9 ms·

I deleted my Twitter a few months ago and my life is better for it. The need to be “in the know” was powerful, but I realized that I was consuming vast amounts

by zozin 6y ago

I deleted my Twitter a few months ago and my life is better for it. The need to be “in the know” was powerful, but I realized that I was consuming vast amounts of shallow information that resulted in shallow, uninformed opinions. I’ve been reading a lot more long-form articles and books; I’ve finished reading three books in the last month or so. When my Twitter habit was strong I would often start a book and give up 30-50 pages in, never to return. I believe deleting Twitter also helped my mood. I am feeling more upbeat than ever. While circumstantial, I do attribute some of this change to no longer being bombarded by the negativity and one-shot-kill Tweets that are prolific on the platform.

Minor49er 6y ago
This is basically why I deleted my Facebook account, which was the one social network that I was really ever on. I was checking it non stop, but there wad never anything good. It was a huge time suck. I'd read news of how Facebook keeps people addicted or how they try out psychological experiments on its users which left me uneasy. Finally, when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke and revealed that Facebook sells access to your personal messages, thst was the final straw. The biggest problem with deleting your account is that your contacts assume that you just deleted them and think that you're mad at them or something. It can have a real world impact. But I've been way happier texting friends and family and talking with them directly. It's been so much healthier than leaving "likes" on wall posts. I'm never returning to social media.
- SyneRyder 6y ago
  > The biggest problem with deleting your account is that your contacts assume that you just deleted them and think that you're mad at them or something. It can have a real world impact. That's one reason I deleted my Facebook 5 years ago. I unfriended a casual acquaintance (who continually posted political rants), and they confronted me in person at a nightclub, demanding to know why. That just isn't healthy behaviour, and I don't need to be around people like that or on a network that encourages it.
  - yetanta 6y ago
    I personally kept my facebook account. I check it maybe once a month. When I do look I find I have a very low tolerance for the crap on there (maybe 10 mins). They have a nice 'timeout' feature where you can basically shadowban people from your feed. I have been having to use this on some of my family and friends. My count on there is really low. If you are friends with me on facebook you are friends in real life. But I want to ask them why they went on a six post rant of something political and what would make them think their 700+ 'friends' are interested? Facebook is however 100% banned in js/cookies/html/webbugs using ublock and no-script. They do not get to follow me around. In exchange I sometimes look at their adverts when I am on their site. Facebook did not make our timelines toxic. Our 'friends' did.
xvector 6y ago
The feeling of reading through well-written long-form articles is very satisfying. Do any HN’ers have recommendations for websites with well-written long-form articles?
- loughnane 6y ago
  The Atlantic, American affairs journal, longreads are some.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marnett 6y ago
  Harpers magazine and the New York review of Books are my go to publications.
- ohbleek 6y ago
  Longreads.com is the site for you.
- dd36 6y ago
  Propublica
- danielnixon 6y ago
  * https://reallifemag.com/ https://reallifemag.com/ * https://logicmag.io/ https://logicmag.io/
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  With a less common perspective: https://jacobinmag.com/ https://jacobinmag.com/
  - fbi-director 6y ago
    I couldn't get past two headlines before hitting the X in the forner With the first thing you see being a request to pay (buy in print!!) and the second being a headline like "feminism needs capitalism like a fish needs a bicycle", well, I can't take it too seriously or "different".
Eyght 6y ago
> The need to be “in the know” was powerful, but I realized that I was consuming vast amounts of shallow information that resulted in shallow, uninformed opinions. I'd like to applaud you for admitting this to yourself. I feel like a vital part of successfully navigating the internet age is to realize this very fact.
- fancyfish 6y ago
  This is a good way to look at it. I’ve given up Twitter and much shortform news for mental health, and haven’t had a good response to others saying it’s my “duty” as a citizen to stay informed. You can stay just as informed without giving in to doombait articles. You are just as valuable in the public sphere if you don’t succumb to attaching yourself to the firehose of daily information and tweets.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Another way to view it is that being “informed” isn’t some singular state you can achieve. People who read every article churned out by a news site daily are no more “informed” than people who just read the laws as they are voted on by the government. The latter will not seem “informed” because they won’t know about some controversial statement that set the Internet on fire, but they will certainly be more informed about the consequential actions being taken by the government. TLDR - being “informed” has no relationship to following what currently classifies a news - at least from an “informed citizen” perspective.
lostmsu 6y ago
