6 ms·

Is HN "social media"?

by rhcom2 9y ago

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.

Is HN "social media"?

by rhcom2 9y ago

Is HN "social media"?

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.