers, there is probably much more harm there.
 

Cell

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These forums are great for the hobby. Imagine if all we had was the advice given by local fish stores...yikes.
 

Troylee

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These forums are great for the hobby. Imagine if all we had was the advice given by local fish stores...yikes.
And on the other hand waaaaaaaayy to much misinformation and people spreading their so called facts and not opinions right or wrong.. it has its goods but just as many bads if not more! The best advice I can give anyone is pick a successful reefer and follow that one persons habits and plan of attack.. back in the day we all had mentors and I looked up to sunny x till the day I took a long break..
 

Gumbies R Us

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It's definitely easier to share information with those around the world now because of social media, but I agree misinformation can spread faster because of this. Just have to be wise and know where your information is coming from.
 

Dan_P

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So I took a little break from forums and reefing social media for a few weeks and it got me thinking. Is social media good for the hobby? Is seeing reefing 24/7 good for your mental well being or is it good for your reefing skills. What I mean by this is being in social media I burnt myself out a bit and wasn’t finding the hobby fun anymore but was searching for that fix on social media. That became a bit like a full time job and was paying less attention to the reef. Taking time away from my reef to answer questions in my DM. Also putting a issue on social media and getting 1000 responses can confuse and even hurt your reef listening to random reefers. I believe a this forum is the way to go from now on with questions because I can just look at their profile to see who is a long time reefer and has more knowledge of certain situations. Let me know what you reefers think
I think the time off from the internet and social media was time well spent. I found your post very insightful.

I found there are probably enough guardians of truth on the R2R forum that the average poster will not get screwed or screwed up.
 

Sisterlimonpot

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Circling back to the original question, I think social media has played a crucial roll in bringing more people to the hobby. The flipside of that is that it fosters an environment that is not conducive to accurate information.

Sites like this provide everyone with an equal voice and because there's a shortage of self restraint by those that shouldn't be giving advice, it makes social media a great negative.

This site, whether it's put into the category of social media or not, is guilty of this. The inability to create guard rails to keep the noise down seems impossible to moderate which means its a free for all for someone to post about a subject they have zero experience with.

After I retired from active duty, I took a long break. When I came back to the hobby social media had already gotten a foot hold. I had a hard time understanding the direction it went. Corals auctions, influencers being taken at face value, a pay to play mentality by forcing top of the line down our throats seemed to be the norm and it drove cost in the hobby way up. I think this was more obvious to me because I was on the outside looking in.

At the first Reef-a-palooza (RAP) since my hiatus, I was early to a talk about social media and reefing. The presenter and I were the only ones in the room and I struck up a conversation trying to find out more about the subject. For some reason, my questions weren't landing until I realized this was seminar about boosting your social media presence. And my questions were based in how social media is ruining people's perspective.

When we're talking about accuracy, it's very difficult to seek out information on social media. I think the major reason for this is the people with experience no longer speak up to correct misinformation because when they do, the way the message was delivered is attacked instead of the experience they were imparting. Who wants that?
 

dead_goby

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So I took a little break from forums and reefing social media for a few weeks and it got me thinking. Is social media good for the hobby? Is seeing reefing 24/7 good for your mental well being or is it good for your reefing skills. What I mean by this is being in social media I burnt myself out a bit and wasn’t finding the hobby fun anymore but was searching for that fix on social media. That became a bit like a full time job and was paying less attention to the reef. Taking time away from my reef to answer questions in my DM. Also putting a issue on social media and getting 1000 responses can confuse and even hurt your reef listening to random reefers. I believe a this forum is the way to go from now on with questions because I can just look at their profile to see who is a long time reefer and has more knowledge of certain situations. Let me know what you reefers think
I think it's really good for people starting out however many of the big names on social media are also involved in contracts with their distributors so it's always going to be unclear how unbiased it truly is.

Another large name on social media makes more money smugly talking about his coral farm on yt than actually dealing livestock so again it's a little sus.

Overall it's mixed.
 
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