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Quitting social media and the news are some of the best lifestyle changes I've made in my life. Both present constant feeds of "stuff" in ways that make the con

Quitting social media and the news are some of the best lifestyle changes I've made in my life. Both present constant feeds of "stuff" in ways that make the consumer think it's important. As a result, the consumer does what corporations and businesses want most: they just keep consuming and looking for more to consume. For me, 99% of stuff on social media and the news is simply not worth any time, so while I never had issues with depression or anxiety or things like that, it was a pointless waste of my time and focus. Nowadays I do way more interesting things and enjoy the moment way more. I imagine for people who _do_ suffer from anxiety, etc due to social media, the effects would be even more significant.

algoatecorn 4y ago
Exactly how I feel. Social media is robbing people blind (of their time). I also enjoy knowing that I'm not a free marketing resource for companies. Maybe I'm just one potential data point, but it feels good to know I'm not "feeding the machine".
g-unit33 4y ago
You consider hackernews news or no?
- fullshark 4y ago
  Could be defined as social media too
  - hammock 4y ago
    Absolutely, especially if you are a regular commenter, ever glance at your karma, etc.
  - apocalypstyx 4y ago
    All social media is immoral except my social media.
- kradeelav 4y ago
  Not the OP, but I don't consider HN to be in the same category as say, facebook, CNN, twitter, anything with a feed for a few reasons. One is the lack of algorithms and dark patterns shoveling engagement-bait towards our way. Upvoted content, while not always pristine, tends to be better quality on average. Two, while HN is a great spot for "tech news", it pretty rarely has the "if it bleeds it leads" shock-bait type of articles that the alphabet networks do. Lastly, this is a little of a life hack, but in the mornings I tend to glance once at the top 3 HN headlines; if there's no major "news-news" (ie not tech news) in the top three slots, then it's pretty safe to say that nothing historic like September 11th happened that day. It's a pretty peaceful way of checking that the world's continuing to keep on spinning. :)
  - jl6 4y ago
    I also don’t consider HN to be in the same category as Twitter and Facebook. Another reason for this, on top of those you mention, is because identity is very weak here. I don’t have any persistent relationship with any HN commenters - I have no idea who you are or if I’ve replied to you before! That cuts out a lot of social dynamics that breed long-term feuding behaviour on other platforms.
  - root_axis 4y ago
    > One is the lack of algorithms and dark patterns shoveling engagement-bait towards our way HN front-page is certainly algorithm driven, it might not be individualized, but stories that displease the algorithm are down-weighted which, in effect, is a tacit promotion of stories the algorithm chooses not to penalize. > it pretty rarely has the "if it bleeds it leads" shock-bait type of articles that the alphabet networks do. I don't agree. HN stories are often baity, inflammatory, and contentious, it is not uncommon to see dang warning the comment section to keep things civil. The type of stories that hit HN aren't always the type we see in the wider media, but the level of toxicity is on par with every other social media site, if only mitigated by careful and rigorous moderation.
  - g-unit33 4y ago
    I love how peaceful of a life you live haha if September 11 or such hasn’t happened, it’s going to be a good day Very inspiring
- silicon2401 4y ago
  I don't, nor do I consider it social media. I'm aware that we're socially interacting through the medium of HN, but when I say social media I mean things like twitter or instagram; I hope the meaning is clear. The reason I don't consider HN news is because I just see HN as just a link aggregator. By news I mean things like Fox News
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
If you could help me quit the news I would appreciate it. Social media for some reason was easy for me quit, but the news is a hard one. But here you are on HackerNEWS so maybe I am asking the wrong person for help?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > If you could help me quit the news I would appreciate it. Move to an authoritarian country, like China. Seriously. If you live in a democracy, news is pretty important for informing you for performing your civic responsibilities and exerting your influence on the political system. If your influence is literally zero, then there's no point. In places like that, there's even a self-preservation incentive for disengagement, because engagement can be dangerous if it conflicts with the authorities.
- tayo42 4y ago
  if you read online you can set up blocks for certain news sites, or like only allow them at certain times
- nonameiguess 4y ago
  I don't want to speak for silicon2401, but at least for me, cold turkey worked fine. But we need to be clear about what needs to be quit. It's any and all news. Consumption of information is important for various reasons, if for nothing else then to satisfy basic intellectual curiosity. But you need to be judicious about where it is coming from and how often you spend your time consuming it, along with the extent to which that consumption is interactive. So no 24 hour cable news channels. No algorithmic content feeds. No consuming news through Facebook or Google. I've never been on Twitter, but I imagine it isn't much better and you should quit it if you currently have an account there. Don't just try to stay away or use an app to block it based on time of day. Delete your account and put the site on your home firewall if you have. Then proceed to consume from healthier. The most obvious is books. Read as many and as often as you can. After that, I still think YouTube channels or something similar on an equivalent platform can still be useful, but you have to be careful. Turn off auto-play. Turn off watch and search history. Don't use the algorithmic suggestion feeds. Block them via custom uBlock rules if necessary. Just ignore them if you can. Subscribe to your trusted channels and let them make word of mouth recommendations for other channels. That is a perfectly adequate level of discoverability. For me, I stick to DIY home improvement, PC and homelab building, car detailing, weight lifting, and some animal information channels. That's it. No current events or culture war topics. Nobody that yells or gets emotional in their videos. After that, blogs. There is where Hacker News is still useful. You can discover quality blogs. They'll be repeatedly linked to here, rise to the top, and not be causing long arguments and flame wars. Facebook honestly used to be useful for the same purpose. But there is always a balance between discovering useful sources of new information and time spent getting sucked into long arguments and rabbit-holing yourself with outrage bait. At some point, Facebook became not enough of the former and too much of the latter. Hacker News hasn't reached that point yet, at least for me. When it does, I will leave Hacker News as well. Meanwhile, since I bookmarked the highest-quality blogs that consistently show up here, I'll just start going straight to the source. A few key reasons I don't think Hacker News is that bad yet include the comparatively small user base, somewhat of an industry focus, active and consistent moderation that is fair and well-explained, and no personalization. Everyone sees the same list of links. The list is still algorithmically sorted, but since the algorithm is largely just upvote count and recency and isn't personalized, I don't find it that bad. At least not yet.

