20 ms·

I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media

• cj 7y ago
  Facebook (et al.) has done an incredible job (for better or worse) at changing the way people in society interact with and perceive others. It really is staggering when you think about it,.
  • misterprime 7y ago
    One giant learning experience. We're adapting. It's kinda gross, but hopefully we'll all come out the better for it.
    • at-fates-hands 7y ago
      There was a tipping point for me when I decided that all the negative things that come from social media far outweighed the good it does. I have a Twitter account. I log in about once every couple of months. Nothing changes. The cancel culture hasn't died off, it's just gotten stronger, more pervasive and more corrosive than ever before. This has lead me to believe we are on a downward spiral with no bottom in site.
      • RandallBrown 7y ago
        Social media is very much what you make it. I use facebook to keep in touch with hundreds of people that I would never normally keep in touch with. I use it to plan events like birthdays, bachelor parties, and vacations. I fully believe it enriches my life.
    • asdf21 7y ago
      I learned that I reject that shit pretty quickly... I haven't been on facebook since sometime around 2010 or 2011 maybe. It's mind-boggling to me that it's even still a point of discussion in 2019. It was always a pretty poor way to communicate, imo. At last for my use case, which was wanting friends to hear about interesting / exciting things going on in my life. I had like 300 friends on there -- a good mix of family, old coworkers, old school friends, people from a local sports league, etc. -- and I happened to have a fairly successful startup at the time, so I'd post about that... and got back crickets. For whatever reason, at least back then, the algorithm would only show my post to a few people at first, and if none of them liked or commented, it wouldn't show it to anyone else. At least that's my assumption. So I was like 26, pulling in $1k / day in AdSense revenue, and trying to tell my family and friends how exciting it was, and every post I'd submit would just get totally ignored. Out of ten posts that actually had a bit of depth, nothing super dense or overly intellectual, just describing some of the challenges and successes, (like a $12k hosting bill from Rackspace), I probably got around 2-3 comments total. The vast majority of things I posted were ignored completely. Then I'd see the most banal and superficial crap get put on my feed with tons of comments, so eventually one week I posted, "TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Out of my last 10 posts that actually mattered to me, that one immediately got tons of traction and something like 60 replies, etc. I quit right after that. Facebook forced me to confront how boring my passion for startups really is to normal people... so why waste my time sharing it? Or their algorithm was just really poor and my posts weren't being displayed to my friends, either way, what's the point?
• layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
  “My wanting to share every waking thought became eclipsed by a desire for an increasingly rare commodity — a private life.” She forgot the part when she wrote a New York Times piece about her life.
  • kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
    She also hosts a weekly podcast. Also, I must be using social media wrong. I use it mainly to talk to and send pictures to my grandma, look at videos of baby animals, and find out about concerts and shows in my area. It has had a highly net-positive impact on my life, especially the puppy and kitten videos.
  • DHPersonal 7y ago
    It did offer us the chance to read thoughts that might mirror our own but in a more succint and well-written manner. I definitely saw a lot of relatable elements in the article and appreciate what was written.
    • itronitron 7y ago
      >> I definitely saw a lot of relatable elements in the article That is why I think this was written in order to receive attention from others (not necessarily the readers), but I tend toward cynicism.
• mabbo 7y ago
  I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? So I quit last year and I've felt good about that choice. Now I have 17000 HN points and I'm starting to feel like I gave up meth and replaced it with cocaine. Maybe better, but still not good. Going to stop posting here now too. Thanks everyone for the good times.
  • dfsegoat 7y ago
    Just try the noprocrast options in your profile. I have it set so I can basically browse for a bit in the AM, maybe do a comment and then I am locked out until the evening. It's a useful feature for those of us working on discipline + distractibility issues.
    • maze-le 7y ago
      I tried it several times, but I am usually a slow typist and English is not my native language, so I sometimes think twice about how to formulate a sentence. Sometimes when I wrote a posting, I ended up hitting the timeout, just when I was about to post. This is the only reason I turned 'noprocrast' off again, otherwise it is a super useful feature!
  • have_faith 7y ago
    I'm going to downvote you, but only because it's what you would have wanted.
    • ngngngng 7y ago
      Same, That's exactly what i was thinking seeing this comment ironically at the top. As someone addicted to checking my upvotes on hacker news, please don't upvote those of us that admit that to you ;D
      • cameronbrown 7y ago
        Half a million Karma in < 2 years? Here, have some downvotes :P
• Medicalidiot 7y ago
  I feel like social media and dating apps hurt one's self image. Even for individuals that have a serious following, there doesn't seem to be enough validation from peers/followers to satiate their drive for happiness. I'm curious to see how social media continues to mold society in the decades to come where we can delineate what the long term effects of its use are.
