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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

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 -∞?
  - oceliker 7y ago
    Fair point. I think humans having (usually) 5 fingers on each hand makes it familiar to us.
- agotterer 7y ago
  I actually tried both. 10 felt too long and approaching the territory of wasting more time than I wanted. 5 felt like it wasn’t long enough. I guess 7 was just right for me.
knzhou 7y ago
I don't know if we're in the minority, but I'm completely with you. I use social media for about 15 minutes a day and it only improves my life. I'm happy when I see my friends being happy. I think people who blame their life problems on social media have deeper underlying issues. Mark Zuckerberg didn't invent envy in 2004.
- Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
  I do sometimes get FOMO - I think it's just natural, but I try and look at it as an opportunity to improve myself and practice being mindful. Essentially I have two options if I feel a bit envious: 1) Feel envy and get depressed because I start thinking I have a worse life. 2) Share in their joy - send a like, write a positive comment or sometimes just do nothing except focus on being excited for them . By sharing in their joy, I get to experience a bit of their happiness for myself. If I write them a comment, even if it's just 'Congrats!', then there's a chance I might even make them a little happier too - which in itself makes me happier. This did not come naturally to me at first. I've worked on cultivating this attitude for many years. It's one of the best investments I've ever made in myself.
- Sevrene 7y ago
  That's still a number of days a year dedicated entirely to social media. Sure, it could be worse, but it's still (in my opinion) a significant amount of time over a year, or over your life. The thing is I feel like maybe you get more out of those 15 minutes than me, or others who feel like it's too much time. Those telling people not to use social media are probably the ones that don't have good experiences with social media. To each their own, I suppose. It's important to remember different people are going to have different experiences and that is going to paint your feelings about it. As much as it seems that social media does have a general negative impact on people, I'm sure there are people for who it is fine. Should we chastise everyone to stop? Probably not, just let others know it could be affecting them and how to stop, etc. It reminds me of people who get anxious on marijuana and then always go anti-drug on other people because they think "this stuff is terrible, no one should do this" yet for a lot of other people they had great experiences, and so the reverse is true "this stuff is great, everyone should try this". They're sort of both wrong there. Either way personally, I don't get much out of social media and so I don't use it. If you feel like you're getting something out of it worth those few days a year spent on it, go for it, although just be mindful that it's something that feels good, but might not actually be good itself.
pkamb 7y ago
> To start, I have an iOS rule that prevents more than 7 minutes of each social media app per day. But when you open the app at minute 8, there's a prominent "Ignore Limit" button right there. Are you relying on mere self control? Or do you have some way to actually prevent app usage?
- agotterer 7y ago
  Most of my usage is in a single session or two short sessions. Once I hit the limit I close the app and I usually don’t come back for the day. I have pretty good self control , but more importantly I want to use my time on other things. If I’m killing time I’d much rather read hacker news, work through my 800 article Pocket backlog, listen to an audio book, or flip through some pictures / memories of my kids. The limit was a choice I made up front to be a reminder not to waste too much time and to stop and do something else. But honestly, I try not to put too much thought into it. If I’m really enjoying what I’m doing in that moment I’ll give myself an extension for a few minutes. But it’s rare I do that more than once. I don’t think about it as an addiction that I’m trying to break or a habit I’m trying to avoid. I’ve made the conscious that social media is something I enjoy but don’t want to spend too much time on. So I put an arbitrary limit that reminds me to stop and do something else. My general mindset about most things is that doing it to excess isn’t good. Is wasting your day on social media that much worse than binging Netflix all day? Sure, if social media is causing anxiety, depression, or [enter any other issue here] then it’s something that should be managed. But if you are using it responsibly, not in excess, and are healthy about it, it seems fine to use from time to time with it without arbitrary limits.
- taneq 7y ago
  Sometimes all you need in order to gain that self control is to have your nose rubbed in it. Much as we hate them, this is one way that detailed timesheets help. The very fact that you're writing down what you were doing for each half-hour or whatever is enough to keep you focused because even if there are no further repercussions, you really don't want to write "hacker news 3.5 hours". Speaking of which... closes tab
maximente 7y ago
nice setup. personally i've moved to a two device solution in two physical different places, where the "serious" device has /etc/hosts black holing of addictive domains + social media; were i able to consume it in a healthy manner on a mobile device, the iOS rule would be great.
- COGlory 7y ago
  That's the number one reason I root my phone. Not to block ads, just to block Reddit.
Beldin 7y ago
> I pretty much only use Facebook. After the timer is up that’s it for the day. Any reasonable definition of social media would include any site whose main content is user-contributed, and allows users to comment and vote on content and comments. For example: reddit, youtube, imgur, .....HN. You may be consuming a lot more social media than you thought.
- SirHound 7y ago
  Not all social media is equal in its mental effects
  - Sean1708 7y ago
    I'm not at all convinced that HN is better than Facebook.
    - krapp 7y ago
      But we're the smart ones engaged in intellectually stimulating conversation, while everyone else is just a vain, endorphin-addled monkey in a Skinner box sharing cat memes, links and mundane trivialities. /s
devaroop 7y ago
When was the last time you looked at the open sky?
- thecleaner 7y ago
  Well lets see some responses. I saw it like 5mins ago. Europe is having some beautiful days right now.
rimliu 7y ago
Yup. I do not see it as a competition. On Instagram I share my photos (landscapes usually) and look at other photos. Could not care less about Instagram stories. On Linkedin I just keep my profile and ocassionaly get inquires. My last few jobs were all result of someone reaching me on the Linkedin. On Facebook I just filter out anyone who posts stuff what I deem not interesting. And Twitter… I just do not get it. Looks like continuous noise.
