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My biggest issue with social media is less that it's distracting (IMO not necessarily an unhealthy thing) but that it has, for me, more than anything else seeme

• 5q9d 7y ago
  Blind is one of the worst. Useful for information, but super toxic for comparison. The problem with social media is not that it's 100% useless, it's that it's hard to walk the line. In the example of Blind, it is good to be informed, but it's bad to compare.
  • tmh88j 7y ago
    >Blind is one of the worst. Useful for information, but super toxic for comparison Blind seems more like 4chan parading around as linkedin, and I haven't found much substance there at all. It seems like a bunch of recent college grads trying to one up each other even while being anonymous. Just a lot of thinly veiled humblebrags pretending to be questions like "I got an offer for $350k at google, but I like my current position making $320k at Apple. Should I take it?", along with extremely simple questions that would be better answered by google like "what does company xyz do?". I've only poked around for about an hour, so if anyone has suggestions for a better experience I'm all ears. My initial exposure did not leave a good taste in my mouth.
    • chillacy 7y ago
      You can at least get "honest" opinions of things as well as some of the best salary negotiation / salary info available. $350k at google isn't a newgrad salary but it is a typical L4-L5 compensation: https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/
• pesmhey 7y ago
  Haven’t we always done this though? It seems like it’s more that social media has made the playing field 10^9 instead of 10^3.
  • tempsy 7y ago
    Yep. The problem with social media is that it exploits and amplifies existing human tendencies, not that it creates new ones. Bill Maher had a good "New Rule" on this very phenomenon a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGp-omDD3V0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGp-omDD3V0
  • flattone 7y ago
    pre social media was 10^3? I was thinking more "10 to 20". I suppose from person to person and at different stages of life the filter of who is appropriate for your playing field might change. . but even 10^2 seems high. I can barely name 20 critically important people in my life let alone those which are on my playing field. I have managed this, a bit unconsciously. Generally when my field is managed in line with my conscious values I'd only regard a person who I know and respect professionally. Further filtering on whether I actually feel like I personally (not just professionally) know the person. curious what a different playing field mechanism might be described as
    • parrellel 7y ago
      For most people it's supposedly something like 10^2.5 or ~300 people in your monkey sphere of varying levels of importance. So, in an exponential sort of way its decent rounding :P
    • Izkata 7y ago
      As sibling comment hints, you have multiple concepts mixed together. The monkeysphere is "how many people you can comprehend as people with their own full lives", and is on the order of 150-300. "Critically important" in your life is a far higher bar, so 10 to 20 makes sense. "Playing field" is a far lower bar where only the relevant metric matters, which widens the range to a far larger number of people.
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• T-hawk 7y ago
  The way to compensate for this is to realize the perception bias you're applying to yourself. If you have 52 friends on Facebook, and each of them takes a vacation for one week out of the year, then every week you see someone broadcasting how they're having a more awesome time than you. That doesn't mean they're doing any better than you. You just don't see the 52 reactions for the one week that you've got the vacation 'advantage' over them. You only notice the comparison when you're on the worse side of it.
  • foldingmoney 7y ago
    I realise this isn't the point of your post, but it's exceedingly unlikely that they all take vacations on different weeks... like 4.73 * 10^-22 unlikely if vacation choice was random, which it isn't.
    • ksahin 7y ago
      I love HN!
  • nradov 7y ago
    I feel happy for my friends when they take a nice vacation. But the vast majority of them are mediocre photographers at best. No matter how awesome the location is, it's hard to feel jealous when the pictures are all blurry and backlit.
• scanny 7y ago
  I feel like Hackernews is more distracting to be honest, it's like crack, I just cannot stop looking through all these interesting posts.
  • servercobra 7y ago
    The noprocrast setting is really helpful, personally. I wish every site had this.
    • scanny 7y ago
      I didn't even know this existed, thanks! Hopefully this will curb things a bit
    • Metus 7y ago
      What does that setting do? There is no tooltip.
      • bart_spoon 7y ago
        Looks like turning it on enables the maxvisit and minaway categories. Maxvisit is how many minutes you can browse before getting shutoff. Minaway is how long before you can browse again.
  • hnzix 7y ago
    In between the SV hivemind posts is distributed just enough nuggets of mindblowing technical, business and even medical wisdom (from insanely switched-on people) that it keeps me checking. It's the ultimate infovore loot box.
    • someguy101010 7y ago
      Well said, finding compelling info on here is such a dopamine rush. Receiving a dopamine rush from learning something interesting is probably a good thing though.
