With the alternative, independent socials, you still have people pushing their opinions, but you might get that in any bar or at the bus stop, and in both cases, you still have the choice to agree or to ignore them.
Here on Hive we can downvote them which is possibly a 'violent' action but can be enormously good for your personal well being!
What a brilliant and well-written post! I am NOT a writer, I am 99% reader, so it's great when I make a new discovery....which on this occasion, is you, of course!
About removing yourself from FB. The thing that keeps me there are the groups. I will confess this early on, but I love railways, modelling and lots of other rather err, let's be polite and call it 'niche' interest groups which I wouldn't be able to keep up with easily or with a breadth of content anywhere else. Did you have similar issues?
I have yet to downvote anything, but give it time, haha.
Very kind of you to say, and I'm glad you liked it. No judgement from me, I have a lot of interests too and do miss a few of the groups I was in (some of those included steam railways, metal detecting, etc). Since leaving FB I've just had to seek out 'my people' elsewhere, and there are still individual forums for pretty much anything out there. Still early days, but I'd say life generally feels better away from that environment.