After so many years on different social media platforms, it is hard now to remember the first thrill, the allure that made it such a fascinating idea at the beginning, a magical place to spend hours upon hours exploring and interacting with the world.

At the first glance, it could have been the excitement of the new idea. Back in 2006, Facebook was still growing and people, especially around here, were skeptical about putting their photos out there, in the public for everyone to see.

Then came Twitter, and it was something unconventional. The 140 characters became simply an insane way to form ideas and start conversations. The word "tweet" itself was stranger to the ear.

Nevertheless, things got moving. And in a matter of few years, these social media platforms became a cornerstone of the online world. They turned into powerful changing agents that some would claim that they were the first spark starting revolutions, and the unheard voices unbalancing systems and ideas.

Social media platforms formed their own genre of freedom of expressions where there are no moderators, but millions of people expressing themselves in so many different ways.

For that, for anyone who witnessed the rising of social media, it is hard to point a finger on its charms after all these years; for most of us, it is just part of life. However, believe it or not, this is not the case for everyone! There are those who social media never interested them.

No matter the amount of fame and publicity these platforms gained over the years, they fell on deaf ears and blind eyes. And I guess I found the perfect example of those who decided to live away from all the fun, hustle, and frustration of social media.

When a friend of mine came back after spending many years in the West on a scholarship, I was truly surprised to find out that he willingly decided not to use social media at all.

According to him, he did not find anything interesting to keep him glued to social media. He tried Facebook back in 2009 and Twitter in 2012, but has never been a regular user of any of them.

Despite all the hype surrounding these platforms, he found them, in his own words, repulsive! “Finding communities surrounding your interests on social media is a very hard thing to do, and even if you stumble upon a group or a community of something you follow, it would mostly be a waste of time that you could have spent finding other useful information about that same topic on your own.”

With all the confidence in the world, he does not feel left out or missing anything. “If it’s about news, the mobile is full of apps with trusted sources that could fetch you the breaking news. If it’s about important topics of discussions in any field, just follow up the specialized websites and forums dedicated to that field.” It is truly interesting to be confronted with such an opinionated voice against something you have been taking for granted.

While one cannot deny the positive outcomes of social media, it is also hard to dismiss the fact that there is a lot of noise on these platforms. I could not convince him to accept social media and he could not convince me to give it up, but I truly believe that we are both right in a way; the secret of having a good social media presence is in striking a balance between too much usage and none of it at all.

— Saad Al-Dosari is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah.