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I quit Reddit, Amazon, Twitter, Google, Instagram and Facebook. My life has never been better. Minor inconvenience does not outweigh major improvements in my me

I quit Reddit, Amazon, Twitter, Google, Instagram and Facebook. My life has never been better. Minor inconvenience does not outweigh major improvements in my mental wellness. (Edit: I mention mental wellness because those products, and the ads they carry, are designed to be addictive.)

thebladerunner 6y ago
Are you saying that not using Google search has improved your quality of life?
- pleeb 6y ago
  Google search has gone significantly down in quality over the last year or so. Even just searching for simple things only seems to yield articles from the same 20 or so major websites, and it’s worse if you’re looking for niche items. DuckDuckGo on the other hand is starting to give relatively better and more diverse results these days.
  - narrator 6y ago
    I agree Google has gone downhill. DuckDuckGo is much better now.
  - bdefore 6y ago
    The alternatives do not have better quality. I periodically go with DDG and realize I'm !g'ing everything.
    - Shorel 6y ago
      It totally depends on how do you write your search query: If you write "teen movie about vampires" or something equally vague, Google is king. If you write a direct quote or the exact error message, without typos, DDG gives better results. I can also put sentences in quotes to force an exact match. DDG is just an older school search engine, so old school tricks work better.
- mastazi 6y ago
  Some of Google's products e.g. Youtube are designed to be addictive, and in my experience addiction decreases one's quality of life. I still use the !sp operator on Duckduckgo to get proxied google results, you don't need a Google account for that.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Are you implying that Google search is any longer the only quality search engine? Honestly, I've been using DDG for years now and only less than 1% of my searches do I ever jump over to Google for.
- approxim8ion 6y ago
  It has for me. Most of my searches are pretty generic and DDG does well enough. It has a nice dark theme and is fast and clean. And the !bangs are extremely useful. Saving a couple of seconds and a couple of clicks every search when I want to land up on the arch wiki or wikipedia adds up over time and I find it hard to go back to google now.
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  In recent months I went from treating DuckDuckGo as some exotic search engine to using it many times a day. That is only because Google search is becoming useless, ad-ridden mess.
risyachka 6y ago
Those are just tools that give you a lot of leverage if used correctly. Instagram is a great tools for business, and now it's practically impossible to run one without using it. Twitter and reddit can provide you a ton of useful info that you will have a hard time finding anywhere else (or it will take way longer). I've built a business on Play Store. It's all about how you use them.
- mastazi 6y ago
  I agree about the possible business use cases and to solve that issue I have created _business only_ accounts that are on a different browser, they are connected to my work email, they don't contain my personal data and I never use them outside of work tasks.
burnte 6y ago
So let me ask you a question, how were they negatively impacting your mental wellbeing? I ask this genuinely, because I have a tendency to feel these tools only negatively impact people who use them in stress-creating ways. That, however, feels like victim blaming. There's a difference between a using a circular saw dangerously and a circular saw that is MADE with electrical failures that shock you. Let me give the example of MY use so you can contrast it for me to help me understand. I use GMail, Google Search, Youtube Twitter, Amazon, and Facebook. I'm not thrilled about FB but it lets me keep tabs on friends. Sometiems I interact with a few people who are friends but sucked in by a lot of the disinformation around, so I try to engage with them sometimes but not often. I also spend maybe 15 minutes a day on it, tops. Twitter never stresses me, I don't follow toxic people, just friends, entertainers, tech people and such. Again, maybe 15-30 minutes a day, tops. I get a lot of satisfaction from Youtube, I even pay for premium so I don't get ads, and follow a bunch of great creators. Amazon's pricing and delivery are great. that makes me happy. I just make sure not to by crap/scam products and I'm good. I use Amazon Music every day, and their video streaming is great too (although they need to stop changing the name). Google Search is by far the best, IMO, and saves me hours every day. I have my personal domain go to gmail, and it makes managing ages of email a breeze. So I can't see a way in which ditching any of those would benefit me, and aside from Facebook, I feel NOT using them would cause me more stress, or less enjoyment. I'd love to know how you find leaving them has benefitted you.
- illustriousbear 6y ago
  This is the classic advertising doesn't work on me mentality. Whether you realise it or not, the algorithms behind these services are having a subtle impact on you and show you things for various shady reasons. For me, that was enough just to ditch those services. It's good to see that you're limiting your exposure to them though.
  - burnte 6y ago
    To be honest, advertising DOES work on me, but only insomuch as it alerts me to potential things. I presume all ads are lies, and research the thing before I by. I have a strong anti-authority reflex and trust VERY little (if anything) on face value. I don't even trust myself. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

thebladerunner 6y ago

Are you saying that not using Google search has improved your quality of life?

