28 ms·

Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

319 points by navinsylvester 9y ago

hashkb 9y ago
Social Media is so obviously bad for you/society and good only for platform owners and advertisers. Most obvious thing in the world. To me, it's not at all obvious that crack addiction is, socially, any different.
- AlexCoventry 9y ago
  > not at all obvious that crack addiction is, socially, any different. I don't know; I'm addicted to reddit right now, and haven't noticed any greater tendencies to risky behaviors or violence.
  - crispyporkbites 9y ago
    you're not addicted to reddit, at a molecular level your body doesn't even know what reddit is
    - AlexCoventry 9y ago
      I'm aware, but from that perspective I don't know what the parallel to crack cocaine is supposed to be.
rhcom2 9y ago
Is HN "social media"?
- 0xCMP 9y ago
  Definitely isn't what I'd call deep work... Kidding aside, if you use HN to simply read things to learn from instead of... commenting on and reading articles like this... then you may still get a net benefit. I guess part of his point is how can you really expect yourself to be so disciplined?
- hateful 9y ago
  No. I think it's better than that. Social media is an MMO. HM is Multiplayer.
- zeth___ 9y ago
  HN is to facebook as recovered meat is to asbestos. Not good for you, but if you want a hotdog once in a while you're not going to die from it.
  - njarboe 9y ago
    Recovered meat and asbestos are probably very similar on the hazardous scale. Only high levels of daily, lifelong consumption/inhaling of them will increase the chance of getting some kind of disease, usually only in combination with some other kind of high risk factor. Lloyad's of London just had a blanket policy covering the US asbestos companies which made/makes asbestos lawsuits a much better bet than processed meat ones.
- ashelmire 9y ago
  It's a link aggregator and a webforum. As far as I'm aware, you don't friend people or submit original content, or follow that of others. I would not consider it social media.
- guelo 9y ago
  Yes.
- thisisit 9y ago
  In some sense, yes. A friend of mine, once got obsessed over the karma he was generating on HN. Every two hours he would check his HN profile, just to see if his karma had increased or not.
  - justherefortart 9y ago
    What does karma do for you here? I still can't downvote so it seems pointless.
    - psyc 9y ago
      I don't know the exact number, but I believe you get downvotes around 500. It may have changed.
      - justherefortart 9y ago
        So close... Help a brother out! ;-)
    - u801e 9y ago
      I believe that you need at least 500 karma in order to downvote on HN.
    - randomwhatever 9y ago
      Hmm, it used to be that after some amount of karma points, you were able to downvote. Was that feature removed? (I was in the same situation, started to care too much about my karma points (was top 100 at one point), so now whenever my account gets too high, I make up a random password for it (type eyes closed), log out, and create a new one.
  - deadbunny 9y ago
    > Every two hours he would check his HN profile, just to see if his karma had increased or not. This seems highly inefficient. he should have spent that time writing a script to do it for him...
- jdmoreira 9y ago
  I've actually quit all mainstream social media (FB, twitter, reddit, etc...) years ago. You could assume I'm much more productive but the truth is I still spent a lot of time on HN and browsing the web.
lazyjones 9y ago
It feels like only months (OK, it's been a few years) since we were being told that not having a social media presence may be considered suspicious. http://business.time.com/2012/08/08/does-not-having-a-facebook-page-make-you-suspicious-to-employers/ http://business.time.com/2012/08/08/does-not-having-a-facebo...
- 8ytecoder 9y ago
  Cal Newport is the author of Deep Work. So at least what he is saying is consistent.
- amha 9y ago
  People have different opinions. There's no homogenous voice of authority that tells people what to do and what not to do.
  - lazyjones 9y ago
    These aren't "opinion" articles. Their findings are reasoned and presented like facts. If the NYT wrote "Quit eating chocolate, your health may depend on it", would you perceive it as an opinion, or advice based on facts/research?
    - ensignro2340 9y ago
      As 8ytecoder said, Cal Newport has never been wishy-washy on this topic (please correct me if I'm wrong). He's also been pretty clear in interviews that deep work is incredibly beneficial for some professions and less so for others. I know there are careers out there where having a social media presence is important (PR, marketing, etc) and others where it's not necessary and would be a hindrance to getting deep work done.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      mm but Newspapers compete with Social Media not the same thing.
- fein 9y ago
kcorbitt 9y ago
This is self-promotional, but also highly relevant! A few moths ago after reading Cal Newport's book "Deep Work", I decided to try to improve my social media usage by writing an app that could block HN/Twitter/Google News (the big 3 digital distractions for me) by default, and force me to go to an extra step to temporarily unblock them when I wanted to use them. It seems like a small thing, but that extra friction of having to open my app, unblock, and then go on to the service in question has really cut down my casual browsing. I feel much more productive and just... at peace with my internet usage since I've adopted this pattern. If you have iOS and would like to give the app a try, I'd appreciate it! It's totally free for now. https://timeguard.io https://timeguard.io
- bob_theslob646 9y ago
  Looks pretty useful. Does the app snooze notifications, but also keep messages/notifications unread?
  - kcorbitt 9y ago
    Notifications will still come through, since they're pushed by Apple and I can only block the app's own servers. That said, I turned off notifications for all social-style services a long time ago, and would recommend the same to anyone. :)
- kasperni 9y ago
  There is a similar app for Mac OS X: https://selfcontrolapp.com/ https://selfcontrolapp.com/
- chickenfries 9y ago
  Wow, thanks for making this! I've been doing time tracking with Moment, and so far all it's done is made me amazed that I spend 3-4+ hours a day on my phone. I like that this works with apps and websites.
- rsefer 9y ago
  I made a Chrome extension called Not Now that helps with this: https://seferdesign.com/not-now/ https://seferdesign.com/not-now/
nimbius 9y ago
as a millennial its almost impossible to apply for a job that doesnt quietly scan through social media trying to find you. My last job sent a linkedin request from the HR director, but after my first week he lamented that I "didnt seem very social" on the internet. My current job went so far as to browse the TLD for my email address for clues to any seditious or non-conforming behaviors.
- tjr225 9y ago
  > after my first week he lamented that I "didnt seem very social" on the internet. Ew...
- ranie93 9y ago
  What kind of job was this for?
- mkirklions 9y ago
  I have not had this experience. Please post the field you are in.
- 20171026 9y ago
  Did you apply for a social media marketing position?
- walshemj 9y ago
  Which is treading on very thin ice legally even in the USA a professional HR person would advise against it.
prolikewhoa 9y ago
I live in the PNW and am in the tech industry. I haven't had a need for social media in any job application I've filled out, and not a single interview or recruiter mentioned anything about social media. Social media is entirely unecessary unless you consider Indeed social media or work in a social media role.
- onion2k 9y ago
  I live in the PNW and am in the tech industry. I haven't had a need for social media in any job application I've filled out, and not a single interview or recruiter mentioned anything about social media. You live in a region where the demand for tech workers outstrips the supply. Of course no one is ruling you out based on what your social media says about you. Employers can't afford to. If you work in an industry where an employer knows there'll be 50 equally qualified candidates available at the drop of a hat then they can afford to filter people out of their candidate pool; checking someone's social media reputation is precisely the sort of filter they use. Note that there are huge numbers of programmes aimed at getting more kids in to coding. This will be standard practise for narrowing down the pool of developers in a decade or so.
- wmichelin 9y ago
  Every job application I have filled out in the past two years has asked for a Linked In profile (even though it is technically optional).
Spooky23 9y ago
It advice where the answer is "it depends". Are you a police officer? Trial attorney? Inspector General? You almost certainly should not be on social media, or exclusively posting baby pictures and acting within defined guidelines from your employer. Are you a teacher? librarian? social services worker? union steward? public sector employee not covered by collective bargaining? You should be very cautious about sharing your views/experience on gun control, abortion, Trump, binge drinking, drugs, etc. Are you a salesdude, politician, business owner, etc? If your personal schtick part of your branding efforts professionally? You should be on social media, focused on whatever you do. Otherwise, Facebook, Twitter or whatever is what you make of it. If you do dumb things, there may be consequences. Most of the time it's the equivalent of amusing yourself with friends in a semi-public place, except your buddy Zuck is always silently listening.