• not_a_cop75 7y ago
  Being the person who shouts loudest "I am somebody" on social media does not make you somebody worth listening to. This narcissism is the key problem of social media. Oddly enough, social media made it's big entrance via movie stars - I could not possibly be any less surprised at this. It would befit social media to rate someone with importance not according to a check or star but according to actual real world accomplishment. I realize that creates a natural bias against the underachieved, but without such weights, anyone can say anything about anything no matter what the education or perspective, and have it essentially equivalent to a subject matter in the field, at least until further examination.
  • loquor 7y ago
    > but without such weights, anyone can say anything about anything no matter what the education or perspective, and have it essentially equivalent to a subject matter in the field, at least until further examination. We began with institutions whose voices were the authority, period. With the internet, anyone could spread their own ideas and thoughts thereby decentralizing the power. We have now accepted the presence of fake news and voices with vested interests. Is the pendulum swinging back to the established individuals/institutions in response to this?
  • ellius 7y ago
    There's a good Seneca letter, "On Quiet Conversation." It includes these lines: "Philosophy is good advice; and no one can give advice at the top of his lungs... Words should be scattered like seed; no matter how small the seed may be, if it has once found favourable ground, it unfolds its strength and from an insignificant thing spreads to its greatest growth. Reason grows in the same way; it is not large to the outward view, but increases as it does its work. Few words are spoken; but if the mind has truly caught them, they come into their strength and spring up. Yes, precepts and seeds have the same quality; they produce much, and yet they are slight things. Only, as I said, let a favourable mind receive and assimilate them. Then of itself the mind also will produce bounteously in its turn, giving back more than it has received."
    • __i___ii____ 7y ago
• otaviokz 7y ago
  So, if I get this right, her addiction got so bad she needed to upgrade from posting on social media to writing to the NYT? </irony>
• JohnFen 7y ago
  Everybody is a somebody to someone. And everybody is a nobody to someone else.
• namirez 7y ago
  Many years ago someone told me that we should care about our mental hygiene as much as we care about the hygiene of the food that we consume. I quit FB two years ago after 11 years of active use. For a few weeks after deleting my account, I had these temptations to go back but after two months, I totally forgot about it and after two years, I'm very happy about leaving the platform. I also realized that it wasn't just FB or social media that contributed to my stress and anxiety; sensational and provocative news was as much to blame. These days, I try to get my news from only a handful of news outlets that I trust. I know this is not a perfect solution but at least, I've been able to avoid click-bait titles.
  • Ozumandias 7y ago
    I feel similar. Years ago, I used to be very into YouTube. I followed the channels I loved closely and loved discovering new channels. It felt like I could search for any topic I was interested in and find a small, cool channel about it. Then yesterday for example I was reading an article about tornado alley and wanted to watch some storm chasing videos on Youtube. My searches just turned up page after page of "Family Vlog" clickbait, with people using their frightened kids as the thumbnail picture. Was so off-putting that it killed my interest.
  • SnowflakeOnIce 7y ago
    Next, take it one step further and skip going directly to any news sites or aggregators, and cut out news TV and radio. You cut out the news-induced anxiety this way. After a while, you also realize that most news is noise, and doesn’t matter even a day later. If something really significant happens, you’ll still hear about it.
    • namirez 7y ago
      I'm not sure about that. I still enjoy the long reads in the New Yorker and a few other magazines. But if you mean the 24-hour news cycle, I agree with you.
• nickstinemates 7y ago
  I took a year off of all of social media and took a break from startup tech in general. I didn't miss it, at all, and I wonder what real tangible value it still has coming back. One thing is for certain, being plugged into the hive mind has clear advantages, especially as it relates to employment. It's like the old adage - it's about who you know, not necessarily what you know.
  • rainyMammoth 7y ago
    This. Left my job and traveled for almost a year. Part of me wanted to push updates to Facebook and Instagram to get the dopamine rush from likes. I pushed myself to not post any updates others than calling//emailing my close friends and family and after a couple months I didn't miss it at all. I felt like I was living for myself in the moment without the need to publicize what I was doing. Coming back, I still have my social media account and go there maybe once a week. I usually come out of it a bit burned out with the feeling that everything is fake. But overall cutting out social medias has been hugely beneficial. I'm convinced that Social medias are a negative to humanity and overall causes more depression and anxiety than anything else. It must be extremely difficult to be a teenager in high school without the mental strength to resist that fake world of social medias nowadays
• vonseel 7y ago
  I quit social media for a long time too. And then I noticed how disconnected I was from all my old school friends and contacts. Even close family that still uses Facebook but I otherwise don’t talk to much directly (brother’s wives posting about their kids and stuff like that, maybe even more extended than that). Really, I’m starting to think that opting out of social media altogether is a bit like opting to be a hermit in today’s society. Sure, I’m not advocating posting every 5 minutes on Facebook and getting into dumb arguments, but it really feels like opting out is a way of putting walls between yourself and the rest of the world (that is on social media). You will miss out on news of friends having kids, graduating college, going to college, getting new jobs, and even planning events together since many events are organized officially on Facebook - from free local concerts to your friends bachelors party. Many people just go through Facebook and create a private event and invite their Facebook friends when they have a birthday gathering nowadays. You will miss out on these if you opt-out completely. I did.
