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Nobody will even bother to listen to me talk about social media anymore, because I am always telling people it is unhealthy and they should get off it (and yet

Nobody will even bother to listen to me talk about social media anymore, because I am always telling people it is unhealthy and they should get off it (and yet I'm here). It is the worst fast food imaginable for our human need to socialize, transient and shallow.

overcast 9y ago
I think comparing a discussion on HN to liking photos, and notifications on Instagram. Is a bit far fetched. You can easily argue about the addictiveness of an online forum, and social interaction. We are social creatures after all. But social media sites like IG, Facebook, Twitter, specifically target those weaknesses in our brain.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Yeah whatever damage (if any) HN does is child's play compared to the big players. Being explicitly about technology and related news rather than yourself makes a huge difference already. With consideration to the lack of aggressive personalization/click manipulation makes it hard to claim its even in the same game. It still is a social network at the end of the day though, least how I see it.
  - swiley 9y ago
    The /only/ reason I still have a hackernews account after abandoning my other accounts is because it's one of the only sites that seems aware of this. I'm especially fond of the noprocrast feature. I don't know of any other site/app that will kick their users out if they use it for too long.
    - graphitezepp 9y ago
      Providing a feature designed to make you use a product less is the antithesis of what the major social media sites do. Really inspires confidence in HN's motivations being pure.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  It's not completely far-fetched, at least not with Reddit. Part of facebook and instagram is social, sure, but Reddit and HN has that with their comments sections too. Another really important part of these sites is novelty seeking, which all of these sites do well.
- Chathamization 9y ago
  There are good and really useful comments on here. But there's also a lot of fluff. Beyond that, the way things are set up encourages compulsive behavior. If you take several hours to comment on something, there's a good chance your comment will get buried. Wait a few days, and there's a good chance no one will read it. After making a comment, there's a certain urgency to check to see who's replied to you, because if you wait too long chances are the person has moved on. You'll also notice that people start making the same comments and having the same conversations over and over again. Instead of having an ongoing conversation about, say, space exploration, you have the same beginning of a discussion happening whenever the topic comes up, and then stopping before it really matures. That's not to say that the comment section here is bad, but it's still worth paying attention to some of its drawbacks. Particularly because it shares the urgency and compulsive aspects that permeate a lot of current sites.
  - overcast 9y ago
    HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums. The only real addictive bit is the points system on HN. I'd be fine with that just going away. It wouldn't be the first time I've refreshed posts I've made repeatedly to see the tally go up.
    - Chathamization 9y ago
      > HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums. The old style of forums didn't have the same kind of compulsive pressure, since you could always respond the next day/week/month and the topic would bump back up to the top of the post. If you don't respond on HN or Reddit quick enough, no one is going to see your comment. I frequent some sites that has the older system, and I'll find myself occasionally saying "This isn't that important; wait a few days and see if you feel like responding." But that's not really much of an option here - how many people are going to read your comment if you make it several days later? And it wouldn't be hard to devise a system that actively discourages compulsive posting behavior. If you, say, had a web forum where everyone could only post once a week, you'd have much less of that urgency (and you'd get a discussion with more users, not just the fraction that habitually post everywhere).
- krisdol 9y ago
  I've completely quit facebook and noticed that I just replaced its usage entirely by reddit. With facebook I usually just saw what my friends were up to; with reddit, I just see a bunch of strangers and recurring figures, and threads where everyone is an keyboard comedian. I think my reddit usage is extremely unhealthy because I just browse the same things over and over again in my free time. But most of the time I feel like I just don't know what to do (or don't have time to do what I know I should) on the internet anymore.
  - overcast 9y ago
    Reddit is horrible, I gave up on that a while ago for the exact reasons you stated. It's a massive time sink, with zero benefit. Fast food of online forums.
- rwallace 9y ago
  Just as different kinds of processed food vary in how bad they are, so do different social media sites. I think HN is like pizza: yeah, it's not perfectly healthy, but which of us is going to live a perfectly healthy lifestyle, and pizza still contains a good deal of nutritional value. It's certainly a lot better than cookies.

