22 ms·

The benefits of staying off social media

• sysadm1n 5y ago
  You can have the best of both worlds. This article makes it sound as if using social media saps your creative output and potential. I've never been more creative because of social media because I've essentially trained it to be high signal. I want to follow a bunch of artist friends on Instagram because it inspires me, and helps me keep up with my contemporaries. The artists of olde would be jealous of today's platforms.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• tito88 5y ago
  Its funny how the game built on just 2 things. The Like count. And the Follow button. Applied at global scale, can fuck up everything. Cant wait to see what they add next.
  • kreeben 5y ago
    Just around the corner: Karmaverse. Everything you say personally intermixed with everything you say professionally, graded on a scale of one. 1 == good. 0 == bad. Just as everyone had hoped, fame about your outrageous behavior in the last WOW raid, where a n00b acting a fool triggered you bad, will spill over, first into the virtually real world then the really real one, eventually getting you fired and finally, we'll have universal and omnipotent social justice. So excited. Can't wait.
• TurkishPoptart 5y ago
  Isn't HN social media, too? I scroll, open up 4 different tabs of articles to read, skim them, browse the comments, rinse and repeat. It still rewards that dopamine cycle of craving, seeking, reward, boredom, and desire to repeat the cycle again and again when facing an irritation or uncomfortable stimulus. I guess this text-based portal is just a "lite" version of social media, and even though I don't use FB or Insta, etc, this still seems to scratch the same itch.
• xrd 5y ago
  This really grabbed me: "The main benefit of taking a break from social media is that you stop living in a fictional world and finally start dealing with your own reality." There is lots of quantifiable information showing that social media is bad for you. This seems much harder to quantify, but seems like the elephant in the room. Great piece.
  • mistermann 5y ago
    > "The main benefit of taking a break from social media is that you stop living in a fictional world and finally start dealing with your own reality." > There is lots of quantifiable information showing that social media is bad for you. This seems much harder to quantify, but seems like the elephant in the room. This is perfectly reasonable, but I am personally very skeptical. Also from the article: >> “As painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?” Plato's Allegory of the Cave precedes social media by a substantial margin: >> Plato's “Allegory of the Cave” appears in Book 7 of his masterwork, “The Republic.” Plato wrote “The Republic,” a sustained disquisition on a utopian society, sometime between 380 and 360 B.C., during a period of Greek history known as the Classical Age. What if the elephant in the room that is social media is actually more like a red herring, a diversion from the actual elephant in the room: human consciousness? There are recurring themes and patterns that can be found in the comments every time this sort of article (and other sorts) pop up, the most common ones I always pick up on: - many/most individuals speaking as if they understand The Problem, and know The Solution - the most common solution people propose is legislation (aka: Democracy) - there tends to be a very small set of....general thinking styles on display - it's a very slippery concept to nail down, I think of it as the complexity that falls under the general header of culture My question is: what if everyone is wrong[1], and that is the reason that these problems never go away? What if the problem is something other than what it seems to be, and humanity never discovers it because they never thought to look for it, perhaps because they were fooled/distracted by the illusory The Problem that appeared before them (...from where - nobody asks.....as if it is has root access and is completely off the radar)? [1] A theme or pattern that one will rarely encounter on social media: individuals wondering if their theory (ideology, whatever) is actually correct. The lack of curiosity in modern times would be shocking, if we had the counter-intuitive ability to see things that are not there.
• undistracted 5y ago
  I wrote an android process to automatically uninstall all social media apps every 2 hours (if they exist). My "social media experience" is now amazing. No notifications, much fewer distractions. I literally download just download, pop in to see whatever it was I wanted, then don't think about it (no notifications either), until the next time I REALLY want to use it.
• holoduke 5y ago
  Even a walk outside in pouring rain gives more satisfaction than browsing Facebook, insta, Reddit etc. I still use social media once in a while. Max 30 min a day. I guess that's ok and needed to stay in touch with the 'normal' world.
• croutonwagon 5y ago
  This may not be terribly popular, and its admittedly just conjecture, but I'm of the opinion that its less about the quantity of social media, and more how one interacts with it and even more so consumes it. Some platforms are clearly more toxic than others, though I'm increasingly of the opinion that they are all pretty toxic, just different flavors of "world outlooks" to choose from. I feel that those that actively participate (commenting, posting, responding, reacting) are more affected and more caught in the feedback loop. Those that more or less passively read these platforms, rarely interact, and largely work to keep "perspective" seem to have less of a tough time on it and allow it to impact their outlooks and moods less. Those that tend to interact more seem to get caught in a sort of feedback loop. measured/Nuanced/Moderate or considerate takes are generally frowned upon on most of the major platforms these days. Outrage and simplistic viewpoints reign supreme, and most will bury the rest, forcing even those with moderate stances to either "consider a side" when continuing or just outright not partake. And all of these seem to be, relatively speaking, vocal minorities. There are plenty of people that consume stuff and just dont have anything useful to say, or just dont have the energy to say it and defend it etc. Of course this seems to depend on the platform as well, for example I would never post this take on reddit.... With that said, I go agree generally, that these are toxic and create unbalanced viewpoints and world views. As Dave Chappelle said, "twitter isnt real", and to an effect that true. Twitter, reddit, youtube, facebook, dont necessarily pan out to the larger population's opinion as a whole, at least where its measured (such as in politics and polling)
  • nostrebored 5y ago
    I’ve found the exact opposite in the groups I’m a part of. Social media can imbue you with a lot of simple opinions and constant feedback around them. People who are actually arguing are at least actively engaging with an idea (sometimes)
  • thefz 5y ago
    > This may not be terribly popular, and its admittedly just conjecture, but I'm of the opinion that its less about the quantity of social media, and more how one interacts with it and even more so consumes it. Yes. I am passionate about a sport. I manly follow that sports' athletes on Instagram. I take a look daily while on the toilet or idle and get tired of it after some minutes. The same goes for Reddit, I just follow a couple of niche subs and enjoy using both platforms. No politics and no "serious" topics.