  • alteria 7y ago
    Yeah, it's definitely a mixed bag. In some ways, my mental health has improved since I'm not chasing online validation/FOMO all the time. My current friends don't use Facebook a ton, so organizing happens via text or other methods. But for my college/HS friends, I'm definitely less close because I'm not present in the online arenas that they socialize in. Hopefully I can get back into social media without partaking in all the behaviors that made me quit it in the fist place.
    • foxhop 7y ago
      I believe you can do it. Keep up the work. We need to relearn, and reteach people how to communicate without the big platforms distracting and moderating the focus.
  • jaypeg25 7y ago
    Maybe I'm an outlier, but I was never seeing news like that when I had Facebook. Instead I was bombarded with videos (usually "suggested by facebook") in between ads for things I had searched for days prior. I almost think it's my own fault as I never interacted with those posts about friends having kids or getting new jobs (at least not on Facebook), so I wonder if the algorithms just showed me less and less of my own friends content. If it matters I only ever looked at FB through the mobile web browser - I didn't have the app and never looked at it on my computer.
• vonseel 7y ago
  I quit social media for a long time too. And then I noticed how disconnected I was from all my old school friends and contacts. Even close family that still uses Facebook but I otherwise don’t talk to much directly (brother’s wives posting about their kids and stuff like that, maybe even more extended than that). Really, I’m starting to think that opting out of social media altogether is a bit like opting to be a hermit in today’s society. Sure, I’m not advocating posting every 5 minutes on Facebook and getting into dumb arguments, but it really feels like opting out is a way of putting walls between yourself and the rest of the world (that is on social media). You will miss out on news of friends having kids, graduating college, going to college, getting new jobs, and even planning events together since many events are organized officially on Facebook - from free local concerts to your friends bachelors party. Many people just go through Facebook and create a private event and invite their Facebook friends when they have a birthday gathering nowadays. You will miss out on these if you opt-out completely. I did.
  • fhennig 7y ago
    Good counter-point. A social network is not inherently bad. It could be a simple extension of our analog life, a simple tool to stay in contact with friends an family or share things with people that we do not have regular interactions with in our day to day life. The problem is not the social media, but the way is has been instrumentalized to capture our attention, since this is the product being sold to advertisers. All the mechanisms to keep the user hooked -- akin to the way slot machines work -- have been pointed out many times already. It doesn't have to be that way, we could design a neutral platform that is built around fostering personal connections with the people we care about.
    • hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
      Everything you say is true, but unfortunately a viable economic model for social networks that doesn't make use if the dopamine hook hasn't been discovered.
  • tvanantwerp 7y ago
    I used to think I was using Facebook to stay in touch with people. But I really didn't enjoy using it, so I decided to challenge my assumptions. I went through 3 months of my activity, and saw that the overwhelming majority of what I was doing was sharing links that had no engagement. Personal photos got some likes, but just like. I maybe sent one or two messages. I was barely staying connected to people like I thought I was. So I left Facebook without regret. I don't feel out of the loop, though. I text or email friends and ask them what's going on. If there's an event I ought to go to, one of them usually lets me know. It's more effort, but I think that's a benefit: relationships based on scrolling through feeds and liking stuff are pretty shallow. And I don't let myself feel bad if I do miss something, because I know that's a small price to pay to excise that source of anxiety from my life.
• GEBBL 7y ago
  You read enough of these ‘quitting social media’ articles over the years that you almost know word for word how the linked article is going to go.
• meerita 7y ago
  I gave up FB and Instagram posts because my political view (conservative) and got 2 banned and harassed by relatives and strangers. Life is way better without FB/Insta
  • mindcrime 7y ago
    Try being a Libertarian on social media... I get hammered from the "left" because of my "taxation is theft" and "defend the #2A at all costs" mindset, and get hammered from the "right" because I believe in strict separation of Church and State, don't glorify the police and military, oppose all drug laws, am pro-choice, and oppose the death penalty. Basically, every political conversation I get involved in is a negative experience for me, as I basically feel like I'm always under attack and have almost no allies or friends. :-(
    • asdf21 7y ago
      Yep, I agree 100%. It's all just tribal bs -- mostly via imprinting -- very few people actually care about genuine principles or have nuanced takes on issues.