- thecleaner 7y ago
  > On Facebook I just filter out anyone who posts stuff what I deem not interesting. I did this. Now I don't follow anyone. This was not done consicously it just happened. Turns out, most stuff on FB is stupid nonsense. I just have weird ads and FB auto notifications like celebrate your 2 years of knowing this person whom you just unfollowed.
lostjohnny 7y ago
This kind of answer is what's problematic with social media. Don't get me wrong, I understand you, I too don't feel the competition when using them, I disabled almost every single notification (I constantly keep my phone on DND), but I aknwoledge that they are bad for a number of reasons, among the others: - they put the "normality" bar too high - they are too fast to follow - they promote content consumption over slow ingestion - they promote throw away content over curated lists of what we like - they promote the "sugar rush" of immediate reward over rational, slow and often tiring discussions - they tend to cause depression - finally, they favour dividing, inflammatory content because their metric is engagement If you admit you're force-limiting yourself from using them, you know they are problematic per se. I used to smoke cigarettes when I was waiting for the bus or the train or someone late. Now I don't anymore. I don't smoke during the day, I don't smoke home, I don't make cigarette breaks, I never hitch for them during the day, but I smoke when I'm out with my girlfriend doing aperitivo, because we're both social smokers. I'm limiting myself, it wasn't even hard, I don't have to use an app to not smoke, but cigarettes are bad anyway, zero is the right amount of them. The same goes for social networks: you can resist them, you can be a responsible user, you can force yourself to not fall into their dark patterns (or you're naturally good at avoiding time) but zero is the right amount of time to spend on them. We must understand that until social networks will be private held and under little or no control from public institutions, they can't be considered good. They are to be considered as adversaries of our wellness at the best, if not enemies or even villains. Take for example IKEA, their shops are beautiful but I don't think it's good to go there, from time to time, maybe with your kids, just to see what's new. I think it's good to go if you __have to go__ and really need something. Recently I was indefinitely suspended from Twitter. The reason is laughable, I had a "fight" with a well known Italian far right supporter, but I forgot they have a network of very active trolls, I made a mistake, I felt into a trap and they signaled me en mass and deleted all their messages and now I'm out. What's so funny about it? Firs of all I was using Twitter mainly to keep in touch with the updates of the programming communities I follow, mainly Elixir/Erlang. Secondly, I never felt better! I'm out from the daily background noise of complaints and after just a couple of weeks their networks have been finally identified and Facebook/Instagram banned them all (https://www.thelocal.it/20190910/facebook-shuts-down-italian-neo-fascist-parties-accounts https://www.thelocal.it/20190910/facebook-shuts-down-italian...). On the bright side, when Dorsey released to interviews saying that "you don't simply ban nazis from your platform because it's hard to identify them" Twitter’s share price fell as much as 4 percent. You might think this is all avoidable, but if I follow a programmer who's also an activist (doesn't matter which part they support) I'm almost certainly forced to see the content they post/like/share. So to defend myself I must take action, actions that after a while become a job, it is tiring, it forces you to make decisions that you usually don't have to take when dealing with people in person or on different communication platforms, HN as well, even though it's not my favourite, the interaction is certainly better than on any social media out there.
tempestn 7y ago
I'm with you too. I check Instagram a few times a day, but I only have my real friends on there. People I hang out with in real life, whom I legitimately care about. Not that many, so doesn't take long, and I enjoy knowing what they're up to. On Facebook I'm friends with a ton of acquaintances past and present, but I almost never actually look at the feed. I'll look up someone's profile if I run into them maybe, or if I'm expecting to see them. And it's handy for planning events. But I've never really understood how people become addicted to looking through the feeds of people they don't even like. That said, I've also met people who smoke a cigarette every couple months, and never feel the desire to smoke more; maybe we're that, but for social media.
nooyurrsdey 7y ago
> 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'm glad you enjoy the experience and are able to control it, but isn't it telling that you have to put a timer on it to prevent it from being a negative experience? It's like a drug you have to heavily regulate so you don't OD.
- batuhanicoz 7y ago
  Not OP but I also have a timer for certain social media apps, including Facebook. For me, the timer is just there to remind me X minutes have passed. Losing track of time while doing something, anything feels natural to me. It happens in real life when I stumble upon a friend on the street and we start chatting and it happens in social media when I scroll too much. If I'm reading something and my time is up, I just extend that and able to close the app afterward.
bart_spoon 7y ago
> 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. This is what made the biggest difference for me. Last year, I deleted both my Facebook and Instagram accounts for about 4 months. I found that I didn't miss my Facebook at all. My Instagram had been a decent way of staying in touch with a group of friends and family. I ended up creating an Instagram account again, but now that I was starting from scratch again, I was pretty mindful of who I followed. At this point I have about 40 people I follow, all of whom are people I know quite well and aren't particularly prolific posters. This is in comparison to the 200 or so I had amassed through college and beyond. I find that I don't even use Instagram for an average of 5 minutes per day, as thats about as long as it takes to actually see everything new since the day before. Its much more of a tool for informally keeping up with a handful of people I wouldn't otherwise than the time-sucking, attention-hijacking bloat of weak and non-existent relationships that it had become. And it basically makes other social media like Facebook and Twitter unnecessary. Deleting all social media is great, but for many people, it may be just as effective to simply do a Marie Kondo-esque purge of the social media junk you've accumulated over time.

