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I'm a big believer in social media being toxic for many people. I see the core problems as it pushes life views to the extremes. Its full of posts of 'see how

I'm a big believer in social media being toxic for many people. I see the core problems as it pushes life views to the extremes. Its full of posts of 'see how great my life is' or 'see how bad the world is'. This combined with a media intergrated into our lives almost real-time whose organisations are all looking to maximise our attention. We used to go through the world in a much simpler bubble and get our half hours news window on TV or newspaper in the morning. And being connected to the wider journeys of people for more realistic expectations e.g. rather than seeing someone post a picture of a great car saying 'how good is this' you also got to see they had been working and saving hard for a few years. Ive thought about this a bunch and dont know how we can deal with it better. I cant see social media going away. I tried one of those apps that shows the screen time you spend but it didnt really change habits for me. I mentioned to my partner the other day that we should consider setting on weekend day as a screen free day. I really think this is somethign important for society to work on.

sdrothrock 7y ago
> Its full of posts of 'see how great my life is' or 'see how bad the world is'. This combined with a media intergrated into our lives almost real-time whose organisations are all looking to maximise our attention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11031-018-9683-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11031-018-9683-... https://time.com/4358140/overcome-fomo/ https://time.com/4358140/overcome-fomo/ For a long time I thought "FOMO" was just a trendy bit of slang that hit the nail on the head nicely, but it's actually a documented psychological phenomenon (though I don't know which came first). Ever since I learned about it, I've basically trained myself to not check social media often and, when I do, to remind myself that the pieces I see of other people's lives aren't representative of their lives as a whole, nor are they representative of what I should be expecting or enjoying from my own life. It's helped a little.
mnm1 7y ago
Traditional media (news) is also toxic. For the last few months I stopped consuming it and my level of happiness and life satisfaction has gone up tremendously. I don't consume social media at all unless you count hn. I highly recommend that people try this. The occasional traditional news articles on hn are the only exception but generally I avoid them and never dig further. I haven't missed out on anything important. The news is mostly irrelevant and imo, harmful to one's everyday life. After all, it makes me feel helpless and hopeless. I can't change politics or politicians or disasters or crime or whatever. Watching the news just creates anger and anxiety over things that are purely out of my control. Fuck that.

sdrothrock 7y ago

> Its full of posts of 'see how great my life is' or 'see how bad the world is'. This combined with a media intergrated into our lives almost real-time whose organisations are all looking to maximise our attention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11031-018-9683-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11031-018-9683-... https://time.com/4358140/overcome-fomo/ https://time.com/4358140/overcome-fomo/ For a long time I thought "FOMO" was just a trendy bit of slang that hit the nail on the head nicely, but it's actually a documented psychological phenomenon (though I don't know which came first). Ever since I learned about it, I've basically trained myself to not check social media often and, when I do, to remind myself that the pieces I see of other people's lives aren't representative of their lives as a whole, nor are they representative of what I should be expecting or enjoying from my own life. It's helped a little.

mnm1 7y ago

Traditional media (news) is also toxic. For the last few months I stopped consuming it and my level of happiness and life satisfaction has gone up tremendously. I don't consume social media at all unless you count hn. I highly recommend that people try this. The occasional traditional news articles on hn are the only exception but generally I avoid them and never dig further. I haven't missed out on anything important. The news is mostly irrelevant and imo, harmful to one's everyday life. After all, it makes me feel helpless and hopeless. I can't change politics or politicians or disasters or crime or whatever. Watching the news just creates anger and anxiety over things that are purely out of my control. Fuck that.