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I deleted my social media accounts

• chenlian 2y ago
  I completely understand Mark. As a business owner, this is actually a helpless solution.
• bflesch 2y ago
  I wouldn't delete social media accounts because they might become available to register for malicious actors who can then impersonate you. Keep the accounts, just don't use them any more.
  • stevenAthompson 2y ago
    Some, like LinkedIn, allow you to place the account in "hibernation." Which removes the ability to login without reactivating it, but doesn't completely remove it.
    • benatkin 2y ago
      Not as reliable as doing a small amount of gardening of yours.
  • Baeocystin 2y ago
    I have a very common name, and monkey's paw wish managed to get the unnumbered version for my gmail address. It has been a significant amount of work just dealing with all the derppelgängers out there who use an address they don't own for important things. Medical records. Divorce papers. Mortgages. The short of it is that it doesn't even require maliciousness on someone else's part to be affected by impersonation, accidental or otherwise. So yeah, keep what you've got, because there's no guarantee the next person to get it will not somehow affect you.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
      I registered a domain with my name, many moons ago. Sometime later, a lawyer in Australia registered the .au version, but it was <MY NAME>.com.au, not <MY NAME>.au. <MY NAME>.com (no .au) was (and still is) my domain, and I get email, there. I started getting really confidential stuff sent to my email, from the Australian courts. Stuff that could easily get people fired and sued. I reported it for ages to both the courts and the lawyers. Eventually (after about 2 years), it stopped. I haven't gotten one of those for a long time.
  • atrettel 2y ago
    There isn't anything unique about your account on most social media platforms. This isn't a "plant your flag" situation like when trying to prevent identity theft. You don't need to register your account before a bad actor does. Sure, I created an online account with the IRS, credit bureaus, etc. before somebody else could. That's important because they are tied to unique identifiers like your SSN, etc. But somebody could just create a social media account impersonating you even if you already have an account on that social network. There isn't anything enforcing the uniqueness.
    • chenmike 2y ago
      I’m pretty sure GP is saying if you already had an account and you delete it, it’s trivially easy for someone to register with your old handle and impersonate you Of course people can always impersonate you but the goal here is to prevent them from impersonating you with a social handle people knew you had.
      • jjulius 2y ago
        If I recall correctly, the handle you deleted stays inactive and is unavailable to new registrants. This is present on Google at least, I assume it's the same elsewhere.
        • esskay 2y ago
          Not the case on Twitter. It becomes instantly available to anyone who wants it.
          • jjulius 2y ago
            Well that seems... dumb.
            • esskay 2y ago
              Yup, about par for the course with Twitter these days sadly.
  • ipython 2y ago
    Agreed. I’ve done this and I’d you have an existing fan base on those platforms, a final post that explains where you are and why you’re not active can help keep those folks engaged. Plus I feel like I’m still costing the platform the fractions of fractions of a cent to keep my data stored, replicated and active somewhere
    • johnnyanmac 2y ago
      No worries, they more than paid for that storage with the data they sold off. At least before GDPR rulings shut that down.
  • mattgreenrocks 2y ago
    Agree. Hold onto them, else someone can snatch them up and you may have to clean up the reputational mess later. See this happen to an acquaintance of mine.
  • olyjohn 2y ago
    They will do this either way. Fake profiles are created all the time that are copied exactly from a real person's profile. If you have an account, and don't log in and check it every now and then, this will probably happen to you too.
  • austin-cheney 2y ago
    That is poor advice. There are now roughly a dozen people who have social media accounts in my name, because it’s their name too. This isn’t impersonation. It’s also not a problem.
    • kristiandupont 2y ago
      Someone recently created a "duplicate" account for the dad of one of my friends. Same profile picture, username very similar. But one of his friends who received a friend request from the new account was already friends with the old account and wrote a message asking what that was about, which is how my friend discovered it. So at least in that one instance, having the account was helpful.
  • amelius 2y ago
    Also: TSA officer: "please log in to your social media account" You: "I have no social media" TSA officer: "step out of the line please"
    • geraldhh 2y ago
      surely annoying, probably illegal
• iLoveOncall 2y ago
  > and why you should too This is not actually explained in the article. It rightfully explains how X, meta and others have taken a turn for the worse to say the least, but it doesn't say why I should delete my Facebook or Twitter account. Neither do the hundreds of calls to delete such accounts in the past few weeks or months have. I get that the point is "You should stop using such social media", but I don't get what __deleting your account__ actually adds on top, especially when put in relation to the political reasons behind stopping to use them.
  • joemanaco 2y ago
    It’s not clear, yes: I think they have way too much power in the wrong hands. Now, hypothetically speaking: If they were to lose most of their users, they would lose their power. So, in one way or another, everyone supporting those platforms (by using them) is part of the problem - and that would be the reason to stop using them (again, I know this is quite hypothetically).
    • iLoveOncall 2y ago
      Yes but again, this is about stopping to USE them. Deleting your account versus not using your account at all doesn't have any difference of outcome here.
  • PaulHoule 2y ago
    Deleting your account makes somebody's numbers look bad. It also marks a more serious commitment. (I deleted my Facebook in 2016. I did make a new one recently when I got my Meta Quest 3. I was hoping to get into Instagram recently because (i) I think the content I post on Mastodon/Bluesky would do great there and (ii) was thinking about doing a marketing project where that was the right venue. Meta won't let me create an Instagram account, probably because I deleted my Facebook account, I sure as hell haven't done anything else offensive with a Meta property)
  • tzs 2y ago
    Suppose someone was attacking you on some social media site and the site's algorithm was promoting that attack greatly enhancing its damage, and you wanted to try to sue the site. There will almost certainly be something in their terms of service (TOS) that says you have to arbitrate (with an arbiter chosen by the site) instead of sue. Even if the TOS doesn't require this so you can actually sue they would likely have a choice of venue provision that would make it inconvenient for you and/or a choice of law provision that would be favorable to them. If you have an account at the site it will likely be very hard to get out from under the arbitration/venue/law provisions of the TOS. If you no longer have an account you will probably have a better chance of escaping the TOS, especially if whatever you want to sue over took place entirely after you deleted your account.
• chmaynard 2y ago
  I love this: "Maybe I’ll go old-school and write more blog posts. Like back in the early 2000s, when you actually had to think before sharing your thoughts with the world. Sounds quaint, doesn’t it?"
  • layble 2y ago
    I use croissant to cross post on social media accounts but I never use the services themselves to read any content. I’m screaming into the void and I’m fine with it.
    • amelius 2y ago
      Interesting. Do SM companies have an API that allows croissant to do its work? Or do they use unofficial means? Can we also get the other direction, i.e. scrape posts from SM platforms and implement our own (non-toxic) feed algorithms?
  • SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    It is quaint but if my friends and family each had their own blog that they wanted me to look at, I wouldn't. There's a reason these social media places caught on, because they act as aggregators. I get it, it's different types of content, one requires more effort than the other, and the argument is that, if you don't have anything of substance to say, don't say it, but it still requires extra effort to read that I probably don't feel inclined to give.
    • robin_reala 2y ago
      That’s what RSS is for.
      • SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        That solves the "there is a new post" aggregator problem, sure, but I still need to go there and read it.
• fredzel 2y ago
  > Once the accounts were finally gone, I realized just how much of a grip these platforms had on me. The number of times I reflexively typed "t" or "f" into my browser bar (which autocompletes to twitter.com or facebook.com) was honestly terrifying. Waiting for assets to build? Hit Twitter. Software update running? Quick Facebook check How many different accounts do you have to delete though? For many of those people "t" and "f" would be substituted by "y"toube, "r"eddit, etc. It doesn't have to be a social media site, might be news you're intrested in, tech sites, deals aggregator. I get what you mean, but for someone with habit of looking for distraction whenever they have nothing to do it won't be a cure, bandaid at best.
  • epolanski 2y ago
    100% this. While I deleted all of my social media, I will still end up spamming on reddit or reading HN or watching Youtube. But I have to say I find them better alternatives, as those social medias are nothing but people screaming for attention. During work time I have an extension that blocks them all.
  • joemanaco 2y ago
    Yes, that's right. But social media platforms always tend to have something new on it each time you check them, which creates a strong incentive to check them even more often. News sites, for example, on the other hand, don’t use algorithms that encourage doom scrolling and keep you engaged far longer than you intended.
  • noman-land 2y ago
    It's a stepping stone. The mere act of noticing yourself typing "t" and remembering it's not there, and feeling the feelings and realizations that accompany that, can lead to real behavioral change. If you care about yourself and want to have healthier and more mindful habits, you will hopefully start redirecting what were once mindless impulses of avoidance or boredom into more meaningful activities for yourself.
  • jjulius 2y ago
    The answer is completely subjective, whatever the individual feels is important for them to quit. >I get what you mean, but for someone with habit of looking for distraction whenever they have nothing to do it won't be a cure, bandaid at best. This is something society seems to have forgotten to do, and what I've focused on helping my kids remain capable of as they grow older - knowing how to be bored.
• johnea 2y ago
  Excelent call to action. The distictions between made "deleting the accout" and "just stop using it" are really mute. The main point is to disengage from such platforms. Of course, almost no will. In spite of the clear conection between these platforms and individual mental health, and even more importantly massive distribution of seriously mileading "fake news", most people quite frankly just don't give a shit. Look at the near total indifference to the petro mafia's distruction of the natural world. Most people just can't be bothered. So when you compare something like failing to respond to corporations eliminating the ecosystem services required for life on earth, to a call to action against the crimes of asocial media, do you really expect a significant number of people to care? I'm doubting it...
• wordofx 2y ago
  Facebook removing 'fact' checkers is good, they weren't fact checkers, they were bias enforcers. Community notes is far superior to the bias enforcers.
  • xyzzy4747 2y ago
    Yea it’s odd how so many people have become pro-censorship.
    • amock 2y ago
      I don't think it's that strange. Most people are happy to have their views supported even if it's by means that they would call terrible if used against them.
    • PaulHoule 2y ago
      There's "censorship" and (1) you can only read so much so you have to be selective and (2) there is a lot written by people who have an NMA (negative mental attitude) and it's a burden I can only take on for people I really care out. If somebody is writing every day about how some class of people is responsible for their problems I just can't take it, and if I can't effectively block this crap with the tools they give me (20 or so rules on Mastodon, as opposed to Bluesky making me a decent feed out of the box, better with a little "less like this") I will move on.
    • OhioMan2943 2y ago
      I talked about how social media terms and service have become a middle man between social etiquette and laws in shaping social behaviour off and online on agora. Using social media feels closer to thinking than speaking sometimes, and anything that infringes on thought is dangerous.
    • XorNot 2y ago
      It's odd that you think social media would be viable without it. There's a reason there are teams of Kenyan moderators getting PTSD from the sheer deluge of unimaginable horror which is regularly posted and filtered out.
• PaulHoule 2y ago
  ... this was me in 2016. (Facebook had Cambridge Analytica, LinkedIn had taken on a demonic element to me in that I'd spent years prospecting and it had brought so many grifters and bullshitters into my life I felt like I was becoming a bullshitter... It would have been one thing if I was making money but I wasn't.) I got back into social media about 1.5 years ago when Mastodon seemed to be coming on strong. I've lately gotten into Bluesky and all I can say is: (1) come on in, the water is fine, and (2) sure it will go bad someday when the money gets tight but back in the day we expected platforms to decay and for the cool kids to move on to the next one.
• marginalia_nu 2y ago
  I don't think deleting social media accounts is a good idea. Used appropriately, social media can be very useful and open doors that would otherwise not be available. The problem is when you are just looping[1], absentmindedly opening and closing news and social media sites for hours. This can eat a lot of time, and is generally pretty draining. I've been adding separate user accounts based on what tasks I'm doing, and locking them down so they can only perform those tasks. I have a social media account (which I'm on right now), I have a coding account which I can not access news or social media from, and I have a few other accounts. This creates friction when task switching, and makes it so I have to be a bit more deliberate with how I use the computer. (I have social media blocked on my phone, as I find that's just not compatible with a happy life) I've also recently been setting up Site Specific Browsers[2], basically custom PWAs, a web browser with no URL bar and no tabs, to further add barriers between tasks (like checking CI) and just noodling on the web. (I use electron to do this, but you can also use chrome by starting it with --app=https://www.example.com/ https://www.example.com/ . Sadly Firefox has removed the ability to do this. ) [1] https://xkcd.com/1411/ https://xkcd.com/1411/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-specific_browser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-specific_browser
  • noman-land 2y ago
    (Corporate) social media is a casino or shopping mall. There are fun things to do there but it's not a place for serious things. It's designed by intelligent people to be addictive like a drug. They hide the clocks and outside world, comp you food and drinks, and dazzle you with lights and sounds to keep you there as long as possible. Every moment you spend there is profit for them and a loss for you. The only thing you gain is the rush of being there.
    • marginalia_nu 2y ago
      My social media presence directly affects my income, as the more I talk about the stuff I'm doing, the more visibility it gets, and the more money I make. Social media visibility (while doing something interesting) is also a good way of getting podcast invites and similar opportunities for even more visibility. Social media isn't the only means of getting visibility, but it's a very important one.
• codr7 2y ago
  I should whatever I feel like, thank you very much.