The problem I've been facing recently is that long form also turns out to be a waste of time after you go through the most informational/influential pieces. Lots of the articles thread the same water, dive into totally unnecessary details, or just tell a story that, while fascinating, does not really give you any important new information, or bury it in a few casual sentences, never elaborating on them. For books it is usually just the same story told over and over again with the character names and forms changed. That applies even to some of the stuff recommended directly here on HN. I would not even dive into aggregators recommended here.
- 411111111111111 6y ago
  > For books it is usually just the same story told over and over again with the character names and forms changed. actual new things are by definition rare. each thing can only be done once for all of humanity. after that, its an iterative process with the occasional leap forward. if you're thinking about technical or even worse self-help books: yes - there are very few that actually bring anything worthwhile to the table. thats simply because it becomes common knowledge if its correct to a degree where it has a significant effect. if you're however thinking of story-books than ... you're just reading similar things. there is a lot of written stories around - they admittedly usually have things like `conversation` in common, but how else would you write a book? by leaving everything blank?
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    > how else would you write a book Maybe you don't. https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
    - birdyrooster 6y ago
      But then how could you fulfill your childhood dreams? This is all very important!! /s
- vages 6y ago
  I would say that the ability to recognize true novelty is hard to train without experiencing a fair amount of repetition.
peroporque 6y ago
It can be sane. Just be very selective who you allow. I maybe follow a hundred people or so, but my block list is probably ten times as long. Even blocking anybody with "pronouns" in their Bio already helps a lot.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  So, you've created a conservative echo chamber?
  - peroporque 6y ago
    No, I've created an "echo chamber" where I only allow opinions based on reason and logic. You seem to prefer personal attacks and ideology, so yes, I'd block you for sure.
    - Ensorceled 6y ago
      No, blocking anybody with pronouns in their bio will eliminate a lot of progressive and most LGBTQ voices. It’s not a personal attack, it’s an observation of how you are scoping your feed.
      - peroporque 6y ago
        It will mostly block a lot of the neo-left, people who are "identity" focused and as racist as people on the far right. I don't want to have anything to do with them. I don't give a f about identity, I care about merit.
rv-de 6y ago
My opinion of Twitter is ambivalent. It is actually the only mainstream social platform I use. And I use it with a fake account where I change name and photo every couple of weeks. Having said that it seems to me that Twitter - opposed to FB and YT - comes with the advantage that you can quite easily specify what you want to see on your wall. I have a lot of investigative journalism outlets on my Follow list and special interest groups. So it seems to offer some value. Then again it is indeed inviting to endlessly scroll in boredom hoping to find something that triggers some Dopamine.
luxurytent 6y ago
I felt exactly like this back in 2016 but around 2019 I began using Twitter again. The thing that worked for me was simple: don’t use it on mobile. It promotes doom scrolling and shallow consumption. I also continuously curate my list and mute plenty to keep garbage out. The result is a fairly positive and inspiring feed
dogfoods 6y ago
Twitter has been orders of magnitude more harmful to society than any *chan and Twitter bluechecks should be thought of and treated like Twitter bluechecks think of and treat chan users. All those articles about how scary chans and the ~~~dark web~~~ are and how they corrupt people's brains -- in a sane world they would be about twitter.
KoftaBob 6y ago
I had a similar realization recently. When you truly think about it, the vast majority of news you read/hear isn't even remotely actionable information for the average person. At best, it'll be something interesting and feeds into our natural curiosity. Other than that, this idea that it's our responsibility as citizens to stay constantly informed on what's happening in the world is nonsense. Ask yourself, what was the last time you read something in the news that contained information you could actually act on in a meaningful way? Our biggest opportunity to act on information as regular citizens generally comes with elections, at which point you can just read up on the candidates views/proposals before voting. We really don't need to be obsessively keeping up with the news, the world will keep moving whether or not we know about it.
- xenophonf 6y ago
  > Ask yourself, what was the last time you read something in the news that contained information you could actually act on in a meaningful way? The what in question would be the news item I had read. The meaningful action was the public protest I chose to join, or the campaign donations I decided to make, or the phone calls to my elected representatives. Elections aren't the only way citizens can (or should) interact with their government.
anthk 6y ago
Mastodon is like that but with far less noise per signal. You have insightful toots and most of the time, great tips and URLs. Also, it moves a far slower pace, you can just check once or twice a day and be done.

