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I skimmed through deep work and bought digital minimalism, mostly because I had already subscribed to the idea mostly due to the vitriol that has developed on s

by weezin 5y ago

I skimmed through deep work and bought digital minimalism, mostly because I had already subscribed to the idea mostly due to the vitriol that has developed on social media, and the constant dopamine hits that come with constant notifications. I've deleted IG, Twitter, and FB with Hacker News and Reddit being my only vices left. I would say that I'm a lot happier. I'm not sure that we really need to know all the worlds problems at our finger tips and avoiding the most disingenuous of these interactions is healthy, although I'm thinking about deleting reddit for this reason and leaving HN as my only bastion left.

gordon_freeman 5y ago
I totally agree and understand what you've said but sometimes I have this urge to let other friends and family members know which books I've been reading or places I am traveling to etc. I used to do this on FB and IG before I did digital cleansing. Have you figured it out how to suppress this urge to post things like that?
- villasv 5y ago
  Substitute it with a less impersonal medium. Send them emails or given them a call to chat about latest stuff. For friends you can have WhatsApp/Signal/Whatever. Replace broadcasting with a duplex channel.
  - hmwhy 5y ago
    I second this, especially e-mail or calling. In retrospect, my urge to post and share something on social media is just an urge to satiate my ego and be noticed. I think the reality is that most people don't really care about the majority of what someone else has to say, so making something personal and intentional is your best bet (and a great litmus test for whether or not future communication on a given topic will be worthwhile). Edit: typo.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- weezin 5y ago
  I don't have much self-discipline, but if I did I would disable notifications and time box a couple hours for sharing things/ replying. I think a lot of the issues are from consumption more than sharing. That being said I use to have a lot of engagement on my twitter account and I got to the point that posting would give me anxiety because of the possibility of negative replies despite whatever I said being mundane. Also watching others get "exposed" for certain behaviors gave me anxiety as a somewhat popular person in my social network. I wanted the engagement, but after I got it I found out it wasn't what I was expecting/wanted and stopped. I guess I didn't really have a secret as much as just learned the hard way. edit: couple hours per week*
- wott 5y ago
  I do not have this urge so take it with a grain of salt. Perhaps: 1. First, sleep on it and let the urge fade away. 2. For the remaining urges, 2.a if the urge actually turns out to be an urge about writing and not so much about communicating, write a blog. Perhaps one that you don't even tell your friends & family about, if it is really about setting things down on 'paper'. Or one you tell them about and they will or won't read. 2.b as others have said, e-mail, if that's more about communication. Communication which will happen or won't; in my experience people rarely answer when there is no explicit question in a message (and even then, hem...), but that depends on people I guess.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  I just realized they probably don’t care and the urge disappeared completely. Not because they are callous but because no one cares, it is all digital narcissism.
- sdoering 5y ago
  An acquaintance of mine has a personal newsletter that he puts out twice a year. This way people who like to hear from him are able to. he always invites replies and often times I just write my thoughts on one or two things he wrote.