    • itronitron 7y ago
      If you describe each of your beliefs as a preservation of individual liberties then you may get farther in helping others understand your position.
    • joeyrideout 7y ago
      "It was useless to argue, she thought, and to wonder about people who would neither refute an argument nor accept it." You have many allies, but they are doing more productive things than arguing with senseless people on social media :)
    • meerita 7y ago
      I'm conservative libertarian. I am by no means alt-right or right but people label me as extreme right without excuse.
  • asdf21 7y ago
• foxhop 7y ago
  I love this article. Thank you for sharing. I'm on a similar journey.
• octosphere 7y ago
  Recycled comment of mine from a few weeks ago here. Note: I was told NLP[0] (Neuro Linguistic Programming) was not cast in a good light in its Wikipedia entry, and I admit it has its weaknesses, but I was inspired by the fact Tony Robbins used elements of it in his seminars. Certain parts of NLP appeal to me, but some don't and can be denounced as pseudoscience/quackery. Below is the original comment: ____________________________________________ I tend to stay away from Instagram as I once read a study (too lazy to find the paper) that Instagram is more detrimental to mental health than other social networks and is generally to be avoided (partly this is because you are comparing other people's highlight reel to your boring drab life). I use Facebook, albeit sparingly and only ever to make meaningful interactions with my family, and nothing else. I don't feverishly 'check in' to locations, don't engage in 'groups', don't 'like' a million-and-one things, or otherwise engage in the Facebook app in any big way. It means Facebook can't build a dossier of my interests, although they do know my social graph, but then: I'm not a person of interest anyway. I am actually very forgettable. For Twitter, I have a locked down account and only follow what I'm interested in. I don't actively seek to get more followers, and have literally nothing in my bio that is about me. I don't use my real name. My account is purely for discovery of positive news, and content that stimulates me intellectually. I recently started to experiment with Neuro Linguistic Programming[0] and a big part of that is deciding what you pay attention to (especially online) and feeding your brain with content that enables you to grow as a person and not be bogged down with negative content that only appeals to your 'monkey brain'. I haven't gone to extremes by cutting out all social media, instead I just use it mindfully and by carefully choosing the types of content I consume. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming
• totaldude87 7y ago
  The social media problem is multi fold.. Facebook - While i need to check my friends's life events and keep a tab on what they are up to, i dont want to see the constant tirade of posts regarding their political views.. How ya'll are handling friends with crazy political extremist thoughts, completely ignore those areas ? try to make them sane? Twitter is even worse, so stopped posting all together and limited my time only to like few tweets . Alternative to Twitter is Reddit, which you can scroll through for few laughs and that itself will become an addiction. Finally, i think we need social media at the same time we dont need social media, no amount of filtering and altering the news feed can put us in a place of what we want to see.. So..
  • joeyrideout 7y ago
    Re: Handling "crazy political extremist thoughts" on Facebook, I tend to either engage in a calm and reasonable reply that resembles the Socratic Method, or simply unfollow the person. It depends on how well I know them and how reasonable they tend to be. My best/closest friends are all reasonable people which is why I chose them as friends, so no contradiction there. Twitter is worse, yes. Reddit is OK if you avoid political subreddits and keep it light. I've curated my subs to be just that and it's delightful. I believe that we shouldn't "need" social media (as other comments here pointed out, an external locus of control or validation is unhealthy), but rather we should use social media. Have a purpose whenever you open the app, even if it's just passing the time (Reddit).
  • nradov 7y ago
    I unfollow any Facebook friends who post political rants, but remain friends with them. Then I occasionally do a quick scan through their profiles to catch up on any major life events I missed.
• sdan 7y ago
  I think with social media's goal of "connecting everyone" and "bringing everyone together" has brought us too close. So close that we're like a village -- blasting out clickbait and accusations with rare repercussions and making sure we say "hi" to all our neighbors in the village while also maintaining our "social status" within this village: i.e. reputation. I'm glad I took off from there a while back.
  • johnfactorial 7y ago
    Social media promised to connect people. It connected avatars instead. People are physical. We have bodies and brains. We have thoughts and opinions. We have friends. Avatars are conceptual. They have representations, not bodies; "profile pics" that are edited and changed constantly, never bearing much resemblance to the human it claims to represent. Avatars have agendas, not opinions or thoughts. They seek to convince you of something. To buy, to vote, to protest, or simply that the anonymized human behind the avatar has a life full of wonders and happiness. Agenda. An avatar has followers, fans, not friends. Social media avatars have little to no interest in you as a human being. Your body's eyeballs are an avatar's currency. It wants your them to see its agenda so it can win. A social network that brought humans together would fulfill the promise of social media. Meetup.com might be the closest thing to that. For now, social media does not connect people, it connects avatars--personifications of agendas which are built, almost always, to serve its master without regard for others.
