I'm not much of a social media user. I had a Facebook account decades ago, because it was the only way to keep in touch with our far-flung (military) family members, but eventually its usefullness waned, and I got rid of it. Same with Twitter. I was there when all the cool kids had a Twitter account, but I deleted it many years ago.
Until the Solus Troubles in January of this year. It seemed the only readily accessible source of information about what was going on at Solus was available there. And there were signs that Twitter was undergoing a makeover under its new ownership. So I once again had a Twitter account, and still do, though I don't even visit it every day.
In this forum, I've read occasional references to Mastodon, but I knew very little about it. Eventually I clicked on the link at the bottom of the forum home page, and took a look. To say that I'm very impressed would be an understatement, for sure. Mastodon, or Fosstodon (I'm still a little unclear about the difference) seems to be just where I want to spend my social media time. I spent this morning reading Ars Technica articles, and news about Thunderbird 115, which is about to be released three days from now. Naturally, I'm following both.
If the idea of learning a new UI and procedures doesn't appeal to you, no worries there. If you've ever used Twitter, you'll find it works much the same way. Just with a cleaner UI. And I understand Mastodon is really strong on user privacy, which I don't think can be said for Twitter yet. And even if you haven't used another social medium, still no worries. Mastodon's UI is very intuitive.
Okay, this commercial (or PSA?) is over now. If I've interested you, just go to the bottom of the forum's home page and click on the Mastodon link there.