- walshemj 9y ago
  When I worked at BT a few years ago one of the only rules was don't post on uk.telecom :-) and I assume alt.2600 (SD would have a fit as would the alt.2600 users) Though at one time I was going to post on behalf of my employer (the press office asked me) on alt.2600 about the MET Police getting VMB'd - but our internal security vetoed that :-(
- upvotinglurker 9y ago
  > Are you a police officer? Trial attorney? Inspector General? You almost certainly should not be on social media, or exclusively posting baby pictures and acting within defined guidelines from your employer. An agent from the local mid-size-city FBI office spoke at an "information security for regular people" event at my university. He said he had a Facebook profile, but pretty much all the information on it was false.
- ExcelSaga 9y ago
  I would add one point: Is there a chance you might ever be one of those things, or are friends with or related to one of them? If so, no social media.
tapeleg 9y ago
Career and social life should be completely and utterly separated. The content on your social media page should have no bearing on your ability to perform the job at hand. Quite honestly, an employer that even looks at your social media profile to do a sort of casual "character check" on you, is not one that you should want to work for in the first place. Especially true in the realm of IT, where there just simply aren't enough solid, responsible people to fill the need. This article presents a nice thought, but on principle, I'm just gonna keep doing my thing outside of work (documenting what I want on social media), and crushing it AT work. My career should be growing based on job performance, not that one time I accidentally got too drunk at a bar.
- WhompingWindows 9y ago
  How would you know if a potential employer does google-fu on you?
  - jiveturkey 9y ago
    Take out an ad on your own name.
    - onychomys 9y ago
      "Ask Onychomys the secret to getting hot singles in your area to date you!"
- justherefortart 9y ago
  What should happen and what does happen are two completely separate things in reality. If performance actually mattered I'd venture to guess 95%+ of people would be fired immediately. Maybe I'm cynical about it in my advancing years, but kissing ass pays off exponentially more than producing good work (unless you own your own business).
  - scient 9y ago
    In my experience for whatever reason a lot of software engineers consider normal functional communication with their peers and managers as ass kissing. Is it because of being introverted?
ensignro2340 9y ago
I don't remember where I heard/read it, but I always think about something someone said along the lines of "I want to be the person who creates a social media app, not the person using it every day" I've found more and more time in the day the fewer social media accounts I have. I just wish the industry could step a little further away from LinkedIn. It's the only social media site I feel has any bearing on my career at the moment (I mean the only one employers ask about regularly).
- draw_down 9y ago
  Why dream of creating something you personally have no interest in using?
- amelius 9y ago
  > I just wish the industry could step a little further away from LinkedIn. Are there any open-source and federated alternatives to LinkedIn? (Other than just posting your resume as a HTML page)
draw_down 9y ago
Except all the people whose careers are what they are today because of social media...
sergefaguet 9y ago
how about quit all news media including the New York Times? NYT = same exact incentives as Facebook. plus constant exaggeration of threats and pushing irrelevant stuff outside of your control. i honestly don't give a fuck what Kim Jong Un / Putin / Trump do because i can't change anything about them. which makes the NYT an addictive waste of time very much like social media.
- mkirklions 9y ago
  Ive moved on for the most part. I check reddit and ycombinator. Instagram was good, but its a lot of repeats after you spend enough time on it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
drdrey 9y ago
OP doesn't need social media for professional opportunities, therefore you don't either
reaperducer 9y ago
Does HN count as social media? Aren't fora the original social media platforms?
- mkirklions 9y ago
  HN is social media, but its much more anonymous since its based on usernames.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
manishsharan 9y ago
Is LinkedIn considered social media ? I don't use it much but I consider it as an address book of past colleagues that updates itself.
gnicholas 9y ago
> In my own professional life, for example, as I improved my standing as an academic and a writer, I began receiving more interesting opportunities than I could handle. I currently have filters on my website aimed at reducing, not increasing, the number of offers and introductions I receive....My research on successful professionals underscores that this experience is common: As you become more valuable to the marketplace, good things will find you. This struck me as humble-braggy, and not particularly enlightening. Are there any details on this research? It's not at all surprising that a tenured professor at Georgetown would have lots of inbound requests, so that one data point isn't particularly relevant for most people. What fields were these other professionals in? I'm completely open to the possibility that in some fields, the most successful people are not on social media much. But laying out this blanket advice without any detail on where it might or might not apply isn't very helpful. There are a lot of founders on HN, and I am interested to see the perspective of other founders. We wear lots of hats, including as social media marketers—which of course entails some social media presence. I'm pretty sure my Kickstarter would have never been funded if I weren't on FB, for example! But maybe I'm wrong, and I'm not considering the alternate promotion avenues I would have pursued if I weren't on FB?
- lkrubner 9y ago
  "This struck me as humble-braggy, and not particularly enlightening." But it is true. I'll save my criticism for things that are false, or utterly banal. And people at the beginning of their career might not fully realize how much things change when their career takes off. It's worth saying.
  - some_random 9y ago
    The title of the article does however include "Your Career". While one's career may improve if they quit social media after their career takes off, this article is framed as being for literally anyone.
  - geofft 9y ago
    The thing that's false is the implication that careers will certainly / deterministically take off. Especially in academia there are more people who both want a certain role and are qualified for it than roles. If you happen to stumble into the right path - maybe some particular research interest of yours in graduate school happens to line up with someone who just retired at a good university, and so there's an opening; maybe you pick an experiment that happened to succeed instead of fail and so you got more publications because people hate negative results - your career will take off without the need for social media to provide you with opportunities and networking. On the other hand, maybe someone from your informal network will be the step you need to get out of a fruitless program and into something where your career will take off. If this person is conditioning their anecdata on "successful professionals," it's totally unsurprising that they'll find that successful professionals are successful. That doesn't help those of us who aren't lucky and need to figure out how to push ourselves over the threshold until our career catches. (Note that I'm not saying that this person's success was simply the result of luck; they also had to be qualified and work hard. But out of the qualified people who work hard, not all of them can succeed.)
CNJ7654 9y ago
Remember kids, whenever you are using the Internet with your real name, you are inviting anyone with an interest to take a look at what you post!
iovrthoughtthis 9y ago
Last week I watched a homeless man: - Get a phone - Start a twitter account - Start mico-blogging - Get offered a job - Get the job - Become no longer homeless https://mobile.twitter.com/CharlieBinbags https://mobile.twitter.com/CharlieBinbags
- alex_young 9y ago
  Thank you for sharing that. Inspiring story. Social media clearly has positive and negative properties just like any other form of communication. I'm glad it's helping here.
nicodjimenez 9y ago
I like Cal Newport's Deep Work book. It gave me some extra confidence to blow off social media, email, and Slack, and focus on one thing, without feeling like I must be missing something important.
RandallBrown 9y ago
Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to what I've been doing without having to call him. (I still call him, but we can talk about the pictures and things we've seen over the last week or so.) I plan vacations and events with friends. Next weekend I'm going to a bachelor party in the Adirondacks with people from around the country. I've never been worried about my employer seeing my social media profiles. If I wouldn't do something in public, I wouldn't post it to social media. Maybe I'm unique in being able to restrain myself. I always hear stories about how people are "so much happier" after they quit Facebook. What is happening on your Facebook that's making you unhappy?