    • sdan 7y ago
      Interesting point. At the same time, if a person legitimately has an account (meaning it's their personal account) and decides to let everyone know of their entire personality, it won't be "pursuing an agenda". But realistically, this doesn't happen; unless that avatar is anonymous and can't be linked to you. I think this is why places like Reddit and HN to some extent are good: they allow people to freely speak, but at the same time you're technically still being manipulated by what others think (on r/popular for example)... which brings me to my last point: You're a composition of years of manipulation. It just depends on who you trust, whether it's in real life or online. In all, I agree with your point, but giving anonymity brings people to talk more about themselves, which hopefully is a bit better than the world that you described is.
• haolez 7y ago
  In LinkedIn, I get the opposite feeling. It seems that a lot of people spend a considerable amount of energy pumping their profiles with lots of achievements, professional photos and blog posts, but it feels like everybody is talking to themselves. Nobody cares.
  • Steven_Vellon 7y ago
    Do people actually interact with each other over LinkedIn? The only people I've every talked to are recruiters. I thought it was just a directory of potential employees for recruiters. If people actually do social things on LinkedIn then that's news for me.
    • haolez 7y ago
      I see some people using LinkedIn in an attempt to boost their public relevance in their fields, but I only see recruiters interact with their content. Hence, nobody cares about the content.
    • avgDev 7y ago
      My linked in is only for recruiters. I rarely update it. Every time I go on it I get kind of sick I guess? Like I can't really say what makes me dislike it, maybe it feels corporate? It feels like everything there is just to promote yourself? Idk but I hate it.
    • joncrane 7y ago
      There is a very small subset of people who do. There's also companies who are posting things like "Hey we won some irrelevant award yay us." Or more likely, employees posting this about their own as a public signal that they are "all in" on "company." It's mostly for signalling for especially aspirational people. But generally speaking, 99% of the utility of LinkedIn is to have a public resume so recruiters can find you. At least in my case.
    • leviathant 7y ago
      After a long time in software development, I'm now a sales engineer, and LinkedIn is a very different place when your weeks involve interactions with C-suite and marketing types. I find LinkedIn to be pretty absurd, and I'm never going to (or want to) compete with the people who share life-affirming abstract business nonsense in a vertical video shot from their car, but I get a surprising amount of interaction from my screeds about the ecommerce ecosystem. I'm not using LinkedIn to boost my personal brand, but I do use it to talk about the Saas ecommerce platform we sell (because a lot of people hate Magento and find Shopify doesn't suit their needs) A coworker has at times referred to me as a LinkedIn Shitpost Memelord, although I don't use image macros/memes. I just share information about a very niche corner of the internet, and it's way more effective than advertising. It actually serves as an outlet for the kind of writing I used to do, and sometimes still do, on forums - but instead of being about music and bands, it's about commerce and software. It's weird, but it scratches an itch I guess. I do see more 'social' posts on LinkedIn, and it's pretty close to the worst of the net. It's like YouTube comments, except you can see the people who post them all wear suits in their photos. A surprisingly large number of people who like & reply to self-help garbage, effusively, as though Gary Vee's latest you-can-do-it schlock saved them from offing themselves at the water cooler that morning.
• mumblemumble 7y ago
  I think that it's going to turn out that social media is like coffee: It's fine, even healthy, for some people, and harmful to others. And I would think that's fine, except that I fall into the latter group, and social media has come to consume so much of the online world that it means that I can't avoid it without excluding myself from large swathes of public life. I don't volunteer at my kids' school because coordination is done through Facebook. I don't stay in touch with people I meet at events because Facebook has thoroughly supplanted other modes of casual communication. I don't hear about events at some of my local community spaces because they only advertise them on Facebook. Etc. So it's not entirely like coffee. It's like what it would be like if coffee were healthy for some, unhealthy for others, and quasi-mandatory for all.
  • tvanantwerp 7y ago
    Speaking as someone who can't drink caffeine without a painful pins and needles sensation (thanks levofloxacin!), I'd say the analogy works quite well.
    • hestipod 7y ago
      Off topic but can you expound? I was "floxxed" with joint pain etc long ago...but have never heard of the caffeine related effects. Is it all caffeine? ie chocolate/pills too?
      • tvanantwerp 7y ago
        Coffee is really the only caffeinated thing I consume. I learned after my (relatively mild by some stories I've read) floxxing that caffeine + flox drugs are a bad combo, and I was very much a coffee person, so of course I combined them. My skin has been more sensitive in general ever sense, and attempts to drink regular coffee usually lead to that pins and needles sensation. On the upside, I've discovered a great decaf: Slow Motion from Counter Culture. So hard to find high quality decaf, and I'm glad I was recommended this one. I actually drink more coffee now than before because I've been able to switch to decaf.