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 -∞?
- oceliker 7y ago
  Fair point. I think humans having (usually) 5 fingers on each hand makes it familiar to us.
agotterer 7y ago
I actually tried both. 10 felt too long and approaching the territory of wasting more time than I wanted. 5 felt like it wasn’t long enough. I guess 7 was just right for me.

knzhou 7y ago

I don't know if we're in the minority, but I'm completely with you. I use social media for about 15 minutes a day and it only improves my life. I'm happy when I see my friends being happy. I think people who blame their life problems on social media have deeper underlying issues. Mark Zuckerberg didn't invent envy in 2004.

Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
I do sometimes get FOMO - I think it's just natural, but I try and look at it as an opportunity to improve myself and practice being mindful. Essentially I have two options if I feel a bit envious: 1) Feel envy and get depressed because I start thinking I have a worse life. 2) Share in their joy - send a like, write a positive comment or sometimes just do nothing except focus on being excited for them . By sharing in their joy, I get to experience a bit of their happiness for myself. If I write them a comment, even if it's just 'Congrats!', then there's a chance I might even make them a little happier too - which in itself makes me happier. This did not come naturally to me at first. I've worked on cultivating this attitude for many years. It's one of the best investments I've ever made in myself.
Sevrene 7y ago
That's still a number of days a year dedicated entirely to social media. Sure, it could be worse, but it's still (in my opinion) a significant amount of time over a year, or over your life. The thing is I feel like maybe you get more out of those 15 minutes than me, or others who feel like it's too much time. Those telling people not to use social media are probably the ones that don't have good experiences with social media. To each their own, I suppose. It's important to remember different people are going to have different experiences and that is going to paint your feelings about it. As much as it seems that social media does have a general negative impact on people, I'm sure there are people for who it is fine. Should we chastise everyone to stop? Probably not, just let others know it could be affecting them and how to stop, etc. It reminds me of people who get anxious on marijuana and then always go anti-drug on other people because they think "this stuff is terrible, no one should do this" yet for a lot of other people they had great experiences, and so the reverse is true "this stuff is great, everyone should try this". They're sort of both wrong there. Either way personally, I don't get much out of social media and so I don't use it. If you feel like you're getting something out of it worth those few days a year spent on it, go for it, although just be mindful that it's something that feels good, but might not actually be good itself.

