4 ms·

I have a friend who told me he’s 6 months “media sober.” No social media, streaming services, crossword puzzle apps, news, podcasts, porn, even no movie theatr

I have a friend who told me he’s 6 months “media sober.” No social media, streaming services, crossword puzzle apps, news, podcasts, porn, even no movie theatres. He says he feels less angry, still is told the more important things by friends, and has more energy to put into causes that matter to him. I think there’s something to be said for a middle ground, but it’s in no company’s interest to provide it. They all want more engagement. Maybe we need some kind of non-profit media aggregator that gives you just the small drip you need and that’s it.

abhayhegde 3y ago
I somehow wish there was a good-hearted effort from some government in establishing a low-key social media. But, again, a government could be biased but my point was that only such an organization could bear to go non-profit at such scales.
- azinman2 3y ago
  There’s no trust in gov for most of the world, and it would likely be not so great. The right ppl aren’t motivated to work for gov.
  - _Algernon_ 3y ago
    There are some countries that have reasonably well functioning public broadcasting. A social media run according to that same model (publicly funded but editorial independence) could work.
nomel 3y ago
In iOS you can set up screen time. I recently set it up for a limited amount of time every day, and had someone else set the passcode/recovery. Once I cut myself off, it's been really sad how often I end up looking at a "time limit" message, without really consciously opening the app. Not having the availability is like freeing a constantly tense part of my mind.
matisseverduyn 3y ago
> Maybe we need some kind of non-profit media aggregator that gives you just the small drip you need and that’s it. I think you'd like news.ycombinator.com (also called Hacker News or HN). What's nice is that the news titles on the home page give you the exact slow drip you're looking for. If you want to participate in a discussion, then there's a comment section, but if you just want to read more, you can click directly through to the article without seeing any comments at all.
- azinman2 3y ago
  The sarcasm is against HN’s guidelines. But I’ll still reply: HN is niche in topic. It only provides a small slice of media that I could consume. Imagine something a little more akin to Twitter, but small and not endless. It can be interest focused, social from friends, links to long form content like movies/podcasts, etc. I think News Minimalist does a great job, and is in this spirit with really good summaries. I learned about it from HN. That and the economist daily headlines both give me paragraph sized insights into global news in a very helpful way.
bamfly 3y ago
> news Following news, especially outside the very-local, has very nearly zero value for most people. It's a hobby with about the same value as watching a daily soap opera, that we fool ourselves into thinking is important. "But, informed voters!" the voter who spends a few minutes a day reading relevant non-fiction books—history, poli-sci, statistics, marketing/PR, political philosophy, economics, and so on—rather than the news, and just pokes their head up to look at the news & candidates' messages for a few minutes right before each election, is going to be a way better voter than one who puts the same amount of time into mass news media, and skips the books. Wildly better. Incomparably better. Hell, someone who does neither might well be better than the one immersed in mass news media daily or weekly. It. Is. Not. Important. Or. Valuable. (separately, having a strong news media is important... so, IDK, pay for a paper that does good investigative journalism, but rarely read it? This part's tricky, and arguably one of the great problems of democracy) FYI everyone also votes backwards from how they should. If you're going to ignore elections, ignore the big ones, and attend the ones for local candidates and issues and school boards and such—the more local, the more your vote matters, and the effect is large. If you want to make a difference in a Presidential election, it's far more effective to participate in the primary or caucus and stay home on election day, than to do the opposite. Yet voter behavior is reversed on all this.
- azinman2 3y ago
  My friend was mentioning exactly this. Does a child murder somewhere in the country affect his life? No. Keeping it all in and being angry all the time with no recourse was affecting him. I think it’s still important to be informed, so there’s a middle ground. It seems to me who is president does affect a lot of my life, from abortion, to Supreme Court rules that have majorly affected my life, to war, trade and the economy.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    > It seems to me who is president does affect a lot of my life, from abortion, to Supreme Court rules that have majorly affected my life, to war, trade and the economy. It does—the problem is the value of a single vote. Odds are very poor—like, single-powerball-ticket-poor—that if you cast a vote for every single presidential election you can in your lifetime, anything about your life or anyone else's will be even slightly different. It's the least effective vote you can cast—yet seems like the only one people go out of their way to shame people over, if they don't vote. The smaller the vote (and, in the special case of presidential elections in the US, the less stupid and disenfranchising the rules) the greater the effect. Even narrowing a close vote by one, if you don't quite put it over the top, can make a difference at the very-local level.
Andrex 3y ago
It's about focus and knowing your limits, which is always going to be difficult to self-determine. I thought getting rid of streaming services would make me want to read more, but I found other ways to be distracted. Definitely, humans are not equipped for everything technology is throwing at us. We're pushing up against the limits of our simian biology. Dunbar's number is real. It's up to each of us to be responsible in choosing how much we expose ourselves to, because the tech companies aren't going to do it for us. Big Tech is the Big Tobacco of the 21st century and they know it.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
This happens for people that through-hike the PCT for a 6-month stint. I envy.
DHPersonal 3y ago
> He says he feels less angry, still is told the more important things by friends, and has more energy to put into causes that matter to him. One should definitely weigh the value of a particular news outlet or social media service toward one's daily life, because it's definitely true that much of what these outlets offer is not of great value to anyone, but I dislike this sequestering approach. It views the process of taking in news as a miserable experience, but then goes on to encourage us all to offload that misery to another person to act as a curator. What happens then seems to be a siloing of misery, dooming minority groups to being exploited without any way of getting that message out to a larger audience, because only those who are actually affected by that particular bit of news will hear of it after the multiple layers of curation filter it out from the general audience.
soligern 3y ago
Without porn I’m just too horny to function even though my wife and I have regular sex.
user_named 3y ago
What causes has he put energy into? Or is that just an americanism and the answer is none?
- azinman2 3y ago
  In the LGBTQ space. I think it would be good if you assumed the best in people instead of the worst.