• AltonWells 5y ago
  I’ll kick this comment thread off. I completely deleted all of my pretty well followed and active social accounts (Facebook, instagram, and snap). Not deactivate, delete. At first there is a large emotional penalty I felt by “disconnecting” from people, however it’s been well over two years and my life is pound for pound better. I do miss interacting with some friends at times but honestly if they’re real friends, I call or text. Social took away a lot of my attention and disconnected me from reality. I’m not saying do what I do, but for me it was a game changer.
  • ehnto 5y ago
    It's a crutch for a boring life, too. Think back to how many times you came out of a scrolling binge only to be brutally aware of how disconnected you felt in that moment. Like that daze you can get when coming out from a cinema, except you just go can just go straight back into the cinema to numb that feeling of discontentment. When I cut out social media, reddit, youtube and imgur, I was essentially left with nothing to do when inbetween hobbies and work, but you quickly start finding ways to spend your downtime with more fulfilling passtimes.
  • cpctheman 5y ago
    I think a lot of the discourse around this (and similar topics) summarized with the following advice: find out what works for you, do that. Both steps are hard, and I would argue the "you" can expand to include your family/close circle of friends/community as well.
• aluminussoma 5y ago
  I am now off popular social media (Facebook, Instagram). The void is now replaced with other forms of social media (Reddit, Hacker News). Reddit, arguably, is more toxic than my version of Facebook - but it is strangers being toxic, and zero FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) which is prevalent on Facebook and Instagram.
  • zzbzq 5y ago
    If you use Facebook the old fashioned way (an actual network of friends) it's probably very pleasant. If you start joining "Groups" which are similar to subreddits, it's the most toxic thing I've seen. I never really was a real Facebook user with a network in the first place, but one day on a whim I went to the FB site where I still had my account and decided to join some random suggested groups. That's where it becomes toxic. Everything becomes incendiary things about the US president and usually further devolves into trolls saying openly racist things, there's no moderation and it's a real cesspool. And I'm talking about groups dedicated to hobbies and cartoons.
    • nomdep 5y ago
      You are clearly have not accepted invitations from high school ex classmates… and you shouldn’t. At least in my case, some of them are the worst kind of strangers: people you would think would grew to be smart, reasonable and/or well intentioned… but they became just the opposite
    • buildsjets 5y ago
      What nomdep said, but also the friends-of-friends problem. I cut a lot of people out of my life based on who else they associated with.
  • benbenolson 5y ago
    Why not stay off of social media entirely? If you think that Reddit is even more toxic than Facebook (which I agree with), then why visit the site?
    • 5y ago
• civilized 5y ago
  I have no idea how HN does it (I hear this "dang" guy plays a big role) but HN shows the possibility of a largely positive and edifying social media IMO. I have maybe needed a break from time to time though. I generally don't take that break but maybe I should... EDIT: I know we're not supposed to comment on downvotes but it was very funny to me that the first vote I got on this comment was a down. Like, "HN sucks! How dare you suggest it is good! And worst of all, no evidence but your opinion. Utterly worthless post" Love this place. Never change.
  • justapassenger 5y ago
    HN is a huge echo chamber. That’s a characteristic of a most of social medias, and can have very bad consequences. But in this case it’s just geeks talking about tech. If you’d make HN general network, it wouldn’t be any better than other todays networks, as growth to general public is what kills them.
    • civilized 5y ago
      I think you get what you put in. I've had plenty of interesting, challenging conversations here. On Twitter too, although it's more work and ultimately I decided it wasn't worth it. I agree that HN would not survive an incursion by the general public. Fortunately we're protected by being a bunch of boring nerds. Who would bother? The boring, minimalist UI is probably our strongest moat.
      • Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
        Twitter's tiny character limit makes any sort of real discussion impossible. There's no room for nuance or detailed explanations of a position when you can only fit two or three sentences.
        • civilized 5y ago
          I found it's actually pretty possible with a willing partner. You dice up an argument into bite-sized chunks, and if the other person cooperates, they read the whole thing and reply with their own thread. The character limit actually has a neat side effect: you can reply at the precise point of the argument you want to, and start a thread from there. The main problem on Twitter is finding the right people to talk to, and the lack of moderation. Things get heated easily and there's no way to turn it back down. You end up in a small posse of people who share your views and values enough not to treat you like shit when you express yourself.
• sudhirj 5y ago
  So does HN count as social media? I’m a recovering HN addict (couldn’t bear to keep noprocrast on). I’ve found getting into the flow in new projects keeps me off for days at a time, but not much else.
  • pantulis 5y ago
    Yes, it counts. I think it's less toxic than others, but can be slightly addictive too.
  • version_five 5y ago
    HN is definitely social media. It has some features that stop the feedback cycles that others have (I mean no notifications of replies, de-emphasizing the person posting in favor of the content, etc). I think the biggest difference is that social media amplifies the lowest common denominator view (I don't mean stupidest, but more most risk averse, most easily offended, angriest, whatever) and the lowest common denominator appears to be a little higher here.
    • sudhirj 5y ago
      I didn't even know you could be notified of replies. Not sure I wanted to find that out either.
    • politelemon 5y ago
      What about Github, could someone comment on that? I know at some point they used to call themselves 'social coding'. I use it quite regularly for several of my projects and dealing with issues that users raise. It has reply notifications via email. It has emojis. You can star and watch repositories. I've never used IG, FB, WA etc but I assume they have similar concepts.
      • version_five 5y ago
        You can use github that way - you could also use mailing lists that way. But you'd need to find a repo with the critical mass for a real social media style discussion to happen. I expect this does happen occasionally, but certainly it wouldn't be the experience of most github users.
• 999900000999 5y ago
  >There are no amount of Twitter threads – or Instagram carousels – that will make you a better coder, manager, writer, or startup founder. You can only improve if you put the online tips you so passionately save into practice. I love this part, I noticed times when I'm heavily into social media and online dating I have significant career stagnation. I'm no longer building projects to help myself learn. Now that I'm social media free, I have much more time to make music, and to work on my side projects. I also tend to meet extremely high quality people just going about my day. Life is less stressful this way. I know this won't be everyone's experience, but this is what's worked for me.