pkamb 7y ago

> To start, I have an iOS rule that prevents more than 7 minutes of each social media app per day. But when you open the app at minute 8, there's a prominent "Ignore Limit" button right there. Are you relying on mere self control? Or do you have some way to actually prevent app usage?

agotterer 7y ago
Most of my usage is in a single session or two short sessions. Once I hit the limit I close the app and I usually don’t come back for the day. I have pretty good self control , but more importantly I want to use my time on other things. If I’m killing time I’d much rather read hacker news, work through my 800 article Pocket backlog, listen to an audio book, or flip through some pictures / memories of my kids. The limit was a choice I made up front to be a reminder not to waste too much time and to stop and do something else. But honestly, I try not to put too much thought into it. If I’m really enjoying what I’m doing in that moment I’ll give myself an extension for a few minutes. But it’s rare I do that more than once. I don’t think about it as an addiction that I’m trying to break or a habit I’m trying to avoid. I’ve made the conscious that social media is something I enjoy but don’t want to spend too much time on. So I put an arbitrary limit that reminds me to stop and do something else. My general mindset about most things is that doing it to excess isn’t good. Is wasting your day on social media that much worse than binging Netflix all day? Sure, if social media is causing anxiety, depression, or [enter any other issue here] then it’s something that should be managed. But if you are using it responsibly, not in excess, and are healthy about it, it seems fine to use from time to time with it without arbitrary limits.
taneq 7y ago
Sometimes all you need in order to gain that self control is to have your nose rubbed in it. Much as we hate them, this is one way that detailed timesheets help. The very fact that you're writing down what you were doing for each half-hour or whatever is enough to keep you focused because even if there are no further repercussions, you really don't want to write "hacker news 3.5 hours". Speaking of which... closes tab

maximente 7y ago

nice setup. personally i've moved to a two device solution in two physical different places, where the "serious" device has /etc/hosts black holing of addictive domains + social media; were i able to consume it in a healthy manner on a mobile device, the iOS rule would be great.

COGlory 7y ago
That's the number one reason I root my phone. Not to block ads, just to block Reddit.

Beldin 7y ago

> I pretty much only use Facebook. After the timer is up that’s it for the day. Any reasonable definition of social media would include any site whose main content is user-contributed, and allows users to comment and vote on content and comments. For example: reddit, youtube, imgur, .....HN. You may be consuming a lot more social media than you thought.

SirHound 7y ago
Not all social media is equal in its mental effects
- Sean1708 7y ago
  I'm not at all convinced that HN is better than Facebook.
  - krapp 7y ago
    But we're the smart ones engaged in intellectually stimulating conversation, while everyone else is just a vain, endorphin-addled monkey in a Skinner box sharing cat memes, links and mundane trivialities. /s

devaroop 7y ago

When was the last time you looked at the open sky?

thecleaner 7y ago
Well lets see some responses. I saw it like 5mins ago. Europe is having some beautiful days right now.

rimliu 7y ago

Yup. I do not see it as a competition. On Instagram I share my photos (landscapes usually) and look at other photos. Could not care less about Instagram stories. On Linkedin I just keep my profile and ocassionaly get inquires. My last few jobs were all result of someone reaching me on the Linkedin. On Facebook I just filter out anyone who posts stuff what I deem not interesting. And Twitter… I just do not get it. Looks like continuous noise.

thecleaner 7y ago
> On Facebook I just filter out anyone who posts stuff what I deem not interesting. I did this. Now I don't follow anyone. This was not done consicously it just happened. Turns out, most stuff on FB is stupid nonsense. I just have weird ads and FB auto notifications like celebrate your 2 years of knowing this person whom you just unfollowed.

