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Dang, lots of Mozilla hate. OK, I'll take the bait. Why don't we have more advocates for unplugging from the internet? A reasonable person that has lived bot

Dang, lots of Mozilla hate. OK, I'll take the bait. Why don't we have more advocates for unplugging from the internet? A reasonable person that has lived both online and offline lives would certainly come to the conclusion that online life is inherently inferior to an "offline" life. Social media is inherently unhealthy and attracts people with unhealthy lifestyles and choices. Why should Mozilla's mission be to promote a "healthy" and "online" life when "healthy" and "online" we know cannot coexist? Like, instead of donating to Mozilla to promote good social media use for teenagers/children, how about donating to $NONPROFIT to give low-income families a quality Boy Scouts/camping experience and learn how to live and enjoy life through healthier means for example? We do not have to make online life the norm.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
When people say that social media is unhealthy, they usually have in mind a certain generation of social media when like counts had been introduced, an algorithmically-generated feed, a membership that sought to include everyone, including your family members, etc. Essentially that kind of social media only arose towards the end of the first decade of the new millennium when Facebook became entrenched. Yet many older members of HN spent a significant portion of our lives on the internet of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and we don’t feel that that online life was destructive. If anything, it was often liberating: someone growing up in a strict conservative community or in a relatively poor country could discover there was more out there. A broad range of smaller special-interest forums instead of a feed-generating one-stop-shop like Facebook or Reddit, tended to keep partisan politics and conspiracy theories away. I’m not pessimistic that that kind of good internet socializing can’t be restored for much of the population – I deleted my Facebook and Reddit accounts years ago and yet I still have found enjoyable connections with other people on various hobby forums. Some independent forums are struggling as younger generations are lost to walled gardens like Facebook, but there are efforts that could be made to fight this.
- frenchy 6y ago
  When people talk about social media, they imply "mainstream social media as we know it today". We don't have the right words or categories to describe what we're talking about, but there's a big difference between Ye Olde Schoole forum of the early 2000's and modern mainstream social media. It's like Wonder Bread verus the kind of bread you make at home with nothing but flour, water, yeast, and some salt. Yeah they're both bread, but they're not really the same thing.
zajio1am 6y ago
> Social media is inherently unhealthy and attracts people with unhealthy lifestyles and choices. Internet is not social media.
xmprt 6y ago
I keep in touch with so many friends who I probably wouldn't have otherwise using social media. You could argue that maintaining so many relationships is unhealthy but I think it's a good thing to keep friends that I've cultivated over the last decade of my life. And usually when I need to get stuff done it's nice to have friends to call upon who are interested in helping. The internet can be used for a lot of good and it sounds like you're argument is akin to saying telephones are bad because of call center scammers.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

When people say that social media is unhealthy, they usually have in mind a certain generation of social media when like counts had been introduced, an algorithmically-generated feed, a membership that sought to include everyone, including your family members, etc. Essentially that kind of social media only arose towards the end of the first decade of the new millennium when Facebook became entrenched. Yet many older members of HN spent a significant portion of our lives on the internet of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and we don’t feel that that online life was destructive. If anything, it was often liberating: someone growing up in a strict conservative community or in a relatively poor country could discover there was more out there. A broad range of smaller special-interest forums instead of a feed-generating one-stop-shop like Facebook or Reddit, tended to keep partisan politics and conspiracy theories away. I’m not pessimistic that that kind of good internet socializing can’t be restored for much of the population – I deleted my Facebook and Reddit accounts years ago and yet I still have found enjoyable connections with other people on various hobby forums. Some independent forums are struggling as younger generations are lost to walled gardens like Facebook, but there are efforts that could be made to fight this.

frenchy 6y ago
When people talk about social media, they imply "mainstream social media as we know it today". We don't have the right words or categories to describe what we're talking about, but there's a big difference between Ye Olde Schoole forum of the early 2000's and modern mainstream social media. It's like Wonder Bread verus the kind of bread you make at home with nothing but flour, water, yeast, and some salt. Yeah they're both bread, but they're not really the same thing.

zajio1am 6y ago

> Social media is inherently unhealthy and attracts people with unhealthy lifestyles and choices. Internet is not social media.

xmprt 6y ago

I keep in touch with so many friends who I probably wouldn't have otherwise using social media. You could argue that maintaining so many relationships is unhealthy but I think it's a good thing to keep friends that I've cultivated over the last decade of my life. And usually when I need to get stuff done it's nice to have friends to call upon who are interested in helping. The internet can be used for a lot of good and it sounds like you're argument is akin to saying telephones are bad because of call center scammers.