  • redisman 5y ago
    I found it also true for any engagement optimizing enterprise. News, Reddit /all, etc. are all just as bad at dumbing and numbing you down. It’s crazy how I’ve rediscovered things I used to enjoy before all the mindless browsing now that I’ve blocked basically every engagement driven website and app on all my devices
• f00zz 5y ago
  Now if only there were a way to delete my HN account...
  • gruez 5y ago
    There seems to be? I've seen old comments by [deleted] from time to time. You probably have to email hn@ycombinator.com to get that done.
• pkdpic 5y ago
  > A futuristic dystopia. A place where the real world sucks. Where people consider talking to someone a chore. Connection, closeness, ambition are replaced by detachment and dogmatic slumber. Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. Beautifully written top-notch orwellian poetry. Seriously inspiring. Also as someone who has only ever used social media as a low-level content creator (we used to be called deadbeat artists) I feel like this starts an important conversation about the new problems that develop when you stop consuming and start doing. In my experience over the last decade there are fewer and fewer ways to find a community and any success as a creator of any kind without getting corralled into social media and furthermore getting corralled into being a daily active user / consumer as to not get shadow banned by any given app. Doing rather than consuming feels much healthier than doom scrolling, but theres a larger dialogue that has to happen about the problems with creating in the 21st century imho.
  • aw9f70gae 5y ago
    Social media reinforces the idea that artistic success is a single, worldwide, objective hierarchy. It's harder than ever to return to the idea that art should be a pursuit that is social and subjective — one validated by the people that the artist directly cares about.
  • civilized 5y ago
    I feel like the challenge for creators is less the "social media Orwellian dystopian hellscape etc" and more that virtually everything you can contribute has been done better by someone else before you.
    • fullshark 5y ago
      And you can learn that fact with just a few clicks of some buttons on your magical view screen.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • ehnto 5y ago
• unethical_ban 5y ago
  Glancing at the article I can say I think it is spot on. I haven't disconnected from consumption entirely, but I notice an improvement in my mental state and the feeling of "living" that I have when I disconnect. I am addicted to reddit and news consumption, in a casual way. It is simply habit to load up a tab with reddit. I'll get bored with the /r/all feed, close it, and reopen it. Then I'll hop over to news, HN, other things trying to keep my mind from focusing on anything else. I have at times uninstalled reddit from my phone, and blocked reddit and certain news domains on my pihole, so that even if I slip into the URL bar unconsciously, I get slapped away. Yesterday I turned my phone off, and went to the library to read some books. I felt a lot better than scrolling for distraction from my life's issues.
• someoneiknow 5y ago
  I am not on social media (I tried it for a year, then quit), and sometimes I find it weird why people treat it like a big goliath dystopian thing which will consume your entire life if you aren't careful. It's not impossible, or even that difficult to leave (or not join) in the first place. You won't have convulsions/palpitations/stuff you get when you try to quit the genuinely addictive stuff. For sure it's a lot more convenient if you want to chat with people or see what they're up to, but life is not impossible without it. In fact passively quitting has made my life a lot easier; my time isn't wasted watching ads. I wish people didn't put social media on such a villain-pedestal it doesn't deserve. I think that's one of the problems why people don't quit: avoiding personal responsibility into something that's said to be difficult.
  • cool_scatter 5y ago
    >I am not on social media That's wrong. You are on social media right now.
• DisjointedHunt 5y ago
  I humbly believe the answer is to allow more transparency, choice and control back to the users instead of allowing these companies to choose a greedy recommendation algorithm that ranks for 'exploit' over 'explore'. I recently started a new twitter account with the hope of creating lists of quantum physics and some financial research individuals such as the heads of investment banks who post amazing short form content all the time. Twitter randomly starts injecting abject nonsense in my feed from other topics such as "investing" which, okay, i get may be related, but the contents of those topics are nowhere near the level of quality that my core lists had. Absolute idiots posts content of a passive aggressive nature and raking up the likes and reshares which i had no interest to be a part of. A few days of constantly giving feedback to the algorithm and aggressively hiding sources and topics from my feed and the quality just keeps getting worse. My mood started slipping if i wake up and have a push notification from twitter suggesting yet another tweet about some finance bro dunking on some company they hold a short position on because they can't believe it's valued above 0. I plan on spending some time now understanding how i completely kill all recommendations and only keep follow lists of the people i explicitly follow, but that is frustrating.
• shtopointo 5y ago
  Another day, another person telling you how to live your life... Sorry, but even though we know social media has its downsides, it also has advantages: keeping in touch with friends, socializing, a way to stay up to date with your community, new recipe ideas, exercise ideas, time management ideas, maybe even the occasional envy that someone's success triggers more ambition in you to succeed etc. It's a tool, like any other, and if used properly it can enhance your life. Don't want to dunk too hard on this article, because the points made in it are valid. But they can be achieved while you're still active on social media. For example, if used properly, you can get exposed to a lot of novel ideas in 2-minute bite sized clips. You can get motivated to hit any of the points mentioned in the blog. Saying that, of course the article was written to be a very one-sided view on the topic. Given that, it's obviously going to be shared on social media and garner even more attention / clicks / eyeballs. It's not ... irony per-se, but something close to it.
  • dijit 5y ago
    "Drugs, if taken properly, are no harm". Correct in theory, but we universally agree that illicit drugs can be damaging to your life. -- even in some cases taking them not seriously enough can cause addiction and serious issues stemming from that. We just need to figure out if Facebook/Twitter/Youtube are paracetamol, codeine, vicodin, cocaine or heroin.
    • kreeben 5y ago
      We should also try and figure out why certain, much more damaging drugs than the ones you listed, are permitted while those that you did are not. >> we universally agree that illicit drugs can be damaging to your life We absolutely do not.
      • burkaman 5y ago
        Always happy to hear other perspectives, but I genuinely don't think I've ever heard someone say "drugs cannot damage your life in any way". I would be pretty surprised if more than 1% of people believe this.
• paulpauper 5y ago
  A common media/pundit narrative is that social media is envy or anxiety-inducing because people are only showing their successes or unobtainable lifestyles, but have these people actually ever used social media? It's the opposite: a lot of sad stories (such as gofundme campaigns for illnesses), people living surprisingly mundane lives. It's not at all like how pundits depict it. Yeah, if you social circle is all google employees, then yeah you may feel envy but that does not apply to 99.99% of ppl who use social media.