algoatecorn 4y ago

Exactly how I feel. Social media is robbing people blind (of their time). I also enjoy knowing that I'm not a free marketing resource for companies. Maybe I'm just one potential data point, but it feels good to know I'm not "feeding the machine".

g-unit33 4y ago

You consider hackernews news or no?

fullshark 4y ago
Could be defined as social media too
- hammock 4y ago
  Absolutely, especially if you are a regular commenter, ever glance at your karma, etc.
- apocalypstyx 4y ago
  All social media is immoral except my social media.
kradeelav 4y ago
Not the OP, but I don't consider HN to be in the same category as say, facebook, CNN, twitter, anything with a feed for a few reasons. One is the lack of algorithms and dark patterns shoveling engagement-bait towards our way. Upvoted content, while not always pristine, tends to be better quality on average. Two, while HN is a great spot for "tech news", it pretty rarely has the "if it bleeds it leads" shock-bait type of articles that the alphabet networks do. Lastly, this is a little of a life hack, but in the mornings I tend to glance once at the top 3 HN headlines; if there's no major "news-news" (ie not tech news) in the top three slots, then it's pretty safe to say that nothing historic like September 11th happened that day. It's a pretty peaceful way of checking that the world's continuing to keep on spinning. :)
- jl6 4y ago
  I also don’t consider HN to be in the same category as Twitter and Facebook. Another reason for this, on top of those you mention, is because identity is very weak here. I don’t have any persistent relationship with any HN commenters - I have no idea who you are or if I’ve replied to you before! That cuts out a lot of social dynamics that breed long-term feuding behaviour on other platforms.
- root_axis 4y ago
  > One is the lack of algorithms and dark patterns shoveling engagement-bait towards our way HN front-page is certainly algorithm driven, it might not be individualized, but stories that displease the algorithm are down-weighted which, in effect, is a tacit promotion of stories the algorithm chooses not to penalize. > it pretty rarely has the "if it bleeds it leads" shock-bait type of articles that the alphabet networks do. I don't agree. HN stories are often baity, inflammatory, and contentious, it is not uncommon to see dang warning the comment section to keep things civil. The type of stories that hit HN aren't always the type we see in the wider media, but the level of toxicity is on par with every other social media site, if only mitigated by careful and rigorous moderation.
- g-unit33 4y ago
  I love how peaceful of a life you live haha if September 11 or such hasn’t happened, it’s going to be a good day Very inspiring
silicon2401 4y ago
I don't, nor do I consider it social media. I'm aware that we're socially interacting through the medium of HN, but when I say social media I mean things like twitter or instagram; I hope the meaning is clear. The reason I don't consider HN news is because I just see HN as just a link aggregator. By news I mean things like Fox News