- jacobkg 9y ago
  For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll on people over time and gradually make them more unhappy
  - gamblor956 9y ago
    I've never seen stories like that in my Facebook page? Either your have horrible friends or you've responded repeatedly to this type of article in your Facebook feed, resulting in the algorithm promoting those posts. You can remove posts like that from your feed by clicking on the little gear in the top right.
  - p1esk 9y ago
    Funny, I probably saw all three headlines you mentioned, here on NH. I just don’t click on ones likely to upset me.
nwsm 9y ago
> If you’re serious about making an impact in the world, power down your smartphone, close your browser tabs, roll up your sleeves and get to work. I found this pretty pretentious.
- amadeusw 9y ago
  How come? I found this very empowering. It's just the motivation I needed this morning, and perhaps every day. It makes me realize that I'm here at work for a reason, and browsing hn is not one of them.
- mkirklions 9y ago
  >When you are a programmer and your work requires your smart phone to be on Couldnt get node.js to work with my emulator...
- TuringNYC 9y ago
  A major component of productive work is communication. I can spend 20minutes on a phone with a friend who is an expert in an area and learn a lot more than doing hours of research. Thinking that work is just coding is shortsighted.
- draw_down 9y ago
  Thanks for posting!
zzzeek 9y ago
nice article, but the concept of a career that is too much based on self-promotion and too little on actual production is not a concept invented by social media. It's fine to say, "hey don't waste all your time on twitter" but this seems to address people who specifically are pursuing their social media persona as a means to career advancement. It depends on the career.
mkirklions 9y ago
What do HN readers use for social media? I basically only use Reddit, HN, and instagram(which I'm slowly quitting).
- wmichelin 9y ago
  Facebook, Reddit, HN.
dizzystar 9y ago
On the other hand, there has been an increasing trend of companies adding a red this-is-required star to social media links on applications. I've been outright rejected for several jobs because I said I have no useful SM presence. I could understand this for something like band promotion, but for programming and similar jobs, it makes zero sense. I don't post pictures of me online, and even so, I never take photos when I'm out, and I'm not sure why it matters. It's almost like they think I'm hiding dead bodies or prison tats on my face.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  Even if you do have a social media presence that should be considered a red flag about the company. Personally I would fill those blanks in with http://notapplicable.com http://notapplicable.com It probably wouldn't result in a response but at least it would send a message.
pdog 9y ago
> I've never had a social media account. This is strictly true, but it's not as if Cal Newport doesn't have a web presence. He has a website registered for his name[1] and runs a popular blog called Study Hacks[2]. If you're marketing yourself, you should register your name online. It's one of the simplest and most effective ways to strengthen and, more importantly, control your personal brand[3]. [1]: http://calnewport.com/ http://calnewport.com/ [2]: http://calnewport.com/blog/ http://calnewport.com/blog/ [3]: https://www.financialsamurai.com/strengthen-your-brand-by-registering-your-name-online/ https://www.financialsamurai.com/strengthen-your-brand-by-re...
promeus 9y ago
Social media is not a problem. Tools for social internet connections are. Before all centralized tools we stayed connected with blogs, forums, etc. Fragmentation is important. Practically speaking, content is king. By giving your content to someone for free, you are creating a precedent in which, someone will explore your effort for nothing in exchange. Facebook is bottomless pit of greed. Thats why they are failing. Yes if you are technically and psychologically educated individual you can make this tools to work for you. But in a long run this is not true solution.
censorship 9y ago
And thank: Facebook Google and Twitter!
of 9y ago
I maintain multiple troll accounts on Twitter and Facebook. That's all I use these services for. I take pride in my active part in the downfall of these services, while at the same time producing intriguing and low-brow troll content. Once Mark Zuckerberg accepts the fact that not everyone uses the Internet according to his sheltered brain's arbitrary rules (I've even had to send a picture of my driver's license to Facebook to get them to unban one of my accounts. It's just a website! Get over yourselves), then the bubble will pop - with small communities scattered throughout the multiverse of the net just like Web 1.0. And that's basically it. The web is a multiverse where each of us are simultaneously able to have multiple identities, living multiple realities. It's never been suited to the rules that Facebook is trying to force people into. I feel like Facebook would be better off making their own Internet if they want people to adhere to their bullshit.
feelin_googley 9y ago
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cal-Newport/146867498697353 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cal-Newport/146867498697353
emodendroket 9y ago
This title suggests a somewhat different piece than it actually is. The argument seems to be that cultivating a social media presence as a career strategy is not helpful at best and may even be hurtful for dividing your attention. That's probably true, but I like to use social media to have discussions, find out about local events, or get in touch with friends, and have never really thought that someone would hire me because they liked an opinion I posted on Facebook.
mindcrash 9y ago
The problem with Social Media (and a few other platforms aswell) is that they were explicitly designed with addiction in mind. There's even literally a book about this subject called "Hooked" with subtitle "How to create habit forming products", but you can and should translate the "habit forming" in the subtitle into "addictive". Everybody has neurotransmitters in their body, and these neurotransmitters have the ability to change brain chemistry. One of those neurotransmitters is dopamine, which makes you feel good when you have accomplished something. Basically it's natural crack. So what do these platforms do? They abuse the knowledge of this kind of biology within the experience design of their platforms to create something I call "dopamine loops", which basically means you crave more, and more, and more dopamine (and thus keep interacting with the service). And before you know it the last few hours you should have spent on work or other important things like keeping an eye on the traffic around you or having actual real life social interactions with the people around you, are rather spent on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and whatnot. So it would rephrase the headline a bit. Not only your career may depend on it, but your entire life may actually depend on it.
known 9y ago
In social media you're unknowingly disclosing/sharing intimate details of your life;
20171026 9y ago
Does publishing YouTube programming videos and career advice count as social media?
kevinml 9y ago
I didn't sign up for Twitter because I thought it would open up professional opportunities for me. Not sure who this is aimed at to be honest. OP thinks social media is bad for you and doesn't need it for professional reasons so he doesn't use it. So why should I take his advice on what I should or shouldn't do on social media? His argument boils down to there are more productive uses of your time. Brb, gotta delete Netflix too! Sorry to my family as well, since I need to move to a shack in the woods to be free of distractions for my important work. If OP is worried about the "seductive" nature of promoting yourself on social media maybe he shouldn't write humblebrag articles to post in NYT.
mslate 9y ago
> Join Social Media. Your Career May Depend On It
jessiebeck3 9y ago
People need to get better at self-filtering and taking the information they consume in with a skeptical eye. Cool, yeah, Facebook could do better but how are we so collectively gullible / easily distracted by low-value interactions?
kilovoltaire 9y ago
(2016)
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks! Updated.
askafriend 9y ago
Devil's Advocate: While we're at it, how about we quit the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, etc too? They have the same effect, just not the same distribution power that they had in the past.
slantaclaus 9y ago
Why all this sentiment now? Seems like all these articles are just chasing the financial headlines.
turc1656 9y ago
"The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom." While I do not use social media (have FB but don't use it, never had Twitter, Instagram, etc.), and have taken steps to minimizing distractions like using the browser add-on Distraction-free Youtube (which is great, BTW), I have realized recently that HN is one of three sites I am addicted to and use in lieu of social media. I absolutely hit refresh on the HN main page whenever I encounter the "slightest hint of boredom" or just something I don't want to do. Same for the other sites. This is troubling to me, as all three of those sites are legitimately very useful. I read them for useful information and to keep abreast of topics important to me and to know what's going on in the world. They also provide insights from other perspectives I have not considered and act as a challenge to my own opinions and beliefs. It seems obvious I am going to have to severely limit my use during normal hours. I am aware of the noprocrast setting but honestly, it's a setting I have full control over so that doesn't help as I'll just override it and the other sites have no such setting anyway. Going to have to rely on good ol' self discipline.