• taurath 7y ago
  I quit twitter about 20 days ago - the account is deleted. I do not miss it one bit. I tend to use HN in the same way. I wish I could delete this account as well. I suppose the best I can do is change my password.
• cfitz 7y ago
  I deleted FB from my phone about 2 years ago and have not once regretted it. I still stay in touch with my closest friends via phone, text, and the good ole' fashioned physical meetups. No more fake celebratory comments. No more fake photos. No more fake LIVES portrayed by others (early on, I participated in this). I must say that one of the best things you can do for your mental health is to delete these social networks off your devices. I've actually gone so far as to block all these sites network-wide via my pi-hole so nobody can mindless scroll through content while in my home. My quality of life has improved as a result; I can now live in the moment and be grateful for not only where I'm at, but also where I am going (i.e., goal(s)) and what I will learn on the way there.
• yters 7y ago
  It seems like much of technology is focused around narcissism. Even the technology ecosystem, with the startups and whatnot, are sort of celebrity technology. I'm not sure that is good or bad for actual technological progress. Given that the fundamental philosophy, math and science this is all based on is still considered lame, then modern technology is largely a distraction from true progress.
• cryptozeus 7y ago
  Is it just me who thinks social media just filled the hole that was missing in the society ? No one forced anyone to join Facebook or twitter. People were obsessed with other people way before social media, they just gave the platform to existing behavior.
• tombert 7y ago
  I was a pretty avid Facebook user from ~2008-2015. I posted multiple times a day, had about 70 well-vetted friends on there, but unfortunately I have a bad habit of starting arguments with people that I think are espousing uninformed opinions. By 2015, it felt like a not-insignificant part of every day was dedicated to arguing something political, leading to me getting mad. Eventually, I started to feel that this was unhealthy. I deleted my facebook back in 2015; I was afraid I'd have some kind of withdrawal, but bizarrely after about two days I sort of forgot that I had ever even used Facebook.
• Saturdays 7y ago
  Highly recommend reading 'The Courage to be Disliked' it may not revolve around 'privacy' but makes you think a lot about the 'self-validation' feedback we are trained to think we need... it helped me cement a decision to leave social media and other things in general within my personality.
• stiray 7y ago
  I never had facebook, irc and some forum was everything I wanted, exchange of knowlidge and ideas. In term of "beeing nobody" I never cared. I am 42, highly valued in technical circles. Lots of friends, paragliding, mountain biking. Never had a car. Didnt need it. Lots of friends to go for a beer with. I use phone, sms, email to communicate with real, physical friends. Never been unemployed. There is just nothing "social media" can offer to me.
• paxys 7y ago
  The people who have successfully quit online social media aren't going to be the ones posting and discussing it online - whether on NYT, Hacker News, Reddit or anywhere else.
  • friendly_chap 7y ago
    It's a bit like englightment isn't it? Not in terms of rarity of course, but the ones who reach it don't preach it about it.
• tw1010 7y ago
  Fame and success is still valued by society writ large. This is deeper than this most recent social media layer. I also left social media but I feel just as much pressure as before because the people who I hang around with (who themselves are on social media, but that's not the only reason they act that way) directly or indirectly put pressure on incentive levers which all in all culminate in me preferring to be a "somebody" rather than a "nobody".
• 92ace7830f00029 7y ago
  I do get the point of the author and I share it's thoughts and values, but for me it went quite different. I have never been a really social person. I have never had many friends. No one really asks me ever where I have been or what I have been doing or whatever. I used facebook to shitpost. To shitpost a lot and MAYBE get a few likes. It worked. It worked for way too long. Then someday i literally fell on my head, my depression got way worse and I finally started working on it. I then realized that I had no values at all. I always felt like facebook is bad, but i never acted accordingly. So I quit that. I thought 'yeah, maybe i will feel better now.' and i do. I feel great. But now, I don't even have anyone to contact and ask if there is something going on on the weekend or if people want to go out. I don't really have anyones number either (because i deleted A LOT of my private stuff in a furious rage). Now I am alone and I don't know how to get out of it. Social media is no option though, I don't want to be that attention seeking person anymore. I want to be the person i am and find people who like me for that exact reason. I just don't know how. End of story: Quitting social media made me a better person, but if I add everything together i don't feel better (yet) Woops. Went a bit offtopic, but whatever. Thanks for reading.
  • molteanu 7y ago
    Thanks for posting :)
  • olah_1 7y ago
    >I then realized that I had no values at all. This is too real. The curse of taking the irony pill.