  • rconti 5y ago
    I think people do have a tendency to compare up, not down. I do it myself, too, yet I never find social media making me feel worse about myself. And yet I still get imposter syndrome in work related things, for example. Maybe the more acutely someone is prone to negative comparisons, the more social media will exacerbate it, but yeah, gotta say, 99% of what i see out there makes me feel fortunate.
• m0llusk 5y ago
  This piece has the same tone as a recovering alcoholic talking about the dangers of just one drink. It is true that social media can be damaging and should probably be used minimally. It is also true that lots of people get value from social media and then step away because they for whatever reason are better able to balance the situation. My own minimal use of social media has allowed me to keep up with old friends, to share unusual online experiences, and to learn about many things like detailed product evaluations, specialized cutlery, and several forms of dance that I had never before even imagined. There are many dangers with social media, but also great value. Anyone recommending to turn it all off because of the damage that may be done is probably missing out on a lot and propagating that blind spot with their well intended advice.
  • rcoder 5y ago
    “…a recovering alcoholic talking about the dangers of just one drink.” So, one of the things you learn pretty early in recovery is that there is no “normal” when it comes to addiction. However, there are _patterns_ of denial and implicit social construction around risky behaviors that most people only believe matter for “alcoholics” and other obvious “losers”. Something can be both toxic (booze, cigarettes, online fake conspiracy echo chambers) and relatively benign in small amounts. That doesn’t mean that foregoing them is bad in absolute terms. OTOH recognizing that toxicity instead of ignoring it can help to avoid the “only happens to other, weaker people” trap. Said trap lets many people slide much further into self-destructive behavior than they could otherwise with a bit more self-awareness and compassion.
• afavour 5y ago
  Not to dispute anything the article says, but a reminder: Hacker News is social media too. Which is fine! But I often see comments on here (typically under any article about Facebook) where the poster says they’ve deleted all social media and their life is much better for it, etc etc. No you haven’t because you’re still on here. No problem with that as long as you’re getting value from the time you spend here, but it should perhaps give you pause when prescribing what others do with their time: others may decide some other form of social media is a worthy use of their time and their choice is not necessarily more or less valid than yours.
  • seoulmetro 5y ago
    >Hacker News is social media too. Nope. Not even close. Video games aren't social media either. These places can be used as a form of social media, but that requires quite a bit of work and a lot of profile browsing, setting up, etc. In no form are they social media by default though.
  • BenJong-Il 5y ago
    Thank you for mentioning that. I was just about to say that I quit all social media EXCEPT for HN. And sometimes I am faced with the same negative effects as I was on larger platforms. For example posts or comments about salary or revenue will make me worry about my own financial future. Or technical posts will scratch on my self esteem when a lot of expertise is involved. I think what makes HN feel different to its community is the fact that it is well moderated niche community that can look like heaven at first.
  • karaterobot 5y ago
    I guess HN is social media, but I don't think it's the kind of social media the article is talking about. There's no social network involved in HN, no identity or personal branding (outside of dang) and the user-generated content is mostly comments on articles generated outside the site. I'm not arguing that it isn't social media, but then I guess the comments section of a blog is also social media by the same definition, and both of those things seem qualitatively different than, say, Facebook or Twitter. It may just be that the category of 'social media' is too broad to use about different things, some of which are more problematic than others.
• redleggedfrog 5y ago
  I find being a misanthrope helps a lot, because you're not even tempted to use social media 'cause people.
• rwnspace 5y ago
  I think the laundry list of "things quitting gives you" is massively overblown. I know people whose use of social media puts them in a competitive mindset that helps them get to work that day and put their face and clothes on nice in the morning. It's a major part of their success and happiness. I know other people without it who are depressed degenerates that don't know very many people. As far as the individual is concerned, large studies on the effects of quitting are pretty much meaningless. It depends entirely on your context and relationship with it, and how much your social life hinges on events primarily organised on FB/Messenger et al. I quit about 5 years ago, and missed out on a ton of casual, ad-hoc events. And yes, they were "real", if mostly circumstantial - but still important - friends. For me, these are the things which I think aren't so context-dependent when it comes to these good/bad/unhealthy discussions: Issue A is the addiction pattern - "the scrollies" - being unable to tear your thumb (and eyes) away. Issue B is losing your own take and knowing what your own take requires - I now do my best not to read other people's words in my usual reading voice, although it's not easy. Particularly with toxic/pseudonymous sites, you're often eating where someone else is shitting. You take on opinions without knowledge and viewpoints without experience. Getting off social media doesn't do shit. Fixing why you are vulnerable to the issues we all know about does. Sometimes you need to get off SM to fix it. Sometimes you don't. Let's not turn this into some kind of religious rite of transition.
• zivkovicp 5y ago
  The internet was a much more interesting place pre-2004, but I am not holding my breath for a return to those times.
  • GuB-42 5y ago
    It will never happen and I don't want it to happen. Early 2000s internet = Flash ads, Internet Explorer, dotcom bubble, popups, ... Yeah right, great time... At least, DSL/cable was an upgrade from dial-up. Pick any time in the history of the internet, and you can find something wrong. Eternal September was in 1993, I think it marks the start of the "old internet was better" times. Personally, say all you want about social media and the evil tech giants, but for me, every year, the internet becomes bigger and more useful, and the traces of the "good old times", whatever you want them to be, are still there.
• emptyparadise 5y ago
  It's hard to leave social media when it's your main avenue for being social. Where else would I find just the right collection of people to bond with over how terrible social media is?
• zw123456 5y ago
  Agree with the detox idea for some people. But they have to of course want to do it. But I would extend the concept to all point of view media as well including point of view cable "News" or radio programs. I have had this convo with a couple friends who seemed to be getting radicalized and I suggested abstaining from all point of view media for 30days. But even after a few days a lot of people report feeling happier and less agitated. My recommendation to anyone who spends more than 30 - 60 minutes a day on social, point of view or similar type media, might benefit from taking a perspective break. Read a book, play some music, listen to some music, watch a fun movies (no documentaries), cook, exercise, hike, bike, etc. etc. You will feel better :)
• rvr_ 5y ago
  For some (maybe many?), consumption of social media fills a huge void. For those who have lasting friendships, frequent social gatherings, nearby (and united) family, quitting social media can be as easy and feasible as the author suggests.