- kmarc 5y ago
  I found Polarsteps as an alternative for a digital travel log for my friends and family. No affiliation. It also has maps integrated, and you can even order a print copy of your pictures and stories. https://www.polarsteps.com/ https://www.polarsteps.com/
- 8589934591 5y ago
  You can share on mastodon. Or even better, write a blog about it. Another alternative is to write in a journal, but that defeats your purpose of wanting to share.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  Years ago there was a tradition of an annual Christmas letter that contained an update on the status of the family for those far flung members of the family that you didn't keep that much in touch with. Perhaps write the tings you want to share down and send them out as a quarterly update? That would have the effect that you are not imposing too much, and that you have some time to reflect on what you want to share (so you are less likely to share pieces that make you angry or that only have temporary impact). I am not on a social media with my mum, but when I see something that might interest her I send her the link in an Email.
- jdshaffer 5y ago
  I started writing all the "really want to share this" items down in a diary. It was difficult at first, then got easier, then the urge grew less and less. (YMMV)
knowingathing 5y ago
It's interesting you equate HN with IG/Twitter/FB/reddit. While there are similarities, they are quite different from each other. If you are worried that HN will become your last bastion, perhaps you could find other online communities where you have passions/interests.
danans 5y ago
> and leaving HN as my only bastion left. A curious choice of word as "bastion" usually indicates that the person who says it is allied with what the bastion stands for, and you seem to indicate quite the opposite. But perhaps your wording also indicates how conflicted we users of social media are with our feelings toward it, much like how other addictions work.
rootsudo 5y ago
I'm already there, it's nicer to also have a custom curation of media content too - RSS Feeds are dead, but a home page (circa 1996 Internet with hotlinks to where you want to go / bookmark bar) is nice too.
- leephillips 5y ago
  RSS is not dead. RSS is the main way I keep up with the websites that I follow. If you maintain a website but don’t have an RSS feed, you’re doing it wrong. (RSS = {RSS, Atom}.)
Applejinx 5y ago
I've made exactly the same calculation. No Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, keeping Reddit and Hacker News. Reddit is kept pruned to rather few subreddits: godot, filmmakers, stuff like that.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  I'm on FB for Groups/Pages. I use a fake name, and picked friends at random. FB groups is great. (I didn't pick my friends well though. Everyone who liked my watchmaking page I added as a friend. Some are terrorits. I'm deleting the terrorists. I hope I didn't make a mistake.)
bishoprook2 5y ago
My tactic (which I'm violating right now in order to post this, mea culpa) was to move the few things that strike me as valuable to a newsreader and quickly grind through them with coffee in the morning. I don't give a damn about smartphones, so there's no temptation there, and simply organizing around a handful of computer-oriented reddit groups (as opposed to the crazies at /politics), science news sites, the local newspaper, and oddly enough, RT (mostly international news) pretty much does the trick. Add in the forays to email/banking plus archive.org, libgen, Sci-Hub for books/papers and Amazon for stuff and the internet is pretty much handled except for the occasional technical question. For some reason, the discipline of RSS is good for calming down any need for outrage porn. As an aside, my latest experiment in social media consists of sending vintage postcards.