pleeb 6y ago
Google search has gone significantly down in quality over the last year or so. Even just searching for simple things only seems to yield articles from the same 20 or so major websites, and it’s worse if you’re looking for niche items. DuckDuckGo on the other hand is starting to give relatively better and more diverse results these days.
- narrator 6y ago
  I agree Google has gone downhill. DuckDuckGo is much better now.
- bdefore 6y ago
  The alternatives do not have better quality. I periodically go with DDG and realize I'm !g'ing everything.
  - Shorel 6y ago
    It totally depends on how do you write your search query: If you write "teen movie about vampires" or something equally vague, Google is king. If you write a direct quote or the exact error message, without typos, DDG gives better results. I can also put sentences in quotes to force an exact match. DDG is just an older school search engine, so old school tricks work better.
mastazi 6y ago
Some of Google's products e.g. Youtube are designed to be addictive, and in my experience addiction decreases one's quality of life. I still use the !sp operator on Duckduckgo to get proxied google results, you don't need a Google account for that.
chrisco255 6y ago
Are you implying that Google search is any longer the only quality search engine? Honestly, I've been using DDG for years now and only less than 1% of my searches do I ever jump over to Google for.
approxim8ion 6y ago
It has for me. Most of my searches are pretty generic and DDG does well enough. It has a nice dark theme and is fast and clean. And the !bangs are extremely useful. Saving a couple of seconds and a couple of clicks every search when I want to land up on the arch wiki or wikipedia adds up over time and I find it hard to go back to google now.
bitcharmer 6y ago
In recent months I went from treating DuckDuckGo as some exotic search engine to using it many times a day. That is only because Google search is becoming useless, ad-ridden mess.

risyachka 6y ago

Those are just tools that give you a lot of leverage if used correctly. Instagram is a great tools for business, and now it's practically impossible to run one without using it. Twitter and reddit can provide you a ton of useful info that you will have a hard time finding anywhere else (or it will take way longer). I've built a business on Play Store. It's all about how you use them.

mastazi 6y ago
I agree about the possible business use cases and to solve that issue I have created _business only_ accounts that are on a different browser, they are connected to my work email, they don't contain my personal data and I never use them outside of work tasks.

burnte 6y ago

So let me ask you a question, how were they negatively impacting your mental wellbeing? I ask this genuinely, because I have a tendency to feel these tools only negatively impact people who use them in stress-creating ways. That, however, feels like victim blaming. There's a difference between a using a circular saw dangerously and a circular saw that is MADE with electrical failures that shock you. Let me give the example of MY use so you can contrast it for me to help me understand. I use GMail, Google Search, Youtube Twitter, Amazon, and Facebook. I'm not thrilled about FB but it lets me keep tabs on friends. Sometiems I interact with a few people who are friends but sucked in by a lot of the disinformation around, so I try to engage with them sometimes but not often. I also spend maybe 15 minutes a day on it, tops. Twitter never stresses me, I don't follow toxic people, just friends, entertainers, tech people and such. Again, maybe 15-30 minutes a day, tops. I get a lot of satisfaction from Youtube, I even pay for premium so I don't get ads, and follow a bunch of great creators. Amazon's pricing and delivery are great. that makes me happy. I just make sure not to by crap/scam products and I'm good. I use Amazon Music every day, and their video streaming is great too (although they need to stop changing the name). Google Search is by far the best, IMO, and saves me hours every day. I have my personal domain go to gmail, and it makes managing ages of email a breeze. So I can't see a way in which ditching any of those would benefit me, and aside from Facebook, I feel NOT using them would cause me more stress, or less enjoyment. I'd love to know how you find leaving them has benefitted you.

illustriousbear 6y ago
This is the classic advertising doesn't work on me mentality. Whether you realise it or not, the algorithms behind these services are having a subtle impact on you and show you things for various shady reasons. For me, that was enough just to ditch those services. It's good to see that you're limiting your exposure to them though.
- burnte 6y ago
  To be honest, advertising DOES work on me, but only insomuch as it alerts me to potential things. I presume all ads are lies, and research the thing before I by. I have a strong anti-authority reflex and trust VERY little (if anything) on face value. I don't even trust myself. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”