LinkedIn is like every large internet gathering (Reddit, Facebook, Youtube, etc): 80% is a sea of thoughtless garbage, 15% is trivial but entertaining, and the remaining 5% is genuinely useful information and functionality that didn't exist 15 years ago. The stuff the article points out--hilariously--is the equivalent of browsing r/politics (or r/wallstreetbets the past 2 weeks).

For useful 5% LinkedIn my principles are:

- I unfollow all companies and people so the newsfeed is totally empty.

- I don't post, like, follow, or any other kind of interaction

- I add everyone I meet professionally (school, work, networking, etc) immediately after meeting them.

- I keep my profile updated with essentials only (pictures, work history, etc).

This has some nice benefits that are hard to replicate:

- In the event I need to reach out to that one person I used to work with, for whatever reason, I have a way to reach them without ever having to get personal contact info like an email address or phone number.

- If I need to put a name to a face for someone in a professional network, I can do a glance through LinkedIn. I think everyone appreciates when someone takes the time to remember you, so this is really valuable.

- The occasional "what is that one friend doing 5-10 years later". Just the other day I was browsing alumni from my school and saw a friend I haven't seen in about 10 years. Turns out, we both changed careers and went into software engineering!