- otachack 9y ago
  HN totally is one of the sources. But it's ultimately up to you, the consumer, to limit your intake. I ran into an article, either supplied by HN or not, that went over how we do not allow ourselves to be bored anymore. Any downtime we encounter is attacked with interaction with our smart phones. I think we need, as a favor to ourselves, curb that behavior. One thing I've done was disabled ringtones and vibrations for notifications on my phone. For calls I used to have my Pebble alert me of them but the app has stopped being maintained. This allows me to check my phone when I want to, not when it tells me to. Good luck!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ant6n 9y ago
  HN _is_ social media.
bazzlexposition 9y ago
"Demographically speaking I should be a heavy social media user, but that is not the case. I’ve never had a social media account." And I am supposed to spend the next 10 minutes reading your opinion, about something you haven't even experienced firsthand.
ohmichel 9y ago
This is a powerful piece. Definitely Cal have a point when he says "If you’re serious about making an impact in the world, power down your smartphone, close your browser tabs, roll up your sleeves and get to work. ".
nopacience 9y ago
Something curious about facebook is, they let anyone access user profile/pages (or whatever it is called), so visitor can see the user profile picture and might be able to see other stuff. Facebook "protects" the privacy of the "visitor" because the user cannot see what visitors have visited their profiles. So, users have no privacy, but visitors have their privacy protected. Facebook should list "who" visited user profiles. I dont know why they dont do this already. And even more, they could somehow list what photos the visitor chose to see, how long visitor stayed on user profile, which 'full resolution pictures' visitor had downloaded. If they only saw thumbnails then no need to list, but if visitor made the effort to download all full resolution user pictures then the owner of those pictures should be able to see who has downloaded them. So this way, the user would be able to see how frequently visitor X, Y, Z has stayed on their profiles, and how many/which full res pictures they have downloaded/seen. If the user profile is not a person, but a store (or company snooping on you), then the store would be able to benefit from this data and send some message saying "We noticed you have been visiting us lately, and you seem to have a lot of intrest in product X. Do you want to know the price or make an offer?" Or, if the user is a person and has seen weird behaviour from weird users, then user would be able to take precautions. So in the end, the user profiles are public and have no privacy. But the visitors/consumer of other people profiles can snoop on other lifes and have their privacy protected because the page they visited is never able to know they have been visited by visitor X Ntimes.
- duncanawoods 9y ago
  > I dont know why they dont do this already Because people would use Facebook less. Creeping is one of the core values of FB whether its acquaintances you think you want to know more or the old flames you think you want to forget. It may not be entirely negative as it sounds - its essentially gossip with a digital middleman and no distortion. Or at least a different kind of distortion with more control by the source.
wmichelin 9y ago
Does NYT just let anybody write for them nowadays? This article came off as very... amateurish.
- grzm 9y ago
  Looks like it was a guest piece, which may explain (while not excuse) what you're seeing: > "Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University and the author of “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” (Grand Central)." As an aside, during the expansion of media online, a lot of traditional media picked up a lot of bloggers. In some cases they were included in sections that distinguished between the traditional staff and the blogs, and were held to different journalistic standards, often on different teams. (Don't read this to mean that there aren't excellent bloggers; indeed there are.) That distinction has fallen away so it's not always obvious. Then again, people often mistake editorials and opinion pieces for news articles when it's right there in the header.
iamhamm 9y ago
I'm not sure I buy that not using social media is the linchpin of my career, but I take his point that it's largely a waste of time to be reasonable. I have all the major social media services and I use them occasionally (for example: I don't install the apps, I just login from a browser). I think the bigger message that I take from this: 1. Some people are probably "addicted" or at least habituated in a way that makes social media actively negative in their lives. 2. For the rest of us, maybe some see value in social media and others don't. I'm in (2): I take the "does doing X enrich my life?" approach to social media. Maybe once or twice a week I log on and see if anyone had anything personally interested happen. If so, great, if not or if it's just not something I want to spend brain on, I just keep scrolling. I've got other places to spend my time and I recognize that passively consuming a feed isn't enriching my own growth - so I don't do it. For the people in (1), it's a very different story. They may be using social media to an active detriment. Not sure how you get there, but to quote the psychologist in Annihilation: "Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct." I guess for some folks, that's social media - it's destructive to the point that bloggers need to write articles about quitting it. Or maybe it's just more clickbait since that's our world now.
- shrimp_emoji 9y ago
  This site is my social media, and I'm addicted to it, and I can't concentrate. This is a cry for help.
  - iamhamm 9y ago
    "Hi, I'm shrimp_emoji and I'm a hackaholic."
peterlk 9y ago
A fundamental rule that is eroding the allure of social media: Information consumption != happiness I have recently engaged in a somewhat forced[0] experiment. I have given up nearly all social media, and apps that send me push notifications of any kind, and replaced my news diet with e-books. Now, rather than reading the daily political gossip or worse, I listen to an audio book or read an e-book about something that interests me. I feel like my brain has much more space, and I am much less stressed. [0] I broke my phone, and couldn't get the one I wanted, so I got a temporary phone that gives me a grand total of 4GB of user-available storage. I've installed very few apps.
- shrimp_emoji 9y ago
  Good to hear it's going well, Bryan!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
purplezooey 9y ago
Kind of a simplified argument. "...foundation to achievement and fulfillment, almost without exception, requires that you hone a useful craft and then apply it to things..." yeah that sort of overlooks a lot of stuff, like bullshitting skills (very important today).
jmartrican 9y ago
> You should quit social media because it can hurt your career. Quitting social media might hurt your social life. FB is how I stay in touch with friends and family. Its how we exchange pictures of our kids.
JDiculous 9y ago
I vehemently disagree with the assertion that all social media is a net negative on one's life. First of all, there are many people who make a living off of social media, and HN itself is social media which for me personally has had a very positive impact on my life. But let's ignore this for a second. Social media simply allows one to expand their network and influence way beyond what one could accomplish solely offline. This means being exposed to opportunities that one may have never encountered via p2p word of mouth alone, whether that be job postings, business opportunities, potential clients, business partners, knowledge, motivation, etc. Social media of course can be a toxic waste of one's time (eg. the default Reddit homepage). Social media addiction is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. If you're compulsively checking your Facebook/Instagram every 5 minutes then that's probably a serious problem (unless you make a living off those platforms) that needs to be addressed. For the rest of us who maybe check it for 5-10 minutes in the evenings during our downtime, it's not really a big deal. Also I'd imagine that the author is a huge recipient of the positive end of social media even if only indirectly, his blog articles and such being shared through social media in order to market his book. I discovered his work over a decade ago through his blog which I used to actively follow. So it's a little bit hypocritical of him to knock on bloggers. But I totally agree with his observation that as a whole we're losing our ability to focus, and social media addiction is a serious problem.
mariatori 9y ago
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Social Media is so obviously bad for you/society and good only for platform owners and advertisers. Most obvious thing in the world. To me, it's not at all obvious that crack addiction is, socially, any different.