• jh0486 5y ago
  Social media consumption really falls into the same category as addiction. Some people can manage doing addictive things better than others. If social media is having a negative impact on your life, stop using it. If you can moderate it and it has a positive impact on your life, use it. As a side note, we have to stop blaming platforms for human problems. What social media has done to the world isn't new, it simply used to be contained.
• xrd 5y ago
  In this thread, there are a lot of people saying Reddit and HN are their social media, and it is not the same as FB or Instagram. I think we should distinguish between social media that uses algorithms to promote content and serve ads from those sites that don't. HN is definitely promoting something (they advertise one product: getting the best startups to do YC). But, AFAIK, HN does not algorithmically push content to me based on what I have indicated I care about. That's the dangerous precedent FB set. They are crafting a world for you, and you are unaware of it. And, even FB employees probably don't know, they just know that they get their bonuses so they can finally buy a house in the bay area when they tweak that algorithm and the advertiser success rates hit the metric for the quarter.
• axiosgunnar 5y ago
  Reminder that Hacker News is social media, of course.
• bityard 5y ago
  I have been practicing "write-only" social media for about the last 5 years. It became a compromise between wanting to stay in touch with friends and extended family while not wasting too much of my own extremely valuable free time inside some corporation's walled sandbox. The reality of it that 99% of social media is politics (arguing), hot-takes, and memes. And all of it has negative intellectual value. In write-only social media, I will post occasional updates and photos, but as an absolute rule I do not scroll the newsfeed. I have all notifications turned off, so if someone replies or "likes" my posts, I don't know about it unless I remember to go back to check on it, which I usually don't. This doesn't have to mean turning your social media presence into a one way street: if I'm thinking of someone, I will often to to their profile and see what they've been up to lately. But I certainly don't need daily updates of their cat or favorite political memes to get through my day. I know there are those who are going to say that using social media like this is pretty selfish. It might be. And if it is, I'm more than okay with that. I would much rather be selfish than waste my all of my free time as a scrolling zombie.
  • stefandesu 5y ago
    While reading through the comments here, I've been thinking about doing this exact thing, in particular with Instagram. It's the main platform for me to stay in touch with (mostly overseas) friends, but I have the tendency to get stuck in the suggested posts and waste too much time there. Ideally, I'd like to have an app for Instagram which has ONLY posts from people I follow (and messaging). No suggested posts, no ads, no reels. I don't think even things like Instagram++ can do this though, unfortunately.
• ridaj 5y ago
  It really depends on what you replace it with. In the past year I think I've decreased my consumption of social media significantly but I have also increased my consumption of TV and passive YouTube content, and I'm not sure it's great either. It's like diets, if you cut all fats but replace the calories with refined sugar, you're not really making a great change.
• hindsightbias 5y ago
  > Society is satisfied with shallow thoughts and the pursuit of artificially created stimuli in an imaginary world. That's what a lot of people think of gaming. Following the money of the first study (2nd link is dead), they appear to be pro-gaming and anti-social media. The OASIS was gaming and social, if the Hackalariat believes one is good and one is bad, what will the Metaverse be? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Huo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Huo
• crorella 5y ago
  I unfollowed everyone and every page/group on FB and now I can just visit the profile when I want to see how they are doing, my feed is empty and since no ads are displayed when you visit a specific person's profile it is a very clean experience. 0 addiction.
• vulkan92 5y ago
  > That’s why I personally think that the best way to leave social media. The most adequate antidote is finding something else to do when you have nothing to do. > Something that’s aligned with your long-term goals. > Doing. Not consuming. Those reflect my feeble thoughts running over in my head for the longest time, quite well. A really well written piece
• tumblewit 5y ago
  I deleted FB 2 years ago, Twitter 2.5 years ago and Instagram 1 year ago. Most close friends found zero problems connecting with me. That’s cause they call, text or we just meet. It’s almost like I started to live in the ‘real’ life rather than a made up one. It felt weird and underwhelming at times but it is horrifying how much we can get sucked into social media without even knowing most of the times. The withdrawal symptoms can be real too. Seriously just go and click the delete button right now after seeing this post. Don’t think just do it.
  • rconti 5y ago
    Maybe it's my FOMO or the fact that I don't do well at organizing events, but I'd like to keep all channels open. I like to go to everything I'm invited to since I'm not the best at being a host. I've also absolutely forgotten to invite friends to events because they weren't on social media. Sorry if that makes you think I'm a shitty friend, but if you're inviting, say, 20 people to something, it's pretty damn easy to miss someone you care about.
  • emodendroket 5y ago
    I mean I'd rather not arbitrarily cut off friends for frivolous reasons like what means they like to use to contact me.
    • trutannus 5y ago
      I don't think that's what they're getting at. My understanding of this was that "people who actually care about you will find a way". Someone who does not actually care about you won't bother. So chances are, if the person was only in contact with you because you're on Facebook, they don't really care about you in the first place. Cutting off someone who can't be bothered to get in touch with you is pretty normal.
      • tumblewit 5y ago
        Exactly! Most people now just text me if they want to know about me. I realised so many of these ‘friends’ only cared enough to like pictures or make a comment on them. Beyond that they weren’t interested. It’s better to not have such friends than have them as you are getting a false sense of friendship not a real one. I can’t believe people don’t see this problem yet. Not to mention the fact that if I actually meet them maybe by coincidence for example, they have nothing to talk about themselves but still have a profile full of photos. I already know a few people who have completely lost it due to Facebook and Instagram. I hope the damage isn’t beyond repair. This is a very serious problem in my opinion. I don’t think everyone is addicted but I think most of them are and it’s not good.