by zozin 6y ago

Minor49er 6y ago

This is basically why I deleted my Facebook account, which was the one social network that I was really ever on. I was checking it non stop, but there wad never anything good. It was a huge time suck. I'd read news of how Facebook keeps people addicted or how they try out psychological experiments on its users which left me uneasy. Finally, when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke and revealed that Facebook sells access to your personal messages, thst was the final straw. The biggest problem with deleting your account is that your contacts assume that you just deleted them and think that you're mad at them or something. It can have a real world impact. But I've been way happier texting friends and family and talking with them directly. It's been so much healthier than leaving "likes" on wall posts. I'm never returning to social media.

SyneRyder 6y ago
> The biggest problem with deleting your account is that your contacts assume that you just deleted them and think that you're mad at them or something. It can have a real world impact. That's one reason I deleted my Facebook 5 years ago. I unfriended a casual acquaintance (who continually posted political rants), and they confronted me in person at a nightclub, demanding to know why. That just isn't healthy behaviour, and I don't need to be around people like that or on a network that encourages it.
- yetanta 6y ago
  I personally kept my facebook account. I check it maybe once a month. When I do look I find I have a very low tolerance for the crap on there (maybe 10 mins). They have a nice 'timeout' feature where you can basically shadowban people from your feed. I have been having to use this on some of my family and friends. My count on there is really low. If you are friends with me on facebook you are friends in real life. But I want to ask them why they went on a six post rant of something political and what would make them think their 700+ 'friends' are interested? Facebook is however 100% banned in js/cookies/html/webbugs using ublock and no-script. They do not get to follow me around. In exchange I sometimes look at their adverts when I am on their site. Facebook did not make our timelines toxic. Our 'friends' did.

xvector 6y ago

The feeling of reading through well-written long-form articles is very satisfying. Do any HN’ers have recommendations for websites with well-written long-form articles?

loughnane 6y ago
The Atlantic, American affairs journal, longreads are some.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marnett 6y ago
Harpers magazine and the New York review of Books are my go to publications.
ohbleek 6y ago
Longreads.com is the site for you.
dd36 6y ago
Propublica
danielnixon 6y ago
* https://reallifemag.com/ https://reallifemag.com/ * https://logicmag.io/ https://logicmag.io/
tsimionescu 6y ago
With a less common perspective: https://jacobinmag.com/ https://jacobinmag.com/
- fbi-director 6y ago
  I couldn't get past two headlines before hitting the X in the forner With the first thing you see being a request to pay (buy in print!!) and the second being a headline like "feminism needs capitalism like a fish needs a bicycle", well, I can't take it too seriously or "different".

Eyght 6y ago

> The need to be “in the know” was powerful, but I realized that I was consuming vast amounts of shallow information that resulted in shallow, uninformed opinions. I'd like to applaud you for admitting this to yourself. I feel like a vital part of successfully navigating the internet age is to realize this very fact.

fancyfish 6y ago
This is a good way to look at it. I’ve given up Twitter and much shortform news for mental health, and haven’t had a good response to others saying it’s my “duty” as a citizen to stay informed. You can stay just as informed without giving in to doombait articles. You are just as valuable in the public sphere if you don’t succumb to attaching yourself to the firehose of daily information and tweets.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Another way to view it is that being “informed” isn’t some singular state you can achieve. People who read every article churned out by a news site daily are no more “informed” than people who just read the laws as they are voted on by the government. The latter will not seem “informed” because they won’t know about some controversial statement that set the Internet on fire, but they will certainly be more informed about the consequential actions being taken by the government. TLDR - being “informed” has no relationship to following what currently classifies a news - at least from an “informed citizen” perspective.

lostmsu 6y ago

The problem I've been facing recently is that long form also turns out to be a waste of time after you go through the most informational/influential pieces. Lots of the articles thread the same water, dive into totally unnecessary details, or just tell a story that, while fascinating, does not really give you any important new information, or bury it in a few casual sentences, never elaborating on them. For books it is usually just the same story told over and over again with the character names and forms changed. That applies even to some of the stuff recommended directly here on HN. I would not even dive into aggregators recommended here.