• wruza 2y ago
  I'm just not reading any of it - not interested. SM addiction is so 2015. I have technical accounts to be able to search for something (e.g. while training loras) or to watch without annoying popups when someone links me to it. This dramatic deletion is overreaction, solve the underlying problem instead. Rather than scrolling instagram and tiktok, visit /news and /newest, and then /ask, /show. If nothing interesting there, refresh the /newest until there is. You can be first in upvoting or commenting on it, and can get a good bump to your score if you say something that sounds smart before it hits the frontpage. Then you can re-read the quality content you produced and count how much is left to the round number, like it's only 40 to 9700, only 340 to 10000, etc. Much healthier than just scrolling endlessly and sharing memes.
  • insane_dreamer 2y ago
    > SM addiction is so 2015 it's more prevalent today than it was then, so no. > solve the underlying problem instead that would be to get rid of FB, X etc. altogether; but since we can't do that, we can do the things that we have control over, i.e., our own accounts
    • fsflover 2y ago
      We can move to Mastodon and attract some friends with good posts.
  • walthamstow 2y ago
    Very funny, glad I read to the end
  • Karrot_Kream 2y ago
    Wait what do you mean? HN isn't social media, it's a breath of fresh air! I'm only here to talk to the folks in my life I care about like … uh oops.
  • MinimalAction 2y ago
    While I agree that HN usually gathers much interesting content, I don't understand why getting more karma on HN matters anyway. Chasing points anywhere isn't healthy by the way. Say something interesting because it is interesting and sparks a conversation and not for the sake of saying something.
• qwertytyyuu 2y ago
  Does hacker news count as social media?
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • 2024user 2y ago
    No imo. no real names, no real profiles, no following or friending people aka no connections, no chat/DMs, no personal updates, no tagging, no pictures/videos/stories
    • heresie-dabord 2y ago
      No opaque ranking system, no advertising, no opaque ranking system to favour content that induces negative engagement... And now more than before, HN is not social media because it actually has useful content and quality moderation.
      • arccy 2y ago
        > opaque ranking system people confused by the first page > no advertising all the hiring ads, and thinly veiled corp marketing blogs
  • pessimizer 2y ago
    Yes.
  • mch82 2y ago
    By the dictionary definition, yes. However, there are three key differences. (1) People rank the HN feed instead of an algorithm; (2) the incentives of YC, companies, and the HN community seem better aligned; (3) the user experience degrades significantly when posts get too many comments.
  • Deprogrammer9 2y ago
    absolutely hacker news is social media..
• nindalf 2y ago
  This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure. Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on social media. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know a lack of social media meant that I have lost touch with old acquaintances completely. I have a few close friends and that’s it. Maybe that’s an ok tradeoff to make, but it’s worth knowing that before getting into it.
  • mastazi 2y ago
    In general I agree with you that there are some tradeoffs to make. IME it's still worth it. For example, my mental wellness has improved immensely. Also, I tend to use my time in more purposeful ways instead of wasting it doomscrolling. Regarding life events: I quit all social media about 5 years ago[1]. People I care about know about that, and if they want to tell me about life events they do it with other means. Those who don't, they weren't really friends, just acquaintances. I am OK with that. [1] with the exception of Linkedin, which I hate and never use, but I have been asked by people in my company to keep a profile for PR-related reasons.
  • parsimo2010 2y ago
    The messages about going cold turkey are popular, but you do miss out on a lot. I deleted all my social media in 2015, and didn’t mind too much, but years later when I met my wife (and there was more pressure to be social) I made accounts again so people could message me and I’ve been able to hold back from spending all my time doomscrolling. I think the social part of social media can be good for us, and we have to figure out a way to avoid the toxicity. I’d like to see more posts about how to bend the algorithm to show you less toxicity- at least on Instagram I’ve managed to use the “not interested/relevant” button enough and turned on content filtering that it mostly shows me wholesome content. I don’t know if everyone realizes that if you hate-watch a video or hate-read a post then the algorithm sees that as engagement and will show you more. You have to nope yourself out of the dark corners as fast as you realize where you are.
• fullstackwife 2y ago
  Another problem with Twitter is that majority of content there is provided by content farms, and then it gets reacted by bots. It is difficult to get interactions with real individuals there. I'm not sure if it should called "social" anymore.
• amikaeel 2y ago
  I deleted social media around 2.5 years ago. After feeling extreme anxiety and withdrawal for about a week I realized this was the right move. I gained massive amounts of productivity, felt more awake than ever, and realized just how many HOURS I was killing browsing. It sounds like the usual rant, but I truly think that in 10-15 years there will be a huge anti social media movement after we fully realize the damage. Social media as a concept is wonderful but in reality it adds nothing meaningful to our lives.
  • dehrmann 2y ago
    What if I told you Hacker News is social media?
    • insane_dreamer 2y ago
      there are a several key aspects of HN that are very different than social media networks, and that's why it's in a different category
      • jjulius 2y ago
        One of my biggest gripes with the social media you and I have quit is that it has strongly encouraged flippant, black-and-white responses like the one you're responding to. Nuance, by and large, has been removed from public discourse. Edit: Just speaking for me, HN is next. Doubt I'll stick 'round much longer.
        • jjulius 2y ago
          Shit, maybe now's as good a time as any. Let's see if I can keep this response at the top of my comment history! :D
        • dehrmann 2y ago
          It went weirdly assumed that HN is somehow different. I don't believe in social media addiction, but addicts are known for lying to themselves and making excuses. If you're quitting social media because you don't think it's healthy, you need to look at any social media you're still on really closely.
• Kim_Bruning 2y ago
  See also: Don’t build your castle in other people’s kingdoms (2021) https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/11/01/dont-build-your-castle-in-other-peoples-kingdoms/ https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/11/01/dont-build-your-cast... HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41712885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41712885
• tacostakohashi 2y ago
  This is actually a really tough one. Obviously, FB, twitter, insta, LinkedIn etc. are a toxic cesspool. I've left my accounts there pretty much dormant for 10+ years. Ideally, I'd have maintained connections and contacts with my own network, using my own media, direct emails / texts, phone calls, in contexts that I controlled. The problem is... I didn't. I basically just buried my head in the sand and withdrew. I guess the takeaway is to try to use these platforms in a positive way, as a means to an end, and not get sucked in, or to network in some other, better way, rather than withdrawing, because that's not actually a good alternative.
• Deprogrammer9 2y ago
  Meh I still use IRC, whatever.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• surgical_fire 2y ago
  > he casually mentioned that Meta is teaming up with Trump to fight EU regulations affecting their platforms. I really hope EU just bans Meta from operating here. "There you go Zuck, you don't need to worry about our regulations anymore" I think we would live just fine around here without their awful products. It would also serve as a cautionary tale to other companies willing to undermine regulations around here.
• constantlm 2y ago
  Covering your eyes does not stop the oncoming train.
  • camus21 2y ago
    Yea but if the train is coming regardless then there’s no harm in closing your eyes if you like. Makes no difference.
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    It's more like thinking you can push back on a train, because maybe a disaster is legitmately coming. Then you realize you're not bound to the tracks and it's probably best to simply let the trainwreck happen rather than add one more fatality to it.