• justanothersys 7y ago
  It’s an anxious quest for difference in environments where it is banished.
• rexpop 7y ago
  > Even on Twitter, perhaps more acutely in certain jobs or industries, it seems like you're competing with other in gaining professional influence. Interestingly, as someone who uses Twitter for a purely anonymous psychological outlet, I do not feel this at all. Instead, I find it a place of earnest concern and solidarity—when not plagued by trolls.
• sharadov 7y ago
  I disagree, but that's just me and my opinion. It probably comes down to personality type. For me Facebook/Instagram is simply a form of communication, where am just seeing pictures of family and friends. Again am ruthless about pruning my contacts ( will hide all the narcissistic ones). LinkedIn - only active when am looking for a job, I'll post from time to time.
• sys_64738 7y ago
  Isn’t this call keeping up with the Jones’s? If the neighbor has a new car then you want one too. This is just the cyberspace equivalent.
  • tempsy 7y ago
    We used to wake up, read the paper, see all the terrible things in the world and say “oh well, at least my life is better than those poor slobs.” But now it’s the opposite. Social media tells you everyone is having more fun, with more toys and more friends than you. They’re always in Saint Kitts having Mai Tais at sunset while you’re in Canoga Park selling your plasma at dusk. Yolo! Before Instagram, you could be a loser but not feel it because the winners weren’t always in your face. Even the most mundane post of avocado toast in a hipster coffee shop sends the message “I’m having fun and you’re not.”
    • Gibbon1 7y ago
      Used to be you'd read the paper and all the shitty things going on in the world and then... you'd stop reading the paper. And talk and deal with people making an ordinary day of it. Not it's in your face 24/7.
• agotterer 7y ago
  Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like social media and I’m capable of controlling my usage. I’ve developed some ground rules to ensure a good healthy experience. To start, I have an iOS rule that prevents more than 7 minutes of each social media app per day. I pretty much only use Facebook. After the timer is up that’s it for the day. I honestly enjoy seeing picture of my friends, their kids, their vacations, and the fun things they are doing. I don’t have FOMO and I’m not depressed seeing people doing something more fun than I am in that exact moment. In some cases I’m inspired to go somewhere or do something because I know my family or I would enjoy it. I rarely post myself, even if I’m doing something FOMO worthy (okay, maybe sometimes). I’ll share some photos from big occasions like birthdays or weddings since I think other people may want to see them, especially if they are in the photos. I generally use social media when I’m waiting for a train, sitting in a doctors office, or going to the bathroom. I never itch for it during the day and rarely find myself reaching for the app robotically. One thing that’s definitely help to curb constant dopamine hits and addiction is disabling all social media notifications. I’m never pushed content, I only pull it. Actually, I’ve disabled almost every single notification on my phone with the exception of imessage, slack, citizen, and photos. My phone never buzzes from email, social media, or anything else that I find distracting. One thing I’ve always wanted to do but never do is clean up my Facebook friend list so it’s only the people I care about. For what it’s worth Facebook seems to do a decent job of filtering it. But one day I’ll do it right.
  • oceliker 7y ago
    If you don't mind me asking, is there a reason why it's 7 minutes and not, say, 5 or 10?
    • lsh 7y ago
      why 5 or 10 rather than 7, hm?
      • yepthatsreality 7y ago
        What about -∞?
      • 7y ago
• agumonkey 7y ago
  Something's wrong with this era. Super subtly wrong. Has it been the case that so many ~innovations things become quickly a problem, that you need another thing to use it safely, and when you happen to stop well, you don't miss it.
• GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  It is all shit. Everywhere you go it will be shit, just a different flavor. That is what I have taken away from life. Social media is simply white-washing shit experiences and pretending they are gold. Life is not always positive, otherwise you are fooling yourself. I am not cynical. I am just a realist. We need to drop this total farce of a behavior and stop conning each other if we hope to rise above it. Life is hard. Social media pretends like life is not hard, mind-fucking everyone. Social media is garbage.