  • 92ace7830f00029 7y ago
    Fuck, I pressed way too many times F5 on this to see if anyone replied or upvoted. That's why I got rid of my HN account. I guess I should press logout on this one, too.
    • bumblebee4 7y ago
      You are almost there. You have stopped worrying about attention. Now count the number of 'I's in your comment: you still worry about yourself. What do you like doing? Whatever you do, you will meet people once you stop looking for yourself.
• JeanMarcS 7y ago
  I've got around 20 "friends" on FB (mostly family, and not really posting anymore), but subscribed to many feeds (mostly bands I like) If they ever add RSS to their own websites, I will have no more reason to be on FB. Please make RSS a thing again ! On the other hand, I was reading a tweeter feed an hour ago, and I was so disgusted by the hatred of the exchange that I told myself (again...) "Why are you inflicting this on your sanity ?"
• notadoc 7y ago
  I remain convinced that social media is bad for society
• driverdan 7y ago
  What happened to moderation? You can use social media without being obsessed with it. If you have problems with self control then take steps to deal with it. Delete phone apps, set specific times when you use social media with limits, and if necessary talk to a mental health professional.
  • COGlory 7y ago
    It's not a fair fight. Social media companies employ psychologists to assist their UX designers in designing their products to be as addicting as possible. See this interview with Adam Alter here: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-420-what-makes-your-phone-so-addictive-how-to-take-back-your-life/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-420-what-mak...
• voidhorse 7y ago
  Why is this problem of “being known” so common? Does it stem from the way you’re raised? Personally, I’ve never cared two about how well known I was or that my accomplishments were recognized, etc. I just derive joy from the activities I pursue in themselves, I don’t really give a hoot if anyone acknowledges them. I never joined social meadia because of this. I didn’t see the point. Seemed like a boring waste of time to me when it first dawned. Sure that has dramatically reduced the number of acquaintances I have in comparison to others, but I feel that the relationships I do have are of very high intimacy and quality. Where does this need to “be somebody” come from? Has there been research on it? Are you more likely to develop a thirst for fame if you’re given a lot of external motivation/reinforcement as a child? If your parents focus on appluading you rather than the things you do? Not trying to be snarky here, I am genuinely curious as someone who has always been quite indifferent to the concept of fame.
  • colechristensen 7y ago
    You belong to a social species and come with built in drives to engage in social behaviors like acquiring status and an interest in others social standing. These tendencies vary by the individual and life experience.
• chr1 7y ago
  I used to fear being a nobody, but then i came to accept that i am nobody and i never will manage to do anything that would make my name worth putting into physics textbooks. More than a decade spent studying physics turned out to be somewhat helpful to an ordinary programmer. Guess what i am trying to say is that, this is not a new problem created by social media, but an old problem caused by most of us having to be not special. And while eventual acceptance of it is very important, the initial denial is even more important.
• intopieces 7y ago
  “Perhaps at the root of this anxiety over being forgotten is an urgent question of how one ought to form a legacy;” This is an interesting question, and one that I have to admit has never been on my radar. I don’t intend to have a legacy at all. Do others worry about this?
• ulisesrmzroche 7y ago
  She forgot to quit meat, dairy, grains, booze, weed, going out, staying up late, having sex, and so on Also: to get a flip phone and disable JavaScript
• bigYahnz 7y ago
  Assuming this place probably skews older than most, why would anyone want to be a "somebody" on social media? Aside from something obvious like money, I really don't get it.
• ibudiallo 7y ago
  I see a lot of people publicly quiting facebook, then quietly rejoining because... well that one person they know only communicates via messenger. When I finally stopped using Facebook, I didn't close the account. It's just there. It's no longer part of what I do. At some point I realized that the worst thing about the network is not that they do shady things, or trick you into staying, or meddle with politics. The worst thing is the person you gradually become. The moment you meet someone, you check their facebook, look through their pictures, browse their posts. When you become friends with someone, everytime there is tension you check facebook to see if they haven't posted about it. If it's a lover, you base the status of the relationship on their posts and frequency of pictures. If it's an ex... In 2015 I wrote [1]: > On facebook, why would I give someone privacy when I have access to all this information. And I don't even need their permission. I can watch your private pictures because you made them available. It's not that I can find out where you work, where you live, where you eat, everything about you. It's that I actually do find out without ever hiring a private detective. It's not what I can do, it's what I do! Facebook turns you into an insecure person. [1]: https://idiallo.com/blog/facebook-and-me https://idiallo.com/blog/facebook-and-me
  • friendlybus 7y ago
    I mean being raised with the attitude when you see the world, the world sees you makes the facebook thing just another venue for that same idea. There is an acceptable level of neglect for a facebook account. Just put up a nice photo of yourself and forget about it. Like myspace and friendster, ect. It's not clear what the value of facebook is to a 'customer'. It's basically a modern day newspaper, with classifieds and crossword puzzles, except your friends are now 50% of the news headlines. I never used to read newspapers either.