abhayhegde 3y ago

I somehow wish there was a good-hearted effort from some government in establishing a low-key social media. But, again, a government could be biased but my point was that only such an organization could bear to go non-profit at such scales.

azinman2 3y ago
There’s no trust in gov for most of the world, and it would likely be not so great. The right ppl aren’t motivated to work for gov.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  There are some countries that have reasonably well functioning public broadcasting. A social media run according to that same model (publicly funded but editorial independence) could work.

nomel 3y ago

In iOS you can set up screen time. I recently set it up for a limited amount of time every day, and had someone else set the passcode/recovery. Once I cut myself off, it's been really sad how often I end up looking at a "time limit" message, without really consciously opening the app. Not having the availability is like freeing a constantly tense part of my mind.

matisseverduyn 3y ago

> Maybe we need some kind of non-profit media aggregator that gives you just the small drip you need and that’s it. I think you'd like news.ycombinator.com (also called Hacker News or HN). What's nice is that the news titles on the home page give you the exact slow drip you're looking for. If you want to participate in a discussion, then there's a comment section, but if you just want to read more, you can click directly through to the article without seeing any comments at all.

azinman2 3y ago
The sarcasm is against HN’s guidelines. But I’ll still reply: HN is niche in topic. It only provides a small slice of media that I could consume. Imagine something a little more akin to Twitter, but small and not endless. It can be interest focused, social from friends, links to long form content like movies/podcasts, etc. I think News Minimalist does a great job, and is in this spirit with really good summaries. I learned about it from HN. That and the economist daily headlines both give me paragraph sized insights into global news in a very helpful way.

bamfly 3y ago

> news Following news, especially outside the very-local, has very nearly zero value for most people. It's a hobby with about the same value as watching a daily soap opera, that we fool ourselves into thinking is important. "But, informed voters!" the voter who spends a few minutes a day reading relevant non-fiction books—history, poli-sci, statistics, marketing/PR, political philosophy, economics, and so on—rather than the news, and just pokes their head up to look at the news & candidates' messages for a few minutes right before each election, is going to be a way better voter than one who puts the same amount of time into mass news media, and skips the books. Wildly better. Incomparably better. Hell, someone who does neither might well be better than the one immersed in mass news media daily or weekly. It. Is. Not. Important. Or. Valuable. (separately, having a strong news media is important... so, IDK, pay for a paper that does good investigative journalism, but rarely read it? This part's tricky, and arguably one of the great problems of democracy) FYI everyone also votes backwards from how they should. If you're going to ignore elections, ignore the big ones, and attend the ones for local candidates and issues and school boards and such—the more local, the more your vote matters, and the effect is large. If you want to make a difference in a Presidential election, it's far more effective to participate in the primary or caucus and stay home on election day, than to do the opposite. Yet voter behavior is reversed on all this.

azinman2 3y ago
My friend was mentioning exactly this. Does a child murder somewhere in the country affect his life? No. Keeping it all in and being angry all the time with no recourse was affecting him. I think it’s still important to be informed, so there’s a middle ground. It seems to me who is president does affect a lot of my life, from abortion, to Supreme Court rules that have majorly affected my life, to war, trade and the economy.
- bamfly 3y ago
  > It seems to me who is president does affect a lot of my life, from abortion, to Supreme Court rules that have majorly affected my life, to war, trade and the economy. It does—the problem is the value of a single vote. Odds are very poor—like, single-powerball-ticket-poor—that if you cast a vote for every single presidential election you can in your lifetime, anything about your life or anyone else's will be even slightly different. It's the least effective vote you can cast—yet seems like the only one people go out of their way to shame people over, if they don't vote. The smaller the vote (and, in the special case of presidential elections in the US, the less stupid and disenfranchising the rules) the greater the effect. Even narrowing a close vote by one, if you don't quite put it over the top, can make a difference at the very-local level.

Andrex 3y ago

It's about focus and knowing your limits, which is always going to be difficult to self-determine. I thought getting rid of streaming services would make me want to read more, but I found other ways to be distracted. Definitely, humans are not equipped for everything technology is throwing at us. We're pushing up against the limits of our simian biology. Dunbar's number is real. It's up to each of us to be responsible in choosing how much we expose ourselves to, because the tech companies aren't going to do it for us. Big Tech is the Big Tobacco of the 21st century and they know it.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

This happens for people that through-hike the PCT for a 6-month stint. I envy.

DHPersonal 3y ago

> He says he feels less angry, still is told the more important things by friends, and has more energy to put into causes that matter to him. One should definitely weigh the value of a particular news outlet or social media service toward one's daily life, because it's definitely true that much of what these outlets offer is not of great value to anyone, but I dislike this sequestering approach. It views the process of taking in news as a miserable experience, but then goes on to encourage us all to offload that misery to another person to act as a curator. What happens then seems to be a siloing of misery, dooming minority groups to being exploited without any way of getting that message out to a larger audience, because only those who are actually affected by that particular bit of news will hear of it after the multiple layers of curation filter it out from the general audience.

soligern 3y ago

Without porn I’m just too horny to function even though my wife and I have regular sex.

user_named 3y ago

What causes has he put energy into? Or is that just an americanism and the answer is none?

azinman2 3y ago
In the LGBTQ space. I think it would be good if you assumed the best in people instead of the worst.