• emodendroket 5y ago
  I can't really relate to these feelings. To me the worst aspect of social media is you can easily lose track of time scrolling, but I find the time limit options on my phone are pretty effective at letting me use it enough to get what I want out of it without accidentally letting a bunch of time go by.
• admin786 5y ago
  Thanks for visiting
• amonedude 5y ago
  This is why I setup OpenDNS and started blocking certain sites - including Reddit. Quality of life improvements are real.
• mattowen_uk 5y ago
  Is this article satire? ...described by Ernest Cline in his masterpiece Ready Player One I stopped reading at that point, as RP1 is turgid 80s-fan-boy scribblings and hardly a 'masterpiece'. But, maybe I didn't get the joke?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • npsimons 5y ago
    > I stopped reading at that point, as RP1 is turgid 80s-fan-boy scribblings and hardly a 'masterpiece'. I almost stopped reading there as well. The irony of bemoaning peoples' lack of experience in the bigger world, while lauding Cline was almost too much. But I find the overall message a good one, and was willing to write off this one point of utterly myopic incompetence for the sake of the rest of the article. Perhaps he was trying to make it more relatable to a younger crowd (while, again ironically, referencing a book that wears it's 80's nostalgia proudly). ETA: Nope. Nope nope nope. Just can't finish the article. He keeps referencing the steaming turd that is RPO. FFS, has he even heard of Neal Stephenson? Maybe "Neuromancer"? So much good fiction on the topic, and he has to reference the bottom of the barrel garbage.
• snide 5y ago
  For those interested in dystopian works on this subject I always recommend Super Sad True Love Story[0] by Gary Shteyngart. It's a little closer to the "Her-style" near future that is a lot more mundane. What if you walked into a bar and everyone was pre-ranked on your phone? What if news was replaced with streamers, and every friend group had a person who was streaming non-stop? What if economy and finance stopped being about making capital and instead became about managing debt, at both the micro and macro level? What do relationships look like in that world? [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Super-Sad-True-Love-Story-ebook/dp/B0036S4BSA/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NNYAI1ZD14RP&keywords=super+sad+true+love+story&qid=1636391211&sprefix=super+sad+t%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Super-Sad-True-Love-Story-ebook/dp/B0...
• streamofdigits 5y ago
  We are stuck in the twilight zone. I have never seen a serious defense of the dystopic status quo of current tech. I would have loved to. If you read an honest, intelligent argument (that comes from a recognizably human psyche, not a lawyer, or a cynical, amoral capital accumulator) it can "open your eyes". It can convince you that your view is missing an important angle. That can be liberating, exhilarating even as it enlarges the "universe". Alas there is no such position because the status quo is essentially... evil. Deceit, greed, exploitation is baked in so deeply in the dominant business models it is impossible to square with what one might term "common morality". There is no other legal industry that is predicated on so much ignorance and impotence of its peculiar class of "users-consumers-products". Tacitly the actual argument is: "the world sucks and you can do nothing about it. Wear those goggles and joint our happy metaverse or live as a poor and socially awkward pariah". Countless people have sketched what "good tech" looks like. It is as distant today (Aaron Swartz memory day) as it was in 2013. But I will never accept that this distorted reality is somehow our natural or deserved state.
  • dr-detroit 5y ago
    For me it starts with making a major distinction between facebook and the comments on HN and YT. Comments are trivial. facebook is a CIA sponsored (according to ABC news) weaponized sexapp.
  • FuckedCompany 5y ago
    Well we tried this whole “open your eyes” thing in a different way. We tried, and still do to some degree, to highlight who is in charge of these companies, what their backgrounds tend to be in the great majority of cases. To look for patterns and agendas. How is it orchestrated, these sorts of things. But then we get deplatformed and ostracized. The end result of which is that some people, having been burned, who once would have defended a better internet than the one we have now, are perfectly fine with watching it burn.
    • germinalphrase 5y ago
      The internet expands; it’s our young people who will keep the score.
• ianbicking 5y ago
  After long being skeptical of approaches that just cut out social media I'm giving it a serious consideration. (I know, very brave of me.) But my main reason is that I feel, over years of consumption, that it has put me in a constantly critical perspective. I'm always wondering "is this a good take?" or "is this thing in the world good or bad?" or "am I doing the right thing?" – there's a kind of toxic self-reflection, both of myself and the world, and I have to untrain my mind. Facebook is fairly low on the list of places with this perspective. Twitter, some of Reddit (really depends on the sub), Hacker News, and a lot of regular media and podcasts are centered on this critical perspective. Yet I don't want to just cut things out. I'm getting something from this media consumption. But I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly what, and if I can figure it out then maybe it will be clearer what can replace that consumption, satisfy my healthy desires, and exclude these psychologically negative feedback cycles. Something that I am feeling right now is that self-improvement culture is in this same constellation of negative feedback cycles. The image of the Perfect Me Without Social Media is a barrier of its own... the me that quietly reads a book in the evening, that joyfully exercises each morning, that is just super present for my children, that is pondering all of life's big questions and just killing it at each of these things. It's unreasonable, it's absurd. I have a set of revealed preferences in the way I live my life, and that ain't it. I am sure I could satisfy those desires in a more healthy way, but I need to start with some basic respect for the real me. So, bringing it back to the article: "I believe that these days you should focus more on doing, not on consuming." And man, I don't know... Going deeper, I think this critical mindset is this domination of my superego, of some judging force looming over my own consciousness. That judging force is ME of course, but I've created enough stories and spectral visions of this force that it feels real. I've started consciously putting that bit of myself aside lately, and it's worked better than I would have expected... but as soon as I tell myself "I should focus more on doing and not on consuming" then I'm inviting that little fucker right back into my head.
• admin787 5y ago
  one commen
• harlanji 5y ago
  There is a pretty big omission which is life before and after the lockdowns. I was not on social media until about a year before lockdowns when I was set back and lost my ability to be employed in tech, and used Twitter as a way to stay plugged into the news and engage. Enter pandemic, I was isolated in my car and would have had literally had no casual human contact without the T. Couldn't go sit in a library or cafe and chat with people, etc., as I have for most of my adult life. Granted this is an extreme case, but it illustrates an upside of social media during lockdowns at least. I'm working on the data of this, receipts and Tweet archive, while I seek employment and acclimate to refuge in a new city which shows little trace of a lockdown. I want to be off social media ASAP, don't get me wrong. I could probably quit now but if lockdowns come again then I will be back on, so I'm waiting it out--and I've taken a month off recently.