• mattgreenrocks 2y ago
  I’m hoping we look back at the social media era with some embarrassment at the amount of time we confused typing in a text box with meaningful communication.
  • XorNot 2y ago
    Hell of a thing to post on HackerNews...
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    If we're getting more and more separated, typing into a box and having a (hopeful) human respond is better than nothing.
• afavour 2y ago
  Yes, yes, heard it all before. And it’s never matched my lived experience. Social media does have a powerful use case: keeping in touch with friends and family you don’t see often. It feels trite to watch a video of them with their kid and give it a ‘like’ but I’d miss it if it were gone. Especially if it was still there for everyone else, I’d miss their collective presence more than they’d miss my singular one. Rather than another scolding post telling everyone to delete social media I’d much rather folks think and talk about how we can make a better social media, preferably divorced from the control of giant corporations.
  • jjulius 2y ago
    My hot take, offered respectfully: The companies attempting to get you hooked on their products have succeeded via the auspices of "FOMO".
    • afavour 2y ago
      I don’t buy that I’m being tricked into caring about the relationship I maintain with friends.
      • plutoh28 2y ago
        The FOMO is to get you to download the app, make an account, and deter you from uninstalling. The real game is to keep you on the platform when you compulsively open it. You go in to check in on your second cousins, you stay to scroll through their TikTok clone or whatever attention harvesting algorithm is trendy currently.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• toephu2 2y ago
  I stopped going on social media apps and felt my mental health improved at least 2x. You should try it too!
• vlachomir 2y ago
  I did not know that we could post stupid stuff on hacker news. The truth is that nobody cares if we delete our accounts on social media.
• calmbonsai 2y ago
  Aside from Facebook (which I was never on), I'm still on Mastodon, but have let Twitter go fallow due its moribund nature. I deleted LinkedIn (after the MSFT acquisition) 10 years ago, due to the business model change. Even prior to that, it was getting too spammy anyways. I keep a token Instagram just for viewing the rare family/friend that insists I see something from a trip, but I never post there.
• jwr 2y ago
  I'm puzzled as to why people rage about Twitter and Facebook going down the drain, and then switch to new services like Bluesky or Threads and try to convince everyone to do the same. I mean, why on earth would you expect anything different this time from yet another "social" thing made and run by a corporate entity? I moved to Mastodon, which at least has the benefit of not being owned by a corporation, which will perhaps save it from the usual paths of ensh*ttification.
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    To be frank, I don't. That migration when a bad community becomes "the" community is simply inevitable and a part of social media. I haven't seen a good way to stop it without extreme measures like paid entry or an invite system. So that's the cost of "free" here. It's still useful, but it's more like a a car than a town square. you'll have a lot of fun in the beginning, you'll normalize it, it'll start to break down as you try to keep it running, and then eventually it gives up the ghost. So you either accept that and not own a car or you buy a new one.
  • add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
    Because Bluesky isn't being run by a piece of shit, and if that changes in the future then I'll just leave. I got good years out of Twitter before it sucked, I have no regrets about getting in early on it.
• UberFly 2y ago
  Nothing like a random politically biased opinion piece to drum up random political opinions on HN. Pass.
• ronnier 2y ago
  I just deleted bluesky and mastodon last week.
• jpmattia 2y ago
  The right-turns on FB and Twitter make for big openings in the space. It strikes me as quite an opportunity to eat FB's lunch, just as BlueSky has been eating Twitter's lunch.
  • jjulius 2y ago
    >The right-turns on FB and Twitter make for big openings in the space. I argue that the whole thing was a net mistake and any "openings" should not be filled. The lunch has spoiled, don't eat it.
    • jpmattia 2y ago
      I like communicating with friends, old and new. It's not hard to eliminate the cruft by using chrome extensions and filtering only by friends' posts, ie https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends So again, it strikes me as a huge opportunity, especially for someone who just does the basics.
• recursivedoubts 2y ago
  I doubled down on my social media account (twitter) and htmx finished first in the 2024 rising stars for front end frameworks: https://risingstars.js.org/2024/en#section-framework https://risingstars.js.org/2024/en#section-framework so... it depends.
• roddylindsay 2y ago
  For me outright deletion just led to other issues like missing out on events / family photos / chats with people I otherwise wasn’t connected to. The target for most people is probably low-moderate use. <shamelessplug> Personally I struggled to achieve balance with my social media usage for years and spent the last two years building out a coaching service to help people like myself keeping social media under a daily time allowance…think of it as a personal trainer (with real accountability and all) for social media and other everyday habits. We just launched this week at zabit.com if anyone wants to check it out.</shamelessplug>
• ozim 2y ago
  I had FB account when it was novelty and it was still a social network. I removed account like 10 years ago when it already was clear it is not social network anymore. I also never had a twitter really besides some account to check what it is and left it unused. Only LI is one I keep for business purposes but I don’t care about social aspect or discussion there - it is basically a virtual business card and it is quite popular so it’s useful I guess.
• duxup 2y ago
  I quit facebook long ago. Recently I found out an old friend from years ago had died in the past 6 months, and I had no idea. I got an email at an old email address but that aside everyone knew except me. It’s hard to quit when everyone else doesn’t.
• hugoromano 2y ago
  For those who have achieved this, well done. I've experienced the positive impact of reducing my social media usage over the years, while still keeping my accounts for the occasional need to connect. I've taken steps to limit social platforms from accessing my phone contact list and have set a cap of 20 contacts, including on WhatsApp. This has significantly reduced Meta's profiling and advertising targeting.
• Over2Chars 2y ago
  Does this mean I have to delete my friendster account?
• Over2Chars 2y ago
  How about a simple rule of thumb: you have to actually meet or talk with a "facebook friend" (every month or more) or else delete/unfriend them. If after a few months you have zero "facebook friends" nuke the account. Internet updates are no substitute for good old meat space.
  • EmmEff 2y ago
    It always shocked me that isn’t the way for all. When I was on FB, I only friended people that I “knew” in real-life. I guess that’s why I only had a handful of friends :)
  • mariusor 2y ago
    Tell me you're young without telling me you're young. Friendships are more than just meat space meetings. Children, moving countries, crazy work schedules are all reasons that can prevent you being in the physical presence o your friends. Does not seeing them for years at a time make them less friends? No, not to me.
    • physicsguy 2y ago
      There's a degree to how much you continue to engage with people once they've made that decision to leave though. Once someone's on the other side of the world, you're not keeping the friendship up by viewing their Instagram/Facebook posts, it's a totally one sided consumption unless you continue to speak to one another at least semi-regularly.
      • mariusor 2y ago
        I somewhat agree, but that does not require face to face interaction in my opinion, which was parent's thesis I was arguing against.
    • Mashimo 2y ago
      He said meet OR talk. I think if you don't talk to someone in a few years it makes them less of a friend.