AlexCoventry 9y ago
> not at all obvious that crack addiction is, socially, any different. I don't know; I'm addicted to reddit right now, and haven't noticed any greater tendencies to risky behaviors or violence.
- crispyporkbites 9y ago
  you're not addicted to reddit, at a molecular level your body doesn't even know what reddit is
  - AlexCoventry 9y ago
    I'm aware, but from that perspective I don't know what the parallel to crack cocaine is supposed to be.

rhcom2 9y ago

Is HN "social media"?

0xCMP 9y ago
Definitely isn't what I'd call deep work... Kidding aside, if you use HN to simply read things to learn from instead of... commenting on and reading articles like this... then you may still get a net benefit. I guess part of his point is how can you really expect yourself to be so disciplined?
hateful 9y ago
No. I think it's better than that. Social media is an MMO. HM is Multiplayer.
zeth___ 9y ago
HN is to facebook as recovered meat is to asbestos. Not good for you, but if you want a hotdog once in a while you're not going to die from it.
- njarboe 9y ago
  Recovered meat and asbestos are probably very similar on the hazardous scale. Only high levels of daily, lifelong consumption/inhaling of them will increase the chance of getting some kind of disease, usually only in combination with some other kind of high risk factor. Lloyad's of London just had a blanket policy covering the US asbestos companies which made/makes asbestos lawsuits a much better bet than processed meat ones.
ashelmire 9y ago
It's a link aggregator and a webforum. As far as I'm aware, you don't friend people or submit original content, or follow that of others. I would not consider it social media.
guelo 9y ago
Yes.
thisisit 9y ago
In some sense, yes. A friend of mine, once got obsessed over the karma he was generating on HN. Every two hours he would check his HN profile, just to see if his karma had increased or not.
- justherefortart 9y ago
  What does karma do for you here? I still can't downvote so it seems pointless.
  - psyc 9y ago
    I don't know the exact number, but I believe you get downvotes around 500. It may have changed.
    - justherefortart 9y ago
      So close... Help a brother out! ;-)
  - u801e 9y ago
    I believe that you need at least 500 karma in order to downvote on HN.
  - randomwhatever 9y ago
    Hmm, it used to be that after some amount of karma points, you were able to downvote. Was that feature removed? (I was in the same situation, started to care too much about my karma points (was top 100 at one point), so now whenever my account gets too high, I make up a random password for it (type eyes closed), log out, and create a new one.
- deadbunny 9y ago
  > Every two hours he would check his HN profile, just to see if his karma had increased or not. This seems highly inefficient. he should have spent that time writing a script to do it for him...
jdmoreira 9y ago
I've actually quit all mainstream social media (FB, twitter, reddit, etc...) years ago. You could assume I'm much more productive but the truth is I still spent a lot of time on HN and browsing the web.

lazyjones 9y ago

It feels like only months (OK, it's been a few years) since we were being told that not having a social media presence may be considered suspicious. http://business.time.com/2012/08/08/does-not-having-a-facebook-page-make-you-suspicious-to-employers/ http://business.time.com/2012/08/08/does-not-having-a-facebo...

8ytecoder 9y ago
Cal Newport is the author of Deep Work. So at least what he is saying is consistent.
amha 9y ago
People have different opinions. There's no homogenous voice of authority that tells people what to do and what not to do.
- lazyjones 9y ago
  These aren't "opinion" articles. Their findings are reasoned and presented like facts. If the NYT wrote "Quit eating chocolate, your health may depend on it", would you perceive it as an opinion, or advice based on facts/research?
  - ensignro2340 9y ago
    As 8ytecoder said, Cal Newport has never been wishy-washy on this topic (please correct me if I'm wrong). He's also been pretty clear in interviews that deep work is incredibly beneficial for some professions and less so for others. I know there are careers out there where having a social media presence is important (PR, marketing, etc) and others where it's not necessary and would be a hindrance to getting deep work done.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    mm but Newspapers compete with Social Media not the same thing.
fein 9y ago

kcorbitt 9y ago

This is self-promotional, but also highly relevant! A few moths ago after reading Cal Newport's book "Deep Work", I decided to try to improve my social media usage by writing an app that could block HN/Twitter/Google News (the big 3 digital distractions for me) by default, and force me to go to an extra step to temporarily unblock them when I wanted to use them. It seems like a small thing, but that extra friction of having to open my app, unblock, and then go on to the service in question has really cut down my casual browsing. I feel much more productive and just... at peace with my internet usage since I've adopted this pattern. If you have iOS and would like to give the app a try, I'd appreciate it! It's totally free for now. https://timeguard.io https://timeguard.io

bob_theslob646 9y ago
Looks pretty useful. Does the app snooze notifications, but also keep messages/notifications unread?
- kcorbitt 9y ago
  Notifications will still come through, since they're pushed by Apple and I can only block the app's own servers. That said, I turned off notifications for all social-style services a long time ago, and would recommend the same to anyone. :)
kasperni 9y ago
There is a similar app for Mac OS X: https://selfcontrolapp.com/ https://selfcontrolapp.com/
chickenfries 9y ago
Wow, thanks for making this! I've been doing time tracking with Moment, and so far all it's done is made me amazed that I spend 3-4+ hours a day on my phone. I like that this works with apps and websites.
rsefer 9y ago
I made a Chrome extension called Not Now that helps with this: https://seferdesign.com/not-now/ https://seferdesign.com/not-now/

nimbius 9y ago

as a millennial its almost impossible to apply for a job that doesnt quietly scan through social media trying to find you. My last job sent a linkedin request from the HR director, but after my first week he lamented that I "didnt seem very social" on the internet. My current job went so far as to browse the TLD for my email address for clues to any seditious or non-conforming behaviors.

tjr225 9y ago
> after my first week he lamented that I "didnt seem very social" on the internet. Ew...
ranie93 9y ago
What kind of job was this for?
mkirklions 9y ago
I have not had this experience. Please post the field you are in.
20171026 9y ago
Did you apply for a social media marketing position?
walshemj 9y ago
Which is treading on very thin ice legally even in the USA a professional HR person would advise against it.

prolikewhoa 9y ago

I live in the PNW and am in the tech industry. I haven't had a need for social media in any job application I've filled out, and not a single interview or recruiter mentioned anything about social media. Social media is entirely unecessary unless you consider Indeed social media or work in a social media role.

onion2k 9y ago
I live in the PNW and am in the tech industry. I haven't had a need for social media in any job application I've filled out, and not a single interview or recruiter mentioned anything about social media. You live in a region where the demand for tech workers outstrips the supply. Of course no one is ruling you out based on what your social media says about you. Employers can't afford to. If you work in an industry where an employer knows there'll be 50 equally qualified candidates available at the drop of a hat then they can afford to filter people out of their candidate pool; checking someone's social media reputation is precisely the sort of filter they use. Note that there are huge numbers of programmes aimed at getting more kids in to coding. This will be standard practise for narrowing down the pool of developers in a decade or so.
wmichelin 9y ago
Every job application I have filled out in the past two years has asked for a Linked In profile (even though it is technically optional).