• admin787 5y ago
  Thanks for visiting
• kingcharles 5y ago
  OK, so I just went to jail for 8 years and that was an abrupt disconnect from social media, which I used on a heavy basis. So, I "stayed off" social media. I can tell you that since getting out TikTok has been one of the biggest benefits to my mental health. We don't need to disconnect entirely, we just need a healthier limit on our use. Now, if someone could please tell me how to break my HN addiction?! (for real)
  • corobo 5y ago
    > Now, if someone could please tell me how to break my HN addiction?! (for real) It has a function for that in your profile. I can't find the original for my quote, it appears to have rotted. Still accurate though. > Noprocrast is turned off by default. If you turn it on by setting it to "yes," you'll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours
• hintymad 5y ago
  I would stay off social media too, as I did for years. I was a happy liberal. It was last year that changed my perspective. I found it was important to stay informed with channels outside of traditional media to know about politics, even though I had tried to stay away from politics or political news all my life. For instance, without social media, I wouldn't know that teachers in schools would tell my kids that they were born racists and oppressors just because of their skin color. I wouldn't know that working hard and being logical and studying STEM was whiteness. I wouldn't know that media was telling people that Asians were successful because they were close to white. I wouldn't know that journalists would stand behind a burning building and tell camera that people were mostly peaceful, pundits would label anyone who disagree with them and say things like "black mouth moving but a white idea running on the runway of the tongue". I wouldn't know so many politicians like Calvin Newsom and SF mayor and DC mayor would blatantly discard their own mask and social distance rules and partied and dine in public to humiliate millions of people who suffered. I wouldn't know that the crime rate jumped more than 100% of some cities yet the mayors like that in Chicago blamed everything in racism. Without social media I wouldn't know that Democratic party had been trying to turn the US into Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia, where people were judged not by their characters but by their birth and partisanship, and where public officials did not have to follow their own rules. Yes I feel more pain, but the wakening is necessary. I would stay off social media if the media was not batshit partisan and would distort facts for narratives.
  • mateo- 5y ago
    lol
  • redisman 5y ago
    Wow sounds like you really got enlightened by all the right wing talking points they’re pushing on social media to get people enraged. Maybe try turning that off too and see how you feel in a month
    • hintymad 5y ago
      That's the problem of the left or you: labeling. You don't like a piece of information, then it's right wing, it's racism, it's whatever you call. I just want to know if something true. Did CNN report say "a mostly peaceful protest" in front of a burning building or not? Did Joy Reid's guest say "black mouth running white idea" or not? Did Seattle government tell its employees that white people are racists or not? Did Smithsonian museum put up poster that says being objective is whiteness or not? Well, I guess facts do not matter to you, just like facts did not matter to the Chinese back in the 1960s, right? Just your narrative, even if means that millions of people are hurt or killed.
• tgittos 5y ago
  One thing this article doesn't bring up but I have observed in myself since quitting social media about 4 years ago is the pain of living in a world where nobody holds the same values as you do anymore. Yes, all these benefits will come to you from opting out of social media. You'll grow, learn and appreciate your own life more, and at the same time feel more and more isolated from the world around you. You'll find you want to dig in deeper and connect with people in a more meaningful way - but there's nobody on the other end of that line. The people you try to forge connections with are empty shells: "These days, no one wants you – your physical company. People are aiming towards your attention and your credit card." Friends are accessories and only worth the prestige or social clout they afford you. My own ex-wife got angry at me when I initially quit social media, because in her mind if something wasn't out there for everyone to witness then it didn't really exist. I wasn't allowed to have a private relationship with my own spouse. The most frustrating thing about this is the realization that you can't change this. You can write articles like this, you can share it with your loved ones and friends, and they'll nod and agree that social media is bad and that they value real relationships, then close the tab and hit up Facebook again. The toxicity of social media is really something that comes from a realization in yourself that the life you're leading isn't fun, isn't enjoyable and isn't fulfilling. It's not something you can really show someone. You'll grow to love yourself and be constantly disappointed in others. The healthy thing to do is to let these relationships decay into whatever they're going to be rather than fight the tide and try to connect to people who don't want to connect. My own friend circle has shrunk about 90% since I quit social media, and it's not just because everyone else is on social media. Everyone has a phone. The problem is people don't care. It's lonely out there.
  • ryandrake 5y ago
    > My own friend circle has shrunk about 90% since I quit social media, and it's not just because everyone else is on social media. Everyone has a phone. The problem is people don't care. Sorry to be blunt, but I think if one leaves social media and sees their friend circle shrink, I've got bad (or maybe good) news for them: Those people weren't really your friends. Part of the problem is with how we define "friends" now. A friend used to be someone who you could ask for advice on a very personal issue, borrow a tool from, someone who could watch your kids while you were gone, someone who will visit you if you're sick and dying. Today, "friend" has morphed into this nebulous thing: one of five thousand usernames of people (or bots) in a Social Media database, who simply chose to click a "follow" button. The corruption of the meaning of the word "friend" was the biggest casualty of social media. It's now this abstraction that may or may not have anything to do with friendship. A Social Media Friend doesn't even necessarily like you, and you don't even necessarily like them. How many of those abstract friend-like entities in that Facebook list would give you an actual old-school phone call or snail-mail if you were dying of cancer? Those are your real friends. The rest of those people are merely entries in a database that we increasingly confuse for a social circle.
• Barrin92 5y ago
  I feel like I have the opposite problem, my social media is simply dead. And I'm only 29 years old so I'm supposedly in the prime demographic for it. My Facebook timeline is basically someone posting holiday photos every few months and annual birthday wishes. Everything is happening in personal WhatsApp groups with friends these days and it seems like my family/work/friend circle isn't on any 'newsfeed' type media at all. And mind you it's not just introverted coders. A while ago when these posts came out about Facebook pivoting to private communication away from its traditional format that made perfect sense to me. To me social media these days is too boring to spend hours on.