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  Related: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42581119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42581119
• pmarreck 2y ago
  No. Because of what nindalf said, basically: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42678031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42678031
• hnbear 2y ago
  "So, I quit. Twitter, TikTok, Facebook — all gone" I'm always curious here what counts as Social Media, and what's just a useful site? Github? HackerNews? Reddit? Facebook, but only for FB Marketplace which is now a better local sales site than Craigslist? What makes it social? Originally with FB and before it with MySpace it was the ability to put up a page about yourself, and then chat with others. HN has a profile and communication, so do the others listed.
  • Juliate 2y ago
    > What makes it social? For the modern definition of social, nowadays: incentives to generate engagement (connect with people, post, like, comment) to build up data to drive advertising sales.
• aeternum 2y ago
  Why do people feel the incessant need to post about deleting/not using social media. They're clearly hypocrites as posting to a blog or HN is pretty much the same thing.
  • Zak 2y ago
    Corporate social media with a feed designed to maximize engagement monetized with targeted advertising is a very different thing from a blog out a forum.
• penjelly 2y ago
  Don't agree with author, but related to the desire to delete social media... I've noticed Instagram has been adding more features to bait time from users. A new one being, if you wait long enough on a given reel, it'll suggest you posts your follows liked (or commented on) in the top right corner. This is super creepy and I imagine could be easily gamed by stalkers. These types of features that try to engage me even deeper have made me consider actually removing IG altogether like I deleted Facebook a long time ago
• onemoresoop 2y ago
  Social media has become a river of trash(and for me that’s what advertising and peddling to sell stuff is) that if you spend effort on you can find some good gems. But the effort spent is not worth the gems. It’s more or less rescuing fully undigested peanuts in turds.
• slackfan 2y ago
  Congrats OP, now will you join us in the real world?
• plutoh28 2y ago
  Yeah social media has gotten very predatory, especially since short form content blew up due to TikTok. I’ll have chats with people that are just an exchange of instagram reels and reactions. HN is my only form of social media now on my phone. Now, it’s time to build meaningful relationships in my life again.
• __coder__ 2y ago
  Its been 6 months without social media. I didn't missed any news or update that really matters to me.
• rahidz 2y ago
  Is this text AI generated?
• kelvinjps10 2y ago
  for me is not the daily use that is useful, but from time to time, I need to buy or sell something and Facebook marketplace is good for that. Or I need to find the contact information of someone and it is also useful for that (Facebook). And for twitter, before I didn't even need to create an account I just use it for seeing updates of government officials or app/services updates
• scarface_74 2y ago
  I think commenters here are missing out on one beneficial part of social media - Facebook groups and communities of interest especially private, moderated groups. Broadcast and discussions are a perfect use case for it. And people talk about how bad Facebook is, LinkedIn is far worse. Everyone is trying to be a “thought leader” and no one is genuine on it. I have a decent LinkedIn Profile with recommendations, up to date career information. But I never post to it. I’m only really active when I’m looking for a job. I will respond to messages and try to keep my network somewhat warm.
  • 4dregress 2y ago
    To me, LinkedIn is nothing more than a Job advertisement board where you open yourself up to being spammed by the recruiter hoards.
    • lnsru 2y ago
      The last LinkedIn recruiter saved me from very bad job. Now I have a reasonable boss, private office, no commute time and same salary. Of course, the 20 recruiters before were bad joke.
  • vasco 2y ago
    My father and a few army friends were able to find each other and sometimes find another guy from their year through Facebook. They do big cookouts together and they started with 3 guys and progressively found more of each other and they had long lost contact. They are now great friends again and in their retirement this brings them a huge happiness. But some people just can't fathom there's different lives too their own and throw the baby out with the bath water.
  • mrweasel 2y ago
    > I think commenters here are missing out on one beneficial part of social media A small group of people surely do, but for others the benefit doesn't outweigh the negative. Social media is great, in theory, but Facebooks implementations suck and I won't support a company like Facebook who I believe negatively impacts society. The problems and much of the anger stems from feeling almost forced to use the products of a company I think manipulates and exploit it's users. It's almost impossible for my kid to have a social life and for me to be involved without a Facebook account and I can't even offer an alternative form of communication because pretty much anything else would be more work for everyone else. Agree on you with Linkedin. It's basically an account to a job board, that you keep active in case you need to look for work. The people trying to get engagement on their posts are almost all pretty much insane.
• chautumn 2y ago
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• deleted 2y ago
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• asdfasvea 2y ago
  Remember, the most important step in quitting social media is telling everyone on social media you're quitting social media.
  • vasco 2y ago
    And immediately feeling smug and better than everyone still in it. That's the best part!
    • rafaelmn 2y ago
      But how will other people know about this after a while ? If only there was some tech platform where you get to pretend you're better than other people to people that don't care about you. This is the problem we set out to solve with Bluesky.
  • kashyapc 2y ago
    Hey, I bucked that important step back in 2012 ;-) So far, HM is the only "social" online place where I participate. What you say reminds me of an ancient Greek saying (I think it was Epictetus). I'm paraphrasing from memory: "You starved for a whole day to practice discipline? Great! Now resist not telling it to anyone."
  • timeon 2y ago
    What is your point? It's just one last post.
  • Karrot_Kream 2y ago
    Nah I just tell everyone on HN instead which is definitely not social media.
• junto 2y ago
  I quit Facebook recently when I realized that the only reason I was going there was for the targeted Amazon ads. They were so good and knew exactly what kinds of things would interest me, that it kept me coming back (subconsciously). However in Amazon’s own app and website, they really have poor suggestions.
• mvdtnz 2y ago
  Regarding Elon meeting members of the AfD party, > The content? Let’s just say it made me want to yeet my phone into the nearest ocean. How anyone can take that level of garbage seriously is beyond me. But hey, bubbles are cozy, right? Musk, Zuckerberg, and Trump — what a trio. Honestly, this could be the perfect setup for a dystopian sci-fi thriller. Except, spoiler alert: no happy ending here. He doesn't explain further what "garbage" he's talking about. Sorry but I just can't take your grievance seriously if you won't at least explain it. This type of writing is the epitome of the echo chamber. If you don't already know what the author is talking about and already aggressively agree with them, not only are you not the target audience but they intentionally make the writing impenetrable to you. This is the absolute worst type of internet dreck. It's ironic that the author rails against "bubbles" in the quoted paragraph.
  • joemanaco 2y ago
    They said many things that are just not true. Like Hitler was a left-winged communist… you can’t make this shit up.
• kouru225 2y ago
  Ngl if I were Zuckerberg I'd be doing the exact same thing. I feel like the majority of people are severely underestimating the impact this last election will have and still are in denial. If you think he's doing the wrong thing it's cause you don't know what the consequences will be if he doesn't do this.