Spooky23 9y ago

It advice where the answer is "it depends". Are you a police officer? Trial attorney? Inspector General? You almost certainly should not be on social media, or exclusively posting baby pictures and acting within defined guidelines from your employer. Are you a teacher? librarian? social services worker? union steward? public sector employee not covered by collective bargaining? You should be very cautious about sharing your views/experience on gun control, abortion, Trump, binge drinking, drugs, etc. Are you a salesdude, politician, business owner, etc? If your personal schtick part of your branding efforts professionally? You should be on social media, focused on whatever you do. Otherwise, Facebook, Twitter or whatever is what you make of it. If you do dumb things, there may be consequences. Most of the time it's the equivalent of amusing yourself with friends in a semi-public place, except your buddy Zuck is always silently listening.

walshemj 9y ago
When I worked at BT a few years ago one of the only rules was don't post on uk.telecom :-) and I assume alt.2600 (SD would have a fit as would the alt.2600 users) Though at one time I was going to post on behalf of my employer (the press office asked me) on alt.2600 about the MET Police getting VMB'd - but our internal security vetoed that :-(
upvotinglurker 9y ago
> Are you a police officer? Trial attorney? Inspector General? You almost certainly should not be on social media, or exclusively posting baby pictures and acting within defined guidelines from your employer. An agent from the local mid-size-city FBI office spoke at an "information security for regular people" event at my university. He said he had a Facebook profile, but pretty much all the information on it was false.
ExcelSaga 9y ago
I would add one point: Is there a chance you might ever be one of those things, or are friends with or related to one of them? If so, no social media.

tapeleg 9y ago

Career and social life should be completely and utterly separated. The content on your social media page should have no bearing on your ability to perform the job at hand. Quite honestly, an employer that even looks at your social media profile to do a sort of casual "character check" on you, is not one that you should want to work for in the first place. Especially true in the realm of IT, where there just simply aren't enough solid, responsible people to fill the need. This article presents a nice thought, but on principle, I'm just gonna keep doing my thing outside of work (documenting what I want on social media), and crushing it AT work. My career should be growing based on job performance, not that one time I accidentally got too drunk at a bar.

WhompingWindows 9y ago
How would you know if a potential employer does google-fu on you?
- jiveturkey 9y ago
  Take out an ad on your own name.
  - onychomys 9y ago
    "Ask Onychomys the secret to getting hot singles in your area to date you!"
justherefortart 9y ago
What should happen and what does happen are two completely separate things in reality. If performance actually mattered I'd venture to guess 95%+ of people would be fired immediately. Maybe I'm cynical about it in my advancing years, but kissing ass pays off exponentially more than producing good work (unless you own your own business).
- scient 9y ago
  In my experience for whatever reason a lot of software engineers consider normal functional communication with their peers and managers as ass kissing. Is it because of being introverted?

ensignro2340 9y ago

I don't remember where I heard/read it, but I always think about something someone said along the lines of "I want to be the person who creates a social media app, not the person using it every day" I've found more and more time in the day the fewer social media accounts I have. I just wish the industry could step a little further away from LinkedIn. It's the only social media site I feel has any bearing on my career at the moment (I mean the only one employers ask about regularly).

draw_down 9y ago
Why dream of creating something you personally have no interest in using?
amelius 9y ago
> I just wish the industry could step a little further away from LinkedIn. Are there any open-source and federated alternatives to LinkedIn? (Other than just posting your resume as a HTML page)

draw_down 9y ago

Except all the people whose careers are what they are today because of social media...

sergefaguet 9y ago

how about quit all news media including the New York Times? NYT = same exact incentives as Facebook. plus constant exaggeration of threats and pushing irrelevant stuff outside of your control. i honestly don't give a fuck what Kim Jong Un / Putin / Trump do because i can't change anything about them. which makes the NYT an addictive waste of time very much like social media.

mkirklions 9y ago
Ive moved on for the most part. I check reddit and ycombinator. Instagram was good, but its a lot of repeats after you spend enough time on it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

drdrey 9y ago

OP doesn't need social media for professional opportunities, therefore you don't either

reaperducer 9y ago

Does HN count as social media? Aren't fora the original social media platforms?

mkirklions 9y ago
HN is social media, but its much more anonymous since its based on usernames.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

manishsharan 9y ago

Is LinkedIn considered social media ? I don't use it much but I consider it as an address book of past colleagues that updates itself.

gnicholas 9y ago

> In my own professional life, for example, as I improved my standing as an academic and a writer, I began receiving more interesting opportunities than I could handle. I currently have filters on my website aimed at reducing, not increasing, the number of offers and introductions I receive....My research on successful professionals underscores that this experience is common: As you become more valuable to the marketplace, good things will find you. This struck me as humble-braggy, and not particularly enlightening. Are there any details on this research? It's not at all surprising that a tenured professor at Georgetown would have lots of inbound requests, so that one data point isn't particularly relevant for most people. What fields were these other professionals in? I'm completely open to the possibility that in some fields, the most successful people are not on social media much. But laying out this blanket advice without any detail on where it might or might not apply isn't very helpful. There are a lot of founders on HN, and I am interested to see the perspective of other founders. We wear lots of hats, including as social media marketers—which of course entails some social media presence. I'm pretty sure my Kickstarter would have never been funded if I weren't on FB, for example! But maybe I'm wrong, and I'm not considering the alternate promotion avenues I would have pursued if I weren't on FB?

lkrubner 9y ago
"This struck me as humble-braggy, and not particularly enlightening." But it is true. I'll save my criticism for things that are false, or utterly banal. And people at the beginning of their career might not fully realize how much things change when their career takes off. It's worth saying.
- some_random 9y ago
  The title of the article does however include "Your Career". While one's career may improve if they quit social media after their career takes off, this article is framed as being for literally anyone.
- geofft 9y ago
  The thing that's false is the implication that careers will certainly / deterministically take off. Especially in academia there are more people who both want a certain role and are qualified for it than roles. If you happen to stumble into the right path - maybe some particular research interest of yours in graduate school happens to line up with someone who just retired at a good university, and so there's an opening; maybe you pick an experiment that happened to succeed instead of fail and so you got more publications because people hate negative results - your career will take off without the need for social media to provide you with opportunities and networking. On the other hand, maybe someone from your informal network will be the step you need to get out of a fruitless program and into something where your career will take off. If this person is conditioning their anecdata on "successful professionals," it's totally unsurprising that they'll find that successful professionals are successful. That doesn't help those of us who aren't lucky and need to figure out how to push ourselves over the threshold until our career catches. (Note that I'm not saying that this person's success was simply the result of luck; they also had to be qualified and work hard. But out of the qualified people who work hard, not all of them can succeed.)

CNJ7654 9y ago

Remember kids, whenever you are using the Internet with your real name, you are inviting anyone with an interest to take a look at what you post!

iovrthoughtthis 9y ago

Last week I watched a homeless man: - Get a phone - Start a twitter account - Start mico-blogging - Get offered a job - Get the job - Become no longer homeless https://mobile.twitter.com/CharlieBinbags https://mobile.twitter.com/CharlieBinbags

alex_young 9y ago
Thank you for sharing that. Inspiring story. Social media clearly has positive and negative properties just like any other form of communication. I'm glad it's helping here.

nicodjimenez 9y ago

I like Cal Newport's Deep Work book. It gave me some extra confidence to blow off social media, email, and Slack, and focus on one thing, without feeling like I must be missing something important.