by weezin 5y ago

gordon_freeman 5y ago

I totally agree and understand what you've said but sometimes I have this urge to let other friends and family members know which books I've been reading or places I am traveling to etc. I used to do this on FB and IG before I did digital cleansing. Have you figured it out how to suppress this urge to post things like that?

villasv 5y ago
Substitute it with a less impersonal medium. Send them emails or given them a call to chat about latest stuff. For friends you can have WhatsApp/Signal/Whatever. Replace broadcasting with a duplex channel.
- hmwhy 5y ago
  I second this, especially e-mail or calling. In retrospect, my urge to post and share something on social media is just an urge to satiate my ego and be noticed. I think the reality is that most people don't really care about the majority of what someone else has to say, so making something personal and intentional is your best bet (and a great litmus test for whether or not future communication on a given topic will be worthwhile). Edit: typo.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
weezin 5y ago
I don't have much self-discipline, but if I did I would disable notifications and time box a couple hours for sharing things/ replying. I think a lot of the issues are from consumption more than sharing. That being said I use to have a lot of engagement on my twitter account and I got to the point that posting would give me anxiety because of the possibility of negative replies despite whatever I said being mundane. Also watching others get "exposed" for certain behaviors gave me anxiety as a somewhat popular person in my social network. I wanted the engagement, but after I got it I found out it wasn't what I was expecting/wanted and stopped. I guess I didn't really have a secret as much as just learned the hard way. edit: couple hours per week*
wott 5y ago
I do not have this urge so take it with a grain of salt. Perhaps: 1. First, sleep on it and let the urge fade away. 2. For the remaining urges, 2.a if the urge actually turns out to be an urge about writing and not so much about communicating, write a blog. Perhaps one that you don't even tell your friends & family about, if it is really about setting things down on 'paper'. Or one you tell them about and they will or won't read. 2.b as others have said, e-mail, if that's more about communication. Communication which will happen or won't; in my experience people rarely answer when there is no explicit question in a message (and even then, hem...), but that depends on people I guess.
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
I just realized they probably don’t care and the urge disappeared completely. Not because they are callous but because no one cares, it is all digital narcissism.
sdoering 5y ago
An acquaintance of mine has a personal newsletter that he puts out twice a year. This way people who like to hear from him are able to. he always invites replies and often times I just write my thoughts on one or two things he wrote.
kmarc 5y ago
I found Polarsteps as an alternative for a digital travel log for my friends and family. No affiliation. It also has maps integrated, and you can even order a print copy of your pictures and stories. https://www.polarsteps.com/ https://www.polarsteps.com/
8589934591 5y ago
You can share on mastodon. Or even better, write a blog about it. Another alternative is to write in a journal, but that defeats your purpose of wanting to share.
tomjen3 5y ago
Years ago there was a tradition of an annual Christmas letter that contained an update on the status of the family for those far flung members of the family that you didn't keep that much in touch with. Perhaps write the tings you want to share down and send them out as a quarterly update? That would have the effect that you are not imposing too much, and that you have some time to reflect on what you want to share (so you are less likely to share pieces that make you angry or that only have temporary impact). I am not on a social media with my mum, but when I see something that might interest her I send her the link in an Email.
jdshaffer 5y ago
I started writing all the "really want to share this" items down in a diary. It was difficult at first, then got easier, then the urge grew less and less. (YMMV)

knowingathing 5y ago

It's interesting you equate HN with IG/Twitter/FB/reddit. While there are similarities, they are quite different from each other. If you are worried that HN will become your last bastion, perhaps you could find other online communities where you have passions/interests.

danans 5y ago

> and leaving HN as my only bastion left. A curious choice of word as "bastion" usually indicates that the person who says it is allied with what the bastion stands for, and you seem to indicate quite the opposite. But perhaps your wording also indicates how conflicted we users of social media are with our feelings toward it, much like how other addictions work.

rootsudo 5y ago

I'm already there, it's nicer to also have a custom curation of media content too - RSS Feeds are dead, but a home page (circa 1996 Internet with hotlinks to where you want to go / bookmark bar) is nice too.

leephillips 5y ago
RSS is not dead. RSS is the main way I keep up with the websites that I follow. If you maintain a website but don’t have an RSS feed, you’re doing it wrong. (RSS = {RSS, Atom}.)

Applejinx 5y ago

I've made exactly the same calculation. No Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, keeping Reddit and Hacker News. Reddit is kept pruned to rather few subreddits: godot, filmmakers, stuff like that.

hellbannedguy 5y ago
I'm on FB for Groups/Pages. I use a fake name, and picked friends at random. FB groups is great. (I didn't pick my friends well though. Everyone who liked my watchmaking page I added as a friend. Some are terrorits. I'm deleting the terrorists. I hope I didn't make a mistake.)

bishoprook2 5y ago

My tactic (which I'm violating right now in order to post this, mea culpa) was to move the few things that strike me as valuable to a newsreader and quickly grind through them with coffee in the morning. I don't give a damn about smartphones, so there's no temptation there, and simply organizing around a handful of computer-oriented reddit groups (as opposed to the crazies at /politics), science news sites, the local newspaper, and oddly enough, RT (mostly international news) pretty much does the trick. Add in the forays to email/banking plus archive.org, libgen, Sci-Hub for books/papers and Amazon for stuff and the internet is pretty much handled except for the occasional technical question. For some reason, the discipline of RSS is good for calming down any need for outrage porn. As an aside, my latest experiment in social media consists of sending vintage postcards.