  • Eextra953 2y ago
    Just curious as to what you think the consequences could be if he didn't?
    • h0l0cube 2y ago
      The tone of the ghost stories would change to how 'it would have been better if only _ happened instead' instead of 'it would have been worse if _ happened' absent of any reasoning, evidence, precedents, etc.
    • kouru225 2y ago
      Probably prison time and the complete stripping of his position and wealth
  • 4dregress 2y ago
    What, pray tell, are these consequences?
    • kouru225 2y ago
      Prison time probably. Trump will go after people who don’t cow tow to him.
• entropyneur 2y ago
  Less censorship on Facebook and less regulations sounds like a good thing (doubt the latter will happen anyway). The problem with Facebook has never been that it allows harmful content. It's that it actively promotes it.
• veunes 2y ago
  A decision to quit - it’s not easy! I deleted Instagram. It feels like even my mind has been cleared. I don’t want to and won’t go back. And the alternative to slow down and share thoughts more intentionally sounds good.
• rednafi 2y ago
  I use social media in a write-only manner. I keep it around for two reasons: - I write blogs and share them there. On multiple occasions, I’ve received job offers in my inbox. Job opportunities from acquaintances on Twitter are far better than LinkedIn DM spam. - Staying up to date with the latest fads also teaches me what not to chase. Sometimes, the firehose is the only way to get that information. I never had problems dropping the mic and not arguing with strangers.
• nobodywillobsrv 2y ago
  Anyone feel like the article is thinly disguised moral policing and rather than a post about social media it is more of a broadcast announcement of acceptable thought? Very little discussion of the actual problems with regulating speech the way the EU or Fact Checkers does. Just an implicit statement it was correct.
  • Cortex5936 2y ago
    Yep, I got lost when he started complaining about teens and social media without discussing anything of substance. I understand where he is coming from, he is a father of 2, and is likely already busy with his family and close social circle, however for most people today, they can't grow up today without social media, you'll just isolate yourself since nobody wants to bother be your friend if they can't reach you without friction. The problem as more pointed out is related to controlling its usage, not its deletion
• pluc 2y ago
  Anyone who needs to advertise they deleted their social media accounts with more than a sentence on said networks is gonna be back on there in a week. They crave approval and engagement and likes and without it will spiral out of control.
• joduplessis 2y ago
  IMO the problem with these social-networks now is that they all turned into ad-machines & "like-bait". The original products worked extremely well - but you gotta make money somehow, and ads seem to be the go-to model.
• okaleniuk 2y ago
  It's not about accounts, it's more about engagement. I still have my Facebook account, and I actually used it two years ago to fund my gym trainer and tell him I couldn't come. Social media is a reality one can't simply ignore completely. One can complicatedly ignore it though to some level of success. For me, the minimal rules are: don't write on reddit, don't read on linkedin. Don't touch anything else. The orange site is ok-ish.
• RHSman2 2y ago
  I am 90% social media free. I often wonder my internal desire to ‘broadcast’. Funny thing. So much better without and no need to broadcast.
• yard2010 2y ago
  Politics aside, this text is sobering. The people in charge are all but good leaders. It's comical. If it wasn't our lives that is.
• tracker1 2y ago
  I'm not really tethered to social media as much as some. I still text and call my closer friends regularly. Similar for family. I do find the reactionary response a bit disturbing. Having been caught up in the trap of "fact checkers" for reposting a political cartoon and similar, I'd definitely prefer the community notes approach. All said the inability of many to have a rational conversation with those they don't completely agree is very wrong on so many levels.
  • bluepizza 2y ago
    My issue with lack of moderation in social media is not the political polarization. My issue is the blatant scams pushed by bots, or by questionable companies paying sub celebrity influencers. Criminals are not willing to have rational conversations. But they just won a free pass from the platforms.
    • tracker1 2y ago
      Fraud is a pretty clearly defined crime. Fact checkers weren't demarking scams and bots. Bot activity is best handled through system pattern matching, not correcting political cartoons. You also assume that the people doing the fact checking are better informed or otherwise better people than those with the access to propose and vote on community notes. This is unsubstantiated at best.
• tobyhinloopen 2y ago
  Browsing social media while working is easily solved by not logging in on these services on your work machine or browser. I have social media logged in on another instance of my browser, so I actively have to switch profiles to browse social media. This added step makes it hard enough to not mindlessly browse it.
  • ramon156 2y ago
    Staying in that theme, remove social media apps from your homepage. It's an extra step to have to look for it through your apps
    • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
      I don’t even have them on my phone, hah.
• skoczko 2y ago
  This all sounds to me like complaining about fast-food restaurants because you’re overweight. Do they serve trash? Yes. But there’s a simple solution: don’t eat it. And don’t feed it to your kids. I have a facebook app and the only time I use is to check updates for my son’s soccer practice. I also go to McDonalds to buy coffee because it’s good and cheap over here. No corporate entity will ever put your health amd well-being over their business interest. Why is this so hard for people to comprehend? You want fact checking? Read NYT.
  • littlecranky67 2y ago
    While not wrong, your advice of simply not doing it is as usefull as telling a smoker "simple don't put another cigarette in your mouth" or telling the overweight person "just diet and excercise". Been in both camps, and I know that neither is that easy. Giving up addictions are simple, but they are not easy.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • bugtodiffer 2y ago
    There's a simple solution: just don't eat at the food places that dominate every region, because their addictive food and capital allowed them to crush any local competition simple as that, just avoid them
• 50208 2y ago
  I've been social media free going on almost 10 years ... would never go back. I haven't missed anything important, but skipped all the time waste and bullshit / misinformation / disinformation.
• openrisk 2y ago
  When something is used by billions of people its kinda futile to argue about its utility. But then billions are addicted to tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling etc. and those benefiting from providing these "services" will do everything they can to keep people addicted while arguing that they are solving a real problem. The reality is always a mundane core that gets complicated by human tragicomedy. Of course its wholesome to be able to connect digitally with friends and family. Its also a great economic enabler to connect digitally with professionals. Or to be able to publish to a bulletin board about your brilliant accomplishments. But to paraphrase Gates, we need these connections, we don't need the self-appointed universal connectors. Its 2025, and this is HN. I put it to you that technically the only thing preventing us today from having good "connections infrastructure" is the corrupting influence of big adtech. One possible vision of how to organize the digital space in technical and economic terms has become the only vision.
• dep_b 2y ago
  I only use social media for work and WhatsApp for staying in touch with people. WhatsApp is really the killer one that keeps me hooked into the Zuckertrump empire. Just not enough iPhones around me to use Messages, Signal use is very low even among tech friends. People often ask me why I don't have Instagram: I'm in the business of making these platforms and Pablo Escobar never used cocaine either. I know how these platforms are built and I know how we think about the people that use it.
  • pixxel 2y ago
    > Zuckatrump Did the Hive approve this, or are you breaking the rules of individualism?