  • tayo42 5y ago
    My social media is deadish too but idk if that's what people talk about when they say social media is a problem. I think it's more like endless scrolling of suggested content like when you run out of new posts on Instagram or explore page, or I think tiktok does something similar. Twitter and Facebook give you suggested posts and related but unconnected posts that go on and on.
• durmonski 5y ago
  Thank you for sharing my post. I wrote it mainly because I'm worried. Terrified that my kid will have to live a life inside a virtual world - not the real world. I'm saying "have to" because when the meta world hit us, we will no longer NOT talk to others because we're staring at our phones. We'll don't even see each other. We'll have people around us but experiencing different worlds. It will be a lonely place. No one on the streets. People only living in simulations.
• a_zaydak 5y ago
  I was never a big social media person. But back in 2012 I totally went off of social media all together. It happened because I was in grad school and my girlfriend at the time had lots of anxiety issues. Her doctor recommended that she delete her facebook. She was worried about "missing out" on things if she deleted it so her and I decided to delete it together at the same time. 10 years have passed and I still don't have an account and don't miss it at all! The only social media that I have is LinkedIn (and HN) for work purposes but haven't logged into it more than a few times a year. There are some challenges to not having social media however. It has been integrated into so many other apps and platforms that it is hard to get away from. For example, some of my close friends have a Messenger group chat. Sometimes I have missed out on planning events because of that. Also platforms like Oculus started to require a FB to log in. Online dating was also hard. Dates would ask for my FB or Instagram account and when I told them that I didn't have one they would think I was trying to hide something. I don't want to totally bash social media BUT I really hope that it goes back to what it was originally made for and all of the integrations stop. I don't think this is the trend though...
• jcun4128 5y ago
  I was more of an ass when I was younger. I cringe at myself on social media, I went through and cleaned it up, nothing offensive to anyone just cringe on my part. Anyway I did leave FB long time ago (recently use messenger for family), Instagram never really got into it same for Twitter, have some history while back. I do still use social... HN/Reddit/YouTube/Imgur/some meme sites... usually I go on those when I'm burnt can't really be productive anymore. Reddit more for fast questions like StackOverflow. I don't have a ringer on my phone anymore, it's pretty cool. I'm not really important so it doesn't matter if I miss a call. It's easy for people to talk crap on social especially when they are anonymous. Gotta not get baited. Also numbers vs. real friends that will help you when life sucks. Comparing yourself to others that sucks too, there is always someone richer, better skilled, better looking, etc... Lately too I have felt some self-censorship like "can I say that?" this is like political matters which I'm ignorant in so I avoid that, also not a confrontation guy... that's one thing that sucks about social media too you'll get annoyed by something and you'll obsess over it for a day. I also try to avoid getting sucked into things like Twitch/Vtubers that's another form of social void filling. I used to be super extroverted when I was younger but became the opposite later on, lost the hundreds of friends and now down to like 6 real friends. One side anecdote, I used to do RC Planes hobby for fun... but then social media got involved. It was nice to be part of a community but there was that aspect where you were making content just to share with others vs. enjoying it for yourself. I do want to produce content in the long run but have to avoid that. Also ego-satisfaction, telling people about some fantasy/plans but it hasn't actually happened yet.
• migazzz 5y ago
  You focus on people that you actually care about.
• helloworld11 5y ago
  I believe that many of you commenting here about the terrible dangers of social media's addictiveness and so forth more likely than not simply live in a bubble where you yourselves and the circles of people around you are unusually addicted to it. I can spend a few minutes on Facebook or Instagram a few times a day and that's it, no problem leaving and few problems with self image anxiety because of some influenciar or other people's profiles. Most of my friends are more or less similar, and if they use their own social media profiles for anything more heavily, it's because of work obligations, but outside of those obligations, they simply don't qualify as addicted. Of course, my own story may be coming from a different kind of bubble of its own, and after all it's no more than an anecdote, but I'd love to see a concrete, empirical study that shows just how many people out of a given population (broken down by age or demographic groups maybe) really do get emotionally crushed by social media addiction, and how many people are more or less casual about using it and don't take it too seriously. The harping and woeful lamenting that I keep seeing on HN (ironically full of people who benefited financially from and helped facilitate this very technology in their careers) about how social networks are creating an emotional wasteland is no substitute for real data. All the above aside, the big social networks are indeed fully, empirically worthy of criticism for their endlessly parasitical scrounging for personal data and perpetual monetized surveillance of every person they can push into "engagement". This however doesn't necessarily mean that they're succeeding as much as some like to think at the mass emotional manipulation aspect. The two things need not strongly correlate. After all, as many other seemingly contradictory comments on this same site have noted in the past, much of the ad and content suggestions that sites like FB or Insta push on people are often laughably off the mark at guessing interest or preference, yet at the same time, these same faulty algorithms somehow supposedly devastate the self images and belief systems of millions of people? So, which is it? It could be both, but that seems rather doubtful.
• LoveMortuus 5y ago
  People choose to be offended or not, it doesn't matter if it's conscious or unconscious, it's still their decision and there nothing we/I can do about it. I could be having a good day to the point of verbalising it and a person next to me who happens to hear it can be extremely offended or not. Thus since it's completely out of my hand I do my best to just not worry of think about it. What I do think about is how I would like to see people interacting with me, due to my physiological configuration I never received any compliments and because of that I've been trying my best to give as many genuine compliments as I can muster, I give them with only good in my mind. Sadly some people still get offended to the point where they feel the need to express they don't appreciate the compliment. Which makes me think what kind of a life they must have lived and are living, to be in a state where you first start looking for negativity before anything else... I don't have social media accounts except the one for Facebook's Messenger. There are benefits of course, mostly in decrease of induced sadness but it is annoying not having accounts because I made the Messenger one to be able to speak with classmates, but now that I've switched classes my new classmates are using Instagram's Messenger... I decided to just not participate in that messenger as all of the important things are supported via mail. I do wonder what will the kids use after Instagram though, since from what I can see they prefer using Instagram over Facebook and Twitter because there's less reading and you get pictures, but what's next?