RandallBrown 9y ago

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to what I've been doing without having to call him. (I still call him, but we can talk about the pictures and things we've seen over the last week or so.) I plan vacations and events with friends. Next weekend I'm going to a bachelor party in the Adirondacks with people from around the country. I've never been worried about my employer seeing my social media profiles. If I wouldn't do something in public, I wouldn't post it to social media. Maybe I'm unique in being able to restrain myself. I always hear stories about how people are "so much happier" after they quit Facebook. What is happening on your Facebook that's making you unhappy?

jacobkg 9y ago
For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll on people over time and gradually make them more unhappy
- gamblor956 9y ago
  I've never seen stories like that in my Facebook page? Either your have horrible friends or you've responded repeatedly to this type of article in your Facebook feed, resulting in the algorithm promoting those posts. You can remove posts like that from your feed by clicking on the little gear in the top right.
- p1esk 9y ago
  Funny, I probably saw all three headlines you mentioned, here on NH. I just don’t click on ones likely to upset me.

nwsm 9y ago

> If you’re serious about making an impact in the world, power down your smartphone, close your browser tabs, roll up your sleeves and get to work. I found this pretty pretentious.

amadeusw 9y ago
How come? I found this very empowering. It's just the motivation I needed this morning, and perhaps every day. It makes me realize that I'm here at work for a reason, and browsing hn is not one of them.
mkirklions 9y ago
>When you are a programmer and your work requires your smart phone to be on Couldnt get node.js to work with my emulator...
TuringNYC 9y ago
A major component of productive work is communication. I can spend 20minutes on a phone with a friend who is an expert in an area and learn a lot more than doing hours of research. Thinking that work is just coding is shortsighted.
draw_down 9y ago
Thanks for posting!

zzzeek 9y ago

nice article, but the concept of a career that is too much based on self-promotion and too little on actual production is not a concept invented by social media. It's fine to say, "hey don't waste all your time on twitter" but this seems to address people who specifically are pursuing their social media persona as a means to career advancement. It depends on the career.

mkirklions 9y ago

What do HN readers use for social media? I basically only use Reddit, HN, and instagram(which I'm slowly quitting).

wmichelin 9y ago
Facebook, Reddit, HN.

dizzystar 9y ago

On the other hand, there has been an increasing trend of companies adding a red this-is-required star to social media links on applications. I've been outright rejected for several jobs because I said I have no useful SM presence. I could understand this for something like band promotion, but for programming and similar jobs, it makes zero sense. I don't post pictures of me online, and even so, I never take photos when I'm out, and I'm not sure why it matters. It's almost like they think I'm hiding dead bodies or prison tats on my face.

paulie_a 9y ago
Even if you do have a social media presence that should be considered a red flag about the company. Personally I would fill those blanks in with http://notapplicable.com http://notapplicable.com It probably wouldn't result in a response but at least it would send a message.

pdog 9y ago

> I've never had a social media account. This is strictly true, but it's not as if Cal Newport doesn't have a web presence. He has a website registered for his name[1] and runs a popular blog called Study Hacks[2]. If you're marketing yourself, you should register your name online. It's one of the simplest and most effective ways to strengthen and, more importantly, control your personal brand[3]. [1]: http://calnewport.com/ http://calnewport.com/ [2]: http://calnewport.com/blog/ http://calnewport.com/blog/ [3]: https://www.financialsamurai.com/strengthen-your-brand-by-registering-your-name-online/ https://www.financialsamurai.com/strengthen-your-brand-by-re...

promeus 9y ago

Social media is not a problem. Tools for social internet connections are. Before all centralized tools we stayed connected with blogs, forums, etc. Fragmentation is important. Practically speaking, content is king. By giving your content to someone for free, you are creating a precedent in which, someone will explore your effort for nothing in exchange. Facebook is bottomless pit of greed. Thats why they are failing. Yes if you are technically and psychologically educated individual you can make this tools to work for you. But in a long run this is not true solution.

censorship 9y ago

And thank: Facebook Google and Twitter!

of 9y ago

I maintain multiple troll accounts on Twitter and Facebook. That's all I use these services for. I take pride in my active part in the downfall of these services, while at the same time producing intriguing and low-brow troll content. Once Mark Zuckerberg accepts the fact that not everyone uses the Internet according to his sheltered brain's arbitrary rules (I've even had to send a picture of my driver's license to Facebook to get them to unban one of my accounts. It's just a website! Get over yourselves), then the bubble will pop - with small communities scattered throughout the multiverse of the net just like Web 1.0. And that's basically it. The web is a multiverse where each of us are simultaneously able to have multiple identities, living multiple realities. It's never been suited to the rules that Facebook is trying to force people into. I feel like Facebook would be better off making their own Internet if they want people to adhere to their bullshit.

feelin_googley 9y ago

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cal-Newport/146867498697353 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cal-Newport/146867498697353

emodendroket 9y ago

This title suggests a somewhat different piece than it actually is. The argument seems to be that cultivating a social media presence as a career strategy is not helpful at best and may even be hurtful for dividing your attention. That's probably true, but I like to use social media to have discussions, find out about local events, or get in touch with friends, and have never really thought that someone would hire me because they liked an opinion I posted on Facebook.

mindcrash 9y ago

The problem with Social Media (and a few other platforms aswell) is that they were explicitly designed with addiction in mind. There's even literally a book about this subject called "Hooked" with subtitle "How to create habit forming products", but you can and should translate the "habit forming" in the subtitle into "addictive". Everybody has neurotransmitters in their body, and these neurotransmitters have the ability to change brain chemistry. One of those neurotransmitters is dopamine, which makes you feel good when you have accomplished something. Basically it's natural crack. So what do these platforms do? They abuse the knowledge of this kind of biology within the experience design of their platforms to create something I call "dopamine loops", which basically means you crave more, and more, and more dopamine (and thus keep interacting with the service). And before you know it the last few hours you should have spent on work or other important things like keeping an eye on the traffic around you or having actual real life social interactions with the people around you, are rather spent on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and whatnot. So it would rephrase the headline a bit. Not only your career may depend on it, but your entire life may actually depend on it.

known 9y ago

In social media you're unknowingly disclosing/sharing intimate details of your life;

20171026 9y ago

Does publishing YouTube programming videos and career advice count as social media?

kevinml 9y ago

I didn't sign up for Twitter because I thought it would open up professional opportunities for me. Not sure who this is aimed at to be honest. OP thinks social media is bad for you and doesn't need it for professional reasons so he doesn't use it. So why should I take his advice on what I should or shouldn't do on social media? His argument boils down to there are more productive uses of your time. Brb, gotta delete Netflix too! Sorry to my family as well, since I need to move to a shack in the woods to be free of distractions for my important work. If OP is worried about the "seductive" nature of promoting yourself on social media maybe he shouldn't write humblebrag articles to post in NYT.

mslate 9y ago

> Join Social Media. Your Career May Depend On It

jessiebeck3 9y ago

People need to get better at self-filtering and taking the information they consume in with a skeptical eye. Cool, yeah, Facebook could do better but how are we so collectively gullible / easily distracted by low-value interactions?

kilovoltaire 9y ago

(2016)

sctb 9y ago
Thanks! Updated.

askafriend 9y ago

Devil's Advocate: While we're at it, how about we quit the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, etc too? They have the same effect, just not the same distribution power that they had in the past.

slantaclaus 9y ago

Why all this sentiment now? Seems like all these articles are just chasing the financial headlines.