  • adventured 7y ago
    > I am not cynical. I am just a realist. I agree with your broad premise about social media frequently being a poor representation of day to day life. The it's all shit part probably implies you're at least somewhat cynical. It's clearly not all shit, plenty of it certainly is. People frequently live different quality of lives vs their peers in fact; some people live amazing lives, some people live horrible lives. In a developed country, by far the largest distribution is likely to be a mixture of good and blah, with some occasional amazing and some bad thrown in. > We need to drop this total farce of a behavior and stop conning each other if we hope to rise above it. That behavior has always existed, it will always exist, so long as humanity does. Nothing can change it short of altering humanity through technology (and then we're something else), forced evolution (which we have begun, first pitch of the first inning; but it will probably take hundreds of years before we very substantially alter what we are; and we may make these things even worse, sharper). It's hard wired signaling and competition built into human nature, all the way down to the most fundamental aspects of what we are, including the pursuit of reproduction. Social media is nothing more than an aggressive, in your face, projected expression of it. It's the expression of many of the driving forces of human nature, amped up: sex, lust, attraction, status, materialism, greed, competition, envy, jealousy, pride, fear, validation, anger, inspiration, with some awww kittens & puppies thrown in. And that's also why people are drawn to it so intensely, it's a drug rush. You missed an important checkmark on realism: 'we' can't rise above these things, humanity is these things. That's the actual reality. And it isn't going away, people will be complaining about all of this stuff in exactly the same way 20 or 30 years from now, except this will all seem tame compared to what will occur in the future: it will get worse yet.
• xbeta 7y ago
  Upvote mad on this. This is exactly what I have been saying to all of my friends who quitted social media. One of aspects was also the narrow view social media creates for bipolarizing spectrum of one's opinions using extremistic news and probably fakes news.
• jamesbooth 7y ago
  I think there is an opportunity for a new perspective here...a positive one. Once you realize that all you're seeing is a highlight real on these social platforms and move past that I think there is a great opportunity to be a good friend, family, community member. Let others you follow know you are happy for them and the things they felt were important enough to capture and share with you and their audience via their profiles/accounts. Click like and leave supportive comments and turn social media into a positive! I have found the more I celebrate with others and interact in positive ways that it is reciprocated and strengths relationships.
• thosakwe 7y ago
  To be fair, I think you can get the “competition” phenomenon anywhere. I always read people’s blogs about programming and internships and feel like no matter how much I do, I’ll always be behind. So it’s possible that it’s not a social media-only thing.
• nradov 7y ago
  I see no problem with informal competition on social media. The really skilled underwater photographers get way more likes on Facebook than my lame pictures do. So from that perspective I'm losing. But I've learned and improved my technique a lot from following those experts.
• darepublic 7y ago
  Its easy for me to control my social media usage because I am unpopular.
• muzani 7y ago
  I see that as a positive thing though. Most of the career tricks I've learned has been from social media. I dislike everything else (anger, protests, distractions), but this is the one thing I'd like to keep.
• 01100011 7y ago
  > On Instagram, you're competing with others on who has the happiest life. No, I'm laughing at memes and seeing pictures of friends that I can't be with. > On LinkedIn, you're competing with others on who has the steepest career trajectory. No, I'm keeping in touch with colleagues and advertising my skills. If you're using those services as you describe, you should stop now.
• devin 7y ago
  I am sure this is true for some, but certainly not all. In a way, I am quite anxious about what I share because it’s all so... permanent... and personal. I miss a more anonymous web where impermanence _felt_ real, even if it wasn’t. On the other hand, I do see people who are otherwise very closed using it to express themselves and grow. It’s easy to say “yes, but at what cost? That’s not ‘growth’ to me” but who am I to judge? Some people smoke or drink to deal with their anxiety. Some people binge TV shows to avoid their problems and worries. There’s a lot of poison to be had in our world. There’s a lot of holier-than-thou attitudes about what vices are “ok”. It’s a lot of shallow moralizing in the end, IMO.
  • StavrosK 7y ago
    I just have a script delete everything except my latest N tweets/posts/whatever.
• anigbrowl 7y ago
  I think it's you, and I don't mean that in a snarky way. Of course I'm happy if I make a post (here or on Twitter) that gets a the occasional huge response with lots of engagement, but mostly because it's brought attention to whatever issue it was that I cared about. I have a relatively small number of Twitter followers but I don't really care. The only thing that annoys me is that Twitter's algorithm does a bad job both at supplying posts from the people I most want to follow and at getting my posts to the people who want to follow me for whatever reason; when a post of mine blows up, it seems to be due to the number of people looking at the topic rather than because I can consistently expect it to reach most of my followers. Thing is I'm just not a very competitive person, or a very social one. I have a small clique of quite close friendships and a larger pool of people I know and like but relate to in a pretty casual manner. Maybe my lack of competitive instinct is inherent, or maybe it has to do with having been 'extremely online' for ~30 years and just not caring as much. I'm far more preoccupied with understanding the dynamics of social media interactions than I with exploiting them (in conventional ways). tl;dr I think people relate to social media in quite different ways depending on personality type.