    • bugtodiffer 2y ago
      What are you implying?
      • dep_b 2y ago
        That the particular word might not defined in the Freespeak dictionary issued by the Ministry of Liberty, possibly triggering Wokethink and thus should be labeled a Muricrime?
• ge96 2y ago
  I want to be a producer more than a consumer. I produce videos (admittedly that are technical and dry) so it's not like I get hundreds of thousands of views. On my downtime I still participate in social media though usually anonymously in the form of shit posting. Or just watching YouTube. I did get sucked into that crap of posting everyday about my glamorous life. Eventually I found I didn't know what to post anymore. Had to find something to post. I'm glad I never got sucked into it completely like TikTok/Instagram.
• i5heu 2y ago
  I stay in touch with ppl that are important to me by writing or calling them once every 2 months. I do not care if they do the same. I am old now (almost 30) and came to the realization that all of our lifes are packet and busy and ppl are very bad at keeping up with other ppl that are not continuously presented to them. This is the price I have to pay to not be on instagram: writing my friends and ask them how they doing. And it is a very nice price to pay.
  • Sander_Marechal 2y ago
    > I am old now (almost 30) I'm 45 and wondering if I should be offended by this....
    • defrost 2y ago
      I'm > 60 and if you can find me somewhere to sit and watch while I catch my breath you can beat the young whippersnapper about the upper body with my zimmer frame. ( TBH I still split wood by hand and walk long trails, etc. My father (born 1935) is showing signs of age now )
      • n4r9 2y ago
        > I still split wood by hand That's incredible. Everyone I know is using an axe these days.
        • inopinatus 2y ago
          We ancients have honed our strength through decades of punching sand. Any similarity to tech sector corporate politics is purely coincidental.
        • defrost 2y ago
          Time marches on, the generation younger than yourself and your axe wielding anachronisms are using hydraulic and pnuematic rams now .. with solar charged battery operated pumps. Come, come and join the elders . . .
• thallavajhula 2y ago
  OMG! This is crazy. I literally drafted up a blog post with the same plan of action. I just didn't want to delete my social presence just yet and was trying to figure out how to do it. Reading through every sentence of your blog post, I could totally relate. Wow. This really is such a uncanny coincidence.
• count_d3 2y ago
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• pino82 2y ago
  I had a dream recently, where Elon Musk said the following: I'm not actually the bad guy you think I am. It was basically all a show. You had suuuuuuch a hard and looong time understanding the danger of all these corporate social media silos. Where we control what opinions are visible and what not so much. Social media (in that particular fashion) was always a trap, a problem to definitely avoid, since day 1, but it was sooooooo teeeeerribly hard to make you understand. So I though, well, if you are all too stupid to understand it, I will make a veeeeeery bizarre and freaky show for you that you will never forget. It will be so unreal, even you all will actually _get_ it now!!! Because it's such an important lessons for the upcoming future...
• Double_a_92 2y ago
  I don't understand what people are doing on social media that they can get addicted by it, or at least specifically by the social aspect of it. E.g. facebook for me is mainly the messenger and a few random photos or people. Everything else on there is not enjoyable. Reddit is like a forum where I can occassionally say things about my hobbies. Also nothing that sucks me in, in an unhealthy way. X and Mastodon are mostly news and random people showing off things. Youtube is like TV where at some point you watched what you wanted to watch for the day. The only thing that seems addicting to me are Apps like Tiktok or Instagram, where you are just one simple swipe away from the next bit of short term entertainment.
• skwee357 2y ago
  I don't oppose deleting social media, but I can't see to understand one simple thing. LinkedIn is the de-facto standard for looking for a job in certain places. I wonder, people who deleted LinkedIn, how do they get along with looking for a job?
  • Juliate 2y ago
    Direct networking works very well (in person, mail, phone, recommandation, job posting sites, etc.). LinkedIn is merely a glamour social network + "pro" dynamic address book + kind of a standardised CV, nothing much more.
  • caseyy 2y ago
    Usually in the context of deleting social media, it is Facebook, Xitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit. LinkedIn is closer to other portfolio sites (ArtStation, Behance, SoundCloud, etc). It’s basically professional achievements with comments. I suppose it is social media in the broadest sense. But a lot of evils of social media aren’t there, just how perfect people pretend their lives are. But there aren’t many echo chambers, instances of shock content, manufactured outrage, cancel culture, politicking, lord of the fly-ing, etc.
  • rsynnott 2y ago
    LinkedIn is an oddity in that, while there is a (very strange) social network there, the vast majority of LinkedIn users do not use it as a social network, they use it as a CV host, and may not even look at it in any given year. (I do think think contributes to extreme weirdness of LinkedIn posts; there's really ~no-one normal using the social network bit of LinkedIn.)
• arisbe__ 2y ago
  Delete your HackerNews acct too, even this platform is beyond corrupted by bad actors and arrogant fools. The Web is 100% dead, killed by AI and poisoned human hearts.
  • HelloUsername 2y ago
    > Delete your HackerNews acct too, even this platform is beyond corrupted by bad actors and arrogant fools. The Web is 100% dead, killed by AI and poisoned human hearts. Yet you still have an account?
• flumpcakes 2y ago
  I haven't had social media for 10+ years. There's been periods where I create a facebook account again, but it is soon deleted within a week or so. I only use WhatsApp to talk to real-life people and Discord to talk to online gaming "friends". I do have accounts obviously on some websites to make comments like this. It is awfully lonely I must admit. I have a partner of over a decade which helps but not having social media is very isolating. My wife has all the social medias and knows what happens with my family before I do! My last 'experiment' was the shortest - I registered for an Instagram account and when it suggested that I add my real-life next door neighbour in the sign-up process I immediately stopped and deleted the account. That is scary.
• upghost 2y ago
  A few strange things you will miss when deleting social media that are nonobvious. 1. Some companies will not look at your resume or do business with you unless you have a LinkedIn account, especially in the age of AI. Fine by me. 2. If you go to start a business, you will find most of these social media companies require you to have a personal account in order to make a business/marketing account. This is very annoying. 3. Damn I miss Facebook Marketplace. But it's not worth having FB. You can usually have a friend do marketplace stuff for you.
  • TheCapeGreek 2y ago
    For point #2, I've started evaluating business ideas by how much I can either outsource social media posting or not need it at all. Preferably the latter.
• FinnLobsien 2y ago
  I got rid of Instagram and Facebook and have never looked back. It did lead to me losing touch with some people and slightly less serendipity (i.e. someone being in town, which I see on their Instagram story and then we hang out). Instagram went first and then I realized I hadn't logged on to Facebook in 2 years so why bother keeping it around? I think for people who can just decide to keep the account and no longer use it, they should keep it just to stay in touch with some folks. But I realize that as long as I'd have an account, I'd keep using it. Personally, for me the tradeoff between 2+ hours every day on Instagram for an occasional few hours with an acquaintance isn't worth it.