411111111111111 6y ago
> For books it is usually just the same story told over and over again with the character names and forms changed. actual new things are by definition rare. each thing can only be done once for all of humanity. after that, its an iterative process with the occasional leap forward. if you're thinking about technical or even worse self-help books: yes - there are very few that actually bring anything worthwhile to the table. thats simply because it becomes common knowledge if its correct to a degree where it has a significant effect. if you're however thinking of story-books than ... you're just reading similar things. there is a lot of written stories around - they admittedly usually have things like `conversation` in common, but how else would you write a book? by leaving everything blank?
- lostmsu 6y ago
  > how else would you write a book Maybe you don't. https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
  - birdyrooster 6y ago
    But then how could you fulfill your childhood dreams? This is all very important!! /s
vages 6y ago
I would say that the ability to recognize true novelty is hard to train without experiencing a fair amount of repetition.

peroporque 6y ago

It can be sane. Just be very selective who you allow. I maybe follow a hundred people or so, but my block list is probably ten times as long. Even blocking anybody with "pronouns" in their Bio already helps a lot.

Ensorceled 6y ago
So, you've created a conservative echo chamber?
- peroporque 6y ago
  No, I've created an "echo chamber" where I only allow opinions based on reason and logic. You seem to prefer personal attacks and ideology, so yes, I'd block you for sure.
  - Ensorceled 6y ago
    No, blocking anybody with pronouns in their bio will eliminate a lot of progressive and most LGBTQ voices. It’s not a personal attack, it’s an observation of how you are scoping your feed.
    - peroporque 6y ago
      It will mostly block a lot of the neo-left, people who are "identity" focused and as racist as people on the far right. I don't want to have anything to do with them. I don't give a f about identity, I care about merit.

rv-de 6y ago

My opinion of Twitter is ambivalent. It is actually the only mainstream social platform I use. And I use it with a fake account where I change name and photo every couple of weeks. Having said that it seems to me that Twitter - opposed to FB and YT - comes with the advantage that you can quite easily specify what you want to see on your wall. I have a lot of investigative journalism outlets on my Follow list and special interest groups. So it seems to offer some value. Then again it is indeed inviting to endlessly scroll in boredom hoping to find something that triggers some Dopamine.

luxurytent 6y ago

I felt exactly like this back in 2016 but around 2019 I began using Twitter again. The thing that worked for me was simple: don’t use it on mobile. It promotes doom scrolling and shallow consumption. I also continuously curate my list and mute plenty to keep garbage out. The result is a fairly positive and inspiring feed

dogfoods 6y ago

Twitter has been orders of magnitude more harmful to society than any *chan and Twitter bluechecks should be thought of and treated like Twitter bluechecks think of and treat chan users. All those articles about how scary chans and the ~~~dark web~~~ are and how they corrupt people's brains -- in a sane world they would be about twitter.

KoftaBob 6y ago

I had a similar realization recently. When you truly think about it, the vast majority of news you read/hear isn't even remotely actionable information for the average person. At best, it'll be something interesting and feeds into our natural curiosity. Other than that, this idea that it's our responsibility as citizens to stay constantly informed on what's happening in the world is nonsense. Ask yourself, what was the last time you read something in the news that contained information you could actually act on in a meaningful way? Our biggest opportunity to act on information as regular citizens generally comes with elections, at which point you can just read up on the candidates views/proposals before voting. We really don't need to be obsessively keeping up with the news, the world will keep moving whether or not we know about it.

xenophonf 6y ago
> Ask yourself, what was the last time you read something in the news that contained information you could actually act on in a meaningful way? The what in question would be the news item I had read. The meaningful action was the public protest I chose to join, or the campaign donations I decided to make, or the phone calls to my elected representatives. Elections aren't the only way citizens can (or should) interact with their government.

anthk 6y ago

Mastodon is like that but with far less noise per signal. You have insightful toots and most of the time, great tips and URLs. Also, it moves a far slower pace, you can just check once or twice a day and be done.