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

If you could help me quit the news I would appreciate it. Social media for some reason was easy for me quit, but the news is a hard one. But here you are on HackerNEWS so maybe I am asking the wrong person for help?

tablespoon 4y ago
> If you could help me quit the news I would appreciate it. Move to an authoritarian country, like China. Seriously. If you live in a democracy, news is pretty important for informing you for performing your civic responsibilities and exerting your influence on the political system. If your influence is literally zero, then there's no point. In places like that, there's even a self-preservation incentive for disengagement, because engagement can be dangerous if it conflicts with the authorities.
tayo42 4y ago
if you read online you can set up blocks for certain news sites, or like only allow them at certain times
nonameiguess 4y ago
I don't want to speak for silicon2401, but at least for me, cold turkey worked fine. But we need to be clear about what needs to be quit. It's any and all news. Consumption of information is important for various reasons, if for nothing else then to satisfy basic intellectual curiosity. But you need to be judicious about where it is coming from and how often you spend your time consuming it, along with the extent to which that consumption is interactive. So no 24 hour cable news channels. No algorithmic content feeds. No consuming news through Facebook or Google. I've never been on Twitter, but I imagine it isn't much better and you should quit it if you currently have an account there. Don't just try to stay away or use an app to block it based on time of day. Delete your account and put the site on your home firewall if you have. Then proceed to consume from healthier. The most obvious is books. Read as many and as often as you can. After that, I still think YouTube channels or something similar on an equivalent platform can still be useful, but you have to be careful. Turn off auto-play. Turn off watch and search history. Don't use the algorithmic suggestion feeds. Block them via custom uBlock rules if necessary. Just ignore them if you can. Subscribe to your trusted channels and let them make word of mouth recommendations for other channels. That is a perfectly adequate level of discoverability. For me, I stick to DIY home improvement, PC and homelab building, car detailing, weight lifting, and some animal information channels. That's it. No current events or culture war topics. Nobody that yells or gets emotional in their videos. After that, blogs. There is where Hacker News is still useful. You can discover quality blogs. They'll be repeatedly linked to here, rise to the top, and not be causing long arguments and flame wars. Facebook honestly used to be useful for the same purpose. But there is always a balance between discovering useful sources of new information and time spent getting sucked into long arguments and rabbit-holing yourself with outrage bait. At some point, Facebook became not enough of the former and too much of the latter. Hacker News hasn't reached that point yet, at least for me. When it does, I will leave Hacker News as well. Meanwhile, since I bookmarked the highest-quality blogs that consistently show up here, I'll just start going straight to the source. A few key reasons I don't think Hacker News is that bad yet include the comparatively small user base, somewhat of an industry focus, active and consistent moderation that is fair and well-explained, and no personalization. Everyone sees the same list of links. The list is still algorithmically sorted, but since the algorithm is largely just upvote count and recency and isn't personalized, I don't find it that bad. At least not yet.