overcast 9y ago

I think comparing a discussion on HN to liking photos, and notifications on Instagram. Is a bit far fetched. You can easily argue about the addictiveness of an online forum, and social interaction. We are social creatures after all. But social media sites like IG, Facebook, Twitter, specifically target those weaknesses in our brain.

graphitezepp 9y ago
Yeah whatever damage (if any) HN does is child's play compared to the big players. Being explicitly about technology and related news rather than yourself makes a huge difference already. With consideration to the lack of aggressive personalization/click manipulation makes it hard to claim its even in the same game. It still is a social network at the end of the day though, least how I see it.
- swiley 9y ago
  The /only/ reason I still have a hackernews account after abandoning my other accounts is because it's one of the only sites that seems aware of this. I'm especially fond of the noprocrast feature. I don't know of any other site/app that will kick their users out if they use it for too long.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    Providing a feature designed to make you use a product less is the antithesis of what the major social media sites do. Really inspires confidence in HN's motivations being pure.
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
It's not completely far-fetched, at least not with Reddit. Part of facebook and instagram is social, sure, but Reddit and HN has that with their comments sections too. Another really important part of these sites is novelty seeking, which all of these sites do well.
Chathamization 9y ago
There are good and really useful comments on here. But there's also a lot of fluff. Beyond that, the way things are set up encourages compulsive behavior. If you take several hours to comment on something, there's a good chance your comment will get buried. Wait a few days, and there's a good chance no one will read it. After making a comment, there's a certain urgency to check to see who's replied to you, because if you wait too long chances are the person has moved on. You'll also notice that people start making the same comments and having the same conversations over and over again. Instead of having an ongoing conversation about, say, space exploration, you have the same beginning of a discussion happening whenever the topic comes up, and then stopping before it really matures. That's not to say that the comment section here is bad, but it's still worth paying attention to some of its drawbacks. Particularly because it shares the urgency and compulsive aspects that permeate a lot of current sites.
- overcast 9y ago
  HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums. The only real addictive bit is the points system on HN. I'd be fine with that just going away. It wouldn't be the first time I've refreshed posts I've made repeatedly to see the tally go up.
  - Chathamization 9y ago
    > HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums. The old style of forums didn't have the same kind of compulsive pressure, since you could always respond the next day/week/month and the topic would bump back up to the top of the post. If you don't respond on HN or Reddit quick enough, no one is going to see your comment. I frequent some sites that has the older system, and I'll find myself occasionally saying "This isn't that important; wait a few days and see if you feel like responding." But that's not really much of an option here - how many people are going to read your comment if you make it several days later? And it wouldn't be hard to devise a system that actively discourages compulsive posting behavior. If you, say, had a web forum where everyone could only post once a week, you'd have much less of that urgency (and you'd get a discussion with more users, not just the fraction that habitually post everywhere).
krisdol 9y ago
I've completely quit facebook and noticed that I just replaced its usage entirely by reddit. With facebook I usually just saw what my friends were up to; with reddit, I just see a bunch of strangers and recurring figures, and threads where everyone is an keyboard comedian. I think my reddit usage is extremely unhealthy because I just browse the same things over and over again in my free time. But most of the time I feel like I just don't know what to do (or don't have time to do what I know I should) on the internet anymore.
- overcast 9y ago
  Reddit is horrible, I gave up on that a while ago for the exact reasons you stated. It's a massive time sink, with zero benefit. Fast food of online forums.
rwallace 9y ago
Just as different kinds of processed food vary in how bad they are, so do different social media sites. I think HN is like pizza: yeah, it's not perfectly healthy, but which of us is going to live a perfectly healthy lifestyle, and pizza still contains a good deal of nutritional value. It's certainly a lot better than cookies.