turc1656 9y ago

"The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom." While I do not use social media (have FB but don't use it, never had Twitter, Instagram, etc.), and have taken steps to minimizing distractions like using the browser add-on Distraction-free Youtube (which is great, BTW), I have realized recently that HN is one of three sites I am addicted to and use in lieu of social media. I absolutely hit refresh on the HN main page whenever I encounter the "slightest hint of boredom" or just something I don't want to do. Same for the other sites. This is troubling to me, as all three of those sites are legitimately very useful. I read them for useful information and to keep abreast of topics important to me and to know what's going on in the world. They also provide insights from other perspectives I have not considered and act as a challenge to my own opinions and beliefs. It seems obvious I am going to have to severely limit my use during normal hours. I am aware of the noprocrast setting but honestly, it's a setting I have full control over so that doesn't help as I'll just override it and the other sites have no such setting anyway. Going to have to rely on good ol' self discipline.

otachack 9y ago
HN totally is one of the sources. But it's ultimately up to you, the consumer, to limit your intake. I ran into an article, either supplied by HN or not, that went over how we do not allow ourselves to be bored anymore. Any downtime we encounter is attacked with interaction with our smart phones. I think we need, as a favor to ourselves, curb that behavior. One thing I've done was disabled ringtones and vibrations for notifications on my phone. For calls I used to have my Pebble alert me of them but the app has stopped being maintained. This allows me to check my phone when I want to, not when it tells me to. Good luck!
deleted 9y ago
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ant6n 9y ago
HN _is_ social media.

bazzlexposition 9y ago

"Demographically speaking I should be a heavy social media user, but that is not the case. I’ve never had a social media account." And I am supposed to spend the next 10 minutes reading your opinion, about something you haven't even experienced firsthand.

ohmichel 9y ago

This is a powerful piece. Definitely Cal have a point when he says "If you’re serious about making an impact in the world, power down your smartphone, close your browser tabs, roll up your sleeves and get to work. ".

nopacience 9y ago

Something curious about facebook is, they let anyone access user profile/pages (or whatever it is called), so visitor can see the user profile picture and might be able to see other stuff. Facebook "protects" the privacy of the "visitor" because the user cannot see what visitors have visited their profiles. So, users have no privacy, but visitors have their privacy protected. Facebook should list "who" visited user profiles. I dont know why they dont do this already. And even more, they could somehow list what photos the visitor chose to see, how long visitor stayed on user profile, which 'full resolution pictures' visitor had downloaded. If they only saw thumbnails then no need to list, but if visitor made the effort to download all full resolution user pictures then the owner of those pictures should be able to see who has downloaded them. So this way, the user would be able to see how frequently visitor X, Y, Z has stayed on their profiles, and how many/which full res pictures they have downloaded/seen. If the user profile is not a person, but a store (or company snooping on you), then the store would be able to benefit from this data and send some message saying "We noticed you have been visiting us lately, and you seem to have a lot of intrest in product X. Do you want to know the price or make an offer?" Or, if the user is a person and has seen weird behaviour from weird users, then user would be able to take precautions. So in the end, the user profiles are public and have no privacy. But the visitors/consumer of other people profiles can snoop on other lifes and have their privacy protected because the page they visited is never able to know they have been visited by visitor X Ntimes.

duncanawoods 9y ago
> I dont know why they dont do this already Because people would use Facebook less. Creeping is one of the core values of FB whether its acquaintances you think you want to know more or the old flames you think you want to forget. It may not be entirely negative as it sounds - its essentially gossip with a digital middleman and no distortion. Or at least a different kind of distortion with more control by the source.

wmichelin 9y ago

Does NYT just let anybody write for them nowadays? This article came off as very... amateurish.

grzm 9y ago
Looks like it was a guest piece, which may explain (while not excuse) what you're seeing: > "Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University and the author of “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” (Grand Central)." As an aside, during the expansion of media online, a lot of traditional media picked up a lot of bloggers. In some cases they were included in sections that distinguished between the traditional staff and the blogs, and were held to different journalistic standards, often on different teams. (Don't read this to mean that there aren't excellent bloggers; indeed there are.) That distinction has fallen away so it's not always obvious. Then again, people often mistake editorials and opinion pieces for news articles when it's right there in the header.

iamhamm 9y ago

I'm not sure I buy that not using social media is the linchpin of my career, but I take his point that it's largely a waste of time to be reasonable. I have all the major social media services and I use them occasionally (for example: I don't install the apps, I just login from a browser). I think the bigger message that I take from this: 1. Some people are probably "addicted" or at least habituated in a way that makes social media actively negative in their lives. 2. For the rest of us, maybe some see value in social media and others don't. I'm in (2): I take the "does doing X enrich my life?" approach to social media. Maybe once or twice a week I log on and see if anyone had anything personally interested happen. If so, great, if not or if it's just not something I want to spend brain on, I just keep scrolling. I've got other places to spend my time and I recognize that passively consuming a feed isn't enriching my own growth - so I don't do it. For the people in (1), it's a very different story. They may be using social media to an active detriment. Not sure how you get there, but to quote the psychologist in Annihilation: "Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct." I guess for some folks, that's social media - it's destructive to the point that bloggers need to write articles about quitting it. Or maybe it's just more clickbait since that's our world now.

shrimp_emoji 9y ago
This site is my social media, and I'm addicted to it, and I can't concentrate. This is a cry for help.
- iamhamm 9y ago
  "Hi, I'm shrimp_emoji and I'm a hackaholic."

peterlk 9y ago

A fundamental rule that is eroding the allure of social media: Information consumption != happiness I have recently engaged in a somewhat forced[0] experiment. I have given up nearly all social media, and apps that send me push notifications of any kind, and replaced my news diet with e-books. Now, rather than reading the daily political gossip or worse, I listen to an audio book or read an e-book about something that interests me. I feel like my brain has much more space, and I am much less stressed. [0] I broke my phone, and couldn't get the one I wanted, so I got a temporary phone that gives me a grand total of 4GB of user-available storage. I've installed very few apps.

shrimp_emoji 9y ago
Good to hear it's going well, Bryan!

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

purplezooey 9y ago

Kind of a simplified argument. "...foundation to achievement and fulfillment, almost without exception, requires that you hone a useful craft and then apply it to things..." yeah that sort of overlooks a lot of stuff, like bullshitting skills (very important today).

jmartrican 9y ago

> You should quit social media because it can hurt your career. Quitting social media might hurt your social life. FB is how I stay in touch with friends and family. Its how we exchange pictures of our kids.

JDiculous 9y ago

I vehemently disagree with the assertion that all social media is a net negative on one's life. First of all, there are many people who make a living off of social media, and HN itself is social media which for me personally has had a very positive impact on my life. But let's ignore this for a second. Social media simply allows one to expand their network and influence way beyond what one could accomplish solely offline. This means being exposed to opportunities that one may have never encountered via p2p word of mouth alone, whether that be job postings, business opportunities, potential clients, business partners, knowledge, motivation, etc. Social media of course can be a toxic waste of one's time (eg. the default Reddit homepage). Social media addiction is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. If you're compulsively checking your Facebook/Instagram every 5 minutes then that's probably a serious problem (unless you make a living off those platforms) that needs to be addressed. For the rest of us who maybe check it for 5-10 minutes in the evenings during our downtime, it's not really a big deal. Also I'd imagine that the author is a huge recipient of the positive end of social media even if only indirectly, his blog articles and such being shared through social media in order to market his book. I discovered his work over a decade ago through his blog which I used to actively follow. So it's a little bit hypocritical of him to knock on bloggers. But I totally agree with his observation that as a whole we're losing our ability to focus, and social media addiction is a serious problem.

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