lostjohnny 7y ago

This kind of answer is what's problematic with social media. Don't get me wrong, I understand you, I too don't feel the competition when using them, I disabled almost every single notification (I constantly keep my phone on DND), but I aknwoledge that they are bad for a number of reasons, among the others: - they put the "normality" bar too high - they are too fast to follow - they promote content consumption over slow ingestion - they promote throw away content over curated lists of what we like - they promote the "sugar rush" of immediate reward over rational, slow and often tiring discussions - they tend to cause depression - finally, they favour dividing, inflammatory content because their metric is engagement If you admit you're force-limiting yourself from using them, you know they are problematic per se. I used to smoke cigarettes when I was waiting for the bus or the train or someone late. Now I don't anymore. I don't smoke during the day, I don't smoke home, I don't make cigarette breaks, I never hitch for them during the day, but I smoke when I'm out with my girlfriend doing aperitivo, because we're both social smokers. I'm limiting myself, it wasn't even hard, I don't have to use an app to not smoke, but cigarettes are bad anyway, zero is the right amount of them. The same goes for social networks: you can resist them, you can be a responsible user, you can force yourself to not fall into their dark patterns (or you're naturally good at avoiding time) but zero is the right amount of time to spend on them. We must understand that until social networks will be private held and under little or no control from public institutions, they can't be considered good. They are to be considered as adversaries of our wellness at the best, if not enemies or even villains. Take for example IKEA, their shops are beautiful but I don't think it's good to go there, from time to time, maybe with your kids, just to see what's new. I think it's good to go if you __have to go__ and really need something. Recently I was indefinitely suspended from Twitter. The reason is laughable, I had a "fight" with a well known Italian far right supporter, but I forgot they have a network of very active trolls, I made a mistake, I felt into a trap and they signaled me en mass and deleted all their messages and now I'm out. What's so funny about it? Firs of all I was using Twitter mainly to keep in touch with the updates of the programming communities I follow, mainly Elixir/Erlang. Secondly, I never felt better! I'm out from the daily background noise of complaints and after just a couple of weeks their networks have been finally identified and Facebook/Instagram banned them all (https://www.thelocal.it/20190910/facebook-shuts-down-italian-neo-fascist-parties-accounts https://www.thelocal.it/20190910/facebook-shuts-down-italian...). On the bright side, when Dorsey released to interviews saying that "you don't simply ban nazis from your platform because it's hard to identify them" Twitter’s share price fell as much as 4 percent. You might think this is all avoidable, but if I follow a programmer who's also an activist (doesn't matter which part they support) I'm almost certainly forced to see the content they post/like/share. So to defend myself I must take action, actions that after a while become a job, it is tiring, it forces you to make decisions that you usually don't have to take when dealing with people in person or on different communication platforms, HN as well, even though it's not my favourite, the interaction is certainly better than on any social media out there.

tempestn 7y ago

I'm with you too. I check Instagram a few times a day, but I only have my real friends on there. People I hang out with in real life, whom I legitimately care about. Not that many, so doesn't take long, and I enjoy knowing what they're up to. On Facebook I'm friends with a ton of acquaintances past and present, but I almost never actually look at the feed. I'll look up someone's profile if I run into them maybe, or if I'm expecting to see them. And it's handy for planning events. But I've never really understood how people become addicted to looking through the feeds of people they don't even like. That said, I've also met people who smoke a cigarette every couple months, and never feel the desire to smoke more; maybe we're that, but for social media.

nooyurrsdey 7y ago

> 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'm glad you enjoy the experience and are able to control it, but isn't it telling that you have to put a timer on it to prevent it from being a negative experience? It's like a drug you have to heavily regulate so you don't OD.

batuhanicoz 7y ago
Not OP but I also have a timer for certain social media apps, including Facebook. For me, the timer is just there to remind me X minutes have passed. Losing track of time while doing something, anything feels natural to me. It happens in real life when I stumble upon a friend on the street and we start chatting and it happens in social media when I scroll too much. If I'm reading something and my time is up, I just extend that and able to close the app afterward.

bart_spoon 7y ago

> 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. This is what made the biggest difference for me. Last year, I deleted both my Facebook and Instagram accounts for about 4 months. I found that I didn't miss my Facebook at all. My Instagram had been a decent way of staying in touch with a group of friends and family. I ended up creating an Instagram account again, but now that I was starting from scratch again, I was pretty mindful of who I followed. At this point I have about 40 people I follow, all of whom are people I know quite well and aren't particularly prolific posters. This is in comparison to the 200 or so I had amassed through college and beyond. I find that I don't even use Instagram for an average of 5 minutes per day, as thats about as long as it takes to actually see everything new since the day before. Its much more of a tool for informally keeping up with a handful of people I wouldn't otherwise than the time-sucking, attention-hijacking bloat of weak and non-existent relationships that it had become. And it basically makes other social media like Facebook and Twitter unnecessary. Deleting all social media is great, but for many people, it may be just as effective to simply do a Marie Kondo-esque purge of the social media junk you've accumulated over time.