• Kiro 7y ago
  Nothing gives me more anxiety than HN. Facebook is nothing compared to the depression I get from being constantly downvoted here simply by having an opinion that doesn't resonate with the norm.
  • rvz 7y ago
    > Facebook is nothing compared to the depression I get from being constantly downvoted here simply by having an opinion that doesn't resonate with the norm. Well, a particular orange website has a audience that appeals to opinions from liberal tech folks. I couldn't care less about if they agree / disagree with my opinions. They are free to do so, which I support. What's worse is the censoring, shadow-banning, flagging of genuine posts or opinions on these social networks including the orange site that really ruins the discussion and distorts the situation. As soon as you see that trying to please everyone + looking at everyone's updates is an eternal race to the bottom, then social media gradually becomes irrelevant to you.
• WizardAustralis 7y ago
  The book I recommend on this topic is '10 Arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now' by Jaron Lanier. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37830765-ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37830765-ten-arguments-f... It makes the arguments for doing so very clearly and with a good sense of humor. Lanier, is a treasure, I always like how balanced he sees the tech industry, it isn't all good or bad but a mingling of ideas.
• imotroubairitz 7y ago
  About 11 years ago I ran a script that deleted everything I ever posted on facebook. It worked well for a while and then it started to scramble leaving bizarre posts with huge timeline gaps. I had to manually delete the rest. I also un-followed everyone and everything. It took days - since then facebook has been a wonderful tool for me to keep in touch with distant friends and it is still used by many in my social groups for organising gatherings. Ultimately I know mostly just use it for work. I get quite a lot of business from Facebook connections. My advice: delete the news feed and un-follow but keep your connections.
• hartator 7y ago
  These posts are so tiring. It's usually from the same people that are super active and obnoxious on FB. Posting every single hours of their life. And suddenly realizing they addicted to it. And they still need to post about it.
  • doubt_me 7y ago
    At least the writer of the article didn't feel compelled to use Medium to post it
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • mikelyons 7y ago
    I found that when I quit facebook, I started obsessively arguing on HN about the same shit ...
  • rgoldste 7y ago
    I didn’t quit fb but I unsubscribed from pretty much everybody. I think I’ve posted once in the last 6 years, though occasionally I come up tagged in friends’ pics. I think I’m better off. I occasionally miss engagements of my friends though so this is a downside. (I’m 29). I continue to use messenger to chat with friends, including one good friend who has a budget phone plan (meaning fb messages are free while texting this friend isn’t for her). I guess I’m posting this here to say that there is a middle(?) ground that works for me. I rarely find myself envious or jealous on fb. I will confess that I do experience these emotions in my offline life (much less frequently than daily, more often than monthly). Come to think of it, while I spend under 20 minutes a week on LinkedIn, I feel some negative emotions while browsing this feed. I’ve just realized I should limit my LinkedIn better. I’m not posting this to brag, just to share another perspective because it felt relevant.
• StanislavPetrov 7y ago
  It seems like an absolutely nightmarish existence to have (as the author seems to have) your life defined by social validation. We are in for a very miserable and mentally fragile society if the author's worldview is anyone near the norm (or we might already be there).
• newsgremlin 7y ago
  Modern problems require modern solutions. One way to gradually lessen your facebook usage is to use this addon (chrome version available on the chrome web store). https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/news-feed-eradicator/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/news-feed-era... I think most people have been conditioned to keep themselves plugged in so to speak, gradually minimizing interactions rather than going cold turkey may prove more effective at re-framing your perspective.
• baxtr 7y ago
  The latest wave I have been observing is LinkedIn. It has become an Instagram for business idiots. I can stand the stupid, content free cheering for bullshit.
• b0rsuk 7y ago
  A surprising twist: social media invades meatspace. I go to a board gaming club once a week. It used to be reasonably easy to find someone to play with, but nowadays: 1. all groups are already formed the moment the club opens (one per board game), 2. newcomers come in groups already decided which game they're going to play, don't waste time looking around and play among themselves. So you can be there on time, and that's not enough to find someone to play with. It feels like fb/social media is a kind of lobby for board games in that place. Wanted to go out and meet some new people over board games? Think again. It's like those stories you might hear about bars, dating and tinder - that nowadays even bar goers stare at their smartphones. Guess what, the same mechanism affects not just bar goers but also nerds like me. It's like each board game at a table is its own social media bubble(different people like different board game(s)). There are two ways to deal with this: a) submit to social media b) resist I'm doing b), I bring in my copy of Spirit Island and if there's no one to play with the game is also great solo.