• unqueued 7y ago
  I quit social media two years ago, and while I think I am generally happier and less anxious, I am also left out. When everyone else has seen someone's new baby pictures or a picture from the summit of a mountain. Sadly, I am growing apart from my friends faster.
  • mrmonkeyman 7y ago
    I find it normalizes my life faster if I keep it real and thus away from socials. Social media can act as a form of life support to keep relations alive that really should just die. We are not all meant to have an active social life with dozens of close friends, it is OK.
  • thecleaner 7y ago
    > When everyone else has seen someone's new baby pictures or a picture from the summit of a mountain Did you just say you like seeing pictures of other people's babies ?
    • roland35 7y ago
      It is fun to see pictures of babies that I know! Now that our baby sleeps 8+ hours a night (6 months old) I also laugh to myself that I am glad we are past those sleepless nights!
    • bart_spoon 7y ago
      When its people I genuinely know and have a relationship with, yes. Its pretty fascinating to see the evolution of the lives and families of my friends and acquaintances.
• blablabla123 7y ago
  Yes and even if you might have made the mental leap to overcome the need to compete, you might still have some sense of desire you need to have this and that as well. Like a benchmark metric. I've quit Facebook and I can only confirm: nothing magical happens. At least I feel a bit better and feel less social pressure to accord to certain standards/do certain things. For a long time I thought LinkedIn is super essential and it would be complete non-sense to quit it. But I'm barely in contact with people I connected with there. Especially I rarely connect with recruiters because this would just be too much noise - of course I write them though. But now I start wondering, there are dedicated career websites and it's anyhow much better to apply for jobs one actually likes - instead of just saying yes or no to what recruiters think is the best idea.
• buboard 7y ago
  In real life you also compete with people on just about anything - that's what gossip is about and it's what these services captured. The most problematic thing imho is that all of these online "competitions" are relatively easily hackable.
  • justforfunhere 7y ago
    >> In real life you also compete with people on just about anything - that's what gossip is about and it's what these services captured. You cannot compare the scale at which real life interactions work to that of social media interactions.
• kccqzy 7y ago
  Curiously I don't feel that way. There's very little competition involved in the way I use social media. On Instagram, I rarely if ever look at other people's stories or posts other than a few close friends whose happiness can make me feel happy. But I do post my own and receive psychological validation when other people react positively to them. LinkedIn isn't even a social media for me. It's a place to dump facts about my career. I don't read the feed. My Facebook feed is just various memes trying to be funny. I look at them and laugh occasionally. There's just no competition aspect for me on social media.
• thecleaner 7y ago
  > On Instagram, you're competing with others on who has the happiest life. I think we can all agree, that happy people of Instagram are very very sad. Else they will be busy being happy not hunting likes. >Even on Twitter, perhaps more acutely in certain jobs or industries, it seems like you're competing with other in gaining professional influence. Unless its some useful info like a new research paper or some official announcement, I would reject everything on Twitter as some ill-thought opinion. > It creates a lot of anxiety that stems from a feeling like you're constantly on the verge of falling behind others. Try teamblind. Worst of the worst. On a serious note, a bit of competition is not really a bad thing. So you can simply choose how anxious to feel about it.
• dheera 7y ago
  And on HN you are competing for the top comment.
• koen_hendriks 7y ago
  This makes sense to me. The distractions are easily turned of i think, but the competition the platforms generate are much worse.
• yitchelle 7y ago
  Do you feel the competitive nature is self-imposed? Do you care if the Jane Doe is living the dream on her Instagram?
• loceng 7y ago
  You have to be in a place where you're grounded, secure, so you can self-regulate where social media becomes a tool you aren't or won't become dependant on, addicted to. “Rule your mind or it will rule you.” - Horace
• DoubleGlazing 7y ago
  I think the extreme opposite equally applies on social media, people who would moderate themselves in real life seem to let it all out on social media. So instead of pretending to be something they are not, they reveal their truest opinions and thoughts. For example extreme political and religious opinions. I've seen long term real life friendships broken because someone said something extreme about Brexit on facebook. I have a very religious friend who berates me constantly on facebook for being an ex-Catholic, she tells me I need to save myself etc - but she would never say that to me in real life. Social media is so good at making people say stupid things.
• dominotw 7y ago
  > forcing you to constantly evaluate how you compare to others. Doesn't that start with schooling very early in life though. What does that specifically do with social media. Maybe schools are different in America.
• edisonjoao 7y ago
  foxie, you're not competing with anyone https://apps.apple.com/us/app/foxie/id1369279200 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/foxie/id1369279200