• hammon 2y ago
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• gadders 2y ago
  tl;dr; - My left-wing social media bubble is compromised and there is a risk I may hear opposing view points. Please everyone watch as I performatively delete my accounts. Honestly this is the tech equivalent of putting your hands over your ears and posting "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." just in case someone says something you disagree with.
• amelius 2y ago
  Why can't the EU build their own social media platform? What if they structured the financing like they do with science?
  • tiborsaas 2y ago
    You are targeting an order of magnitude larger organization than it's necessary. The EU doesn't build anything, people in countries do. The problem with the EU market is that if I launched anything social, I'm immediately hit with a localization problem so I have to launch first either in English (you lost 53% of people)* or start with a few select countries first with their native language. It's kinda a mess. Money is not really the issue with EU startups, it's the cultural fragmentation. There are also many small niche social platforms, but of course nothing like FB/X/etc.. * https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2979 https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2979
• mellosouls 2y ago
  The motivation is basically "social media now its more diverse in thought". He even signs off with an acknowledgement he might try BlueSky. Honestly, there are good reasons to quit social media because of their intrinsic toxicities, but at least if you are doing it for ideological motives admit that its about you.
• chrisvalleybay 2y ago
  I have mostly left social media, but I have not seen the need to delete my accounts yet. For Twitter, I never use the feed but rather bookmark links to one specific account that I read. Facebook I open about twice a month just to see if I have been invited to a birthday party or anything like that. Instagram I just went 7 weeks without opening. Turning off the machine feeding stuff to my brain really has helped me. I feel better, cleaner and less disturbed/distracted. Now I am actually considering leaving YouTube as well, although it has been such a lovely place at times, since I notice it is deteriorating my health. I recommend you try it; nothing has to be deleted. It's simply removing the habit of using it. It does make life a bit better :) Oh, and a good first step is to install the extension `News Feed Eradicator`. This is how I got started. I run it on everything.
• danlugo92 2y ago
  Only a sith deals in absolutes.
• noncoml 2y ago
  Social media is for our generation what news and political shows on tv were for the previous. Brain rot. I hate to promote Reddit, because it’s not worth it, but I have a pretty nicely curated home page of just “good things”, cats, pics, etc that I love to browse when I want to jeep my mind idly occupied. If I make the mistake and go back to popular I get filled with rage, feeling of injustice and hopelessness.
• deleted 2y ago
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• chrsw 2y ago
  Is IRC "social media"? I'm not quitting that.
• bArray 2y ago
  > Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that Meta is ditching its fact-checkers There is a global recession coming, everybody is trimming the fat where possible, all tech industries are cutting where possible. I think it can be reasonably argued that the very nature of fact-checking is a dangerous one anyway - by nature of which facts are used (perspective problem) and what gets checked. > Meta is teaming up with Trump to fight EU regulations affecting their platforms Why is this a problem? What specific EU regulation being removed causes issue? The ones that curtail freedom of speech? The EU is a largely undemocratic body, where significant positions are not even voted on. Do you really want to be controlled by this unaccountable body? > Recently, he hosted a live chat on Twitter with Alice Weidel, the co-leader of Germany’s AfD, a party flagged by the “Verfassungsschutz” as a far-right extremist group. It's the only popular right wing party that has been allowed to exist, and they picked up a large range of unrepresented voters. A unified block of right wing voters is exactly the situation created by trying to suppress an entire wing of politics. The right-wing party of Germany is technically somewhat ideologically aligned with the government Elon will be working for - this is far from crazy that they talk to each other. > Alice Weidel claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was not "right-wing," but a communist instead. When you get to such extremes, the difference between fascism and communism become difficult to see. Putting people in death camps for example, are we talking about the concentration camps or gulags? Extreme nationalism is unique to which ideology? Which ideology was uniquely a dictatorship? > Profit First, Morality... Somewhere in the Basement Nothing new. If something is for free, then _you_ are the product. > Teens and Social Media: A Toxic Cocktail I have said this for a long time, stop exposing children to unfiltered access on the internet, under any context. > Once the accounts were finally gone, I realized just how much of a grip these platforms had on me. The number of times I reflexively typed "t" or "f" into my browser bar (which autocompletes to twitter.com or facebook.com) was honestly terrifying. The trick is to know your limitations and account for them. I don't use social media on my work computer at all, and until recently I didn't even have any chat apps. These were all relegated to my phone, and it's purposefully slow and old. > Honestly? No idea. Some friends recommended Bluesky, but I’m holding off for now. Maybe I’ll go old-school and write more blog posts. Like back in the early 2000s, when you actually had to think before sharing your thoughts with the world. Sounds quaint, doesn’t it? The magical new social media will not resolve your issues with social media, social media has been around long enough to know this.
• shahzaibmushtaq 2y ago
  Are you relying on mainstream media again in the same way you did in the pre-social media era? Oh no, it has something to do with the president-elect Trump and of course politics too. The first two paragraphs explained a lot and the later paragraphs were there to cover up his opinions by dragging in morality, teens and how bad the world had become due to social media. I didn't read a single about misinformation, disinformation, fake news and how to counter them. Hacker News was created by Paul Graham, and he is using social media. Which means ignoring social media isn't a wise decision.
• phkahler 2y ago
  >> The number of times I reflexively typed "t" or "f" into my browser bar (which autocompletes to twitter.com or facebook.com) was honestly terrifying. I reflexively type "news" into the browser. It may not be quite as bad as FB or X, but I should probably stop.
• manaut 2y ago
  You can always choose to unfollow people if their perspectives don’t resonate with you—you don’t have to leave social media entirely for that. By curating your feed, you can focus on content you enjoy, which naturally creates a personal thought bubble. When censorship comes into play, that thought bubble is shaped for you, removing the need to manage it yourself. It’s worth reflecting on what democracy means in this context. For me, it means being willing to tolerate other thought bubbles, even when it’s challenging. This openness is preferable to having our thoughts policed. In an ideal world, thought bubbles would be more permeable, fostering trust and understanding between people with differing perspectives. That trust can’t grow if we only defend our own bubble. Overcoming the divide is crucial if we want democracy to thrive (or not die).
• PawgerZ 2y ago
  I always forget that we're not quite the normal crowd here in Hacker News. I think I need to stop reading so many comments on this site. Trying to convince me that I'm a sociopath for posting my grandma's obituary on my timeline.
• silexia 2y ago
  This article is written from an extreme far left perspective if the author thinks it is "far right" to support free speech and oppose intrusive government regulations.
• lesostep 2y ago
  I recently joined social media again. Turns out the group that shared my interest in my region was here. So I made a new account and joined. And the thing is, I am interested still. But I do miss a lot, because the group is chaotic and really important announcements are mixed in with memes and chatter, so it was a chore to waddle through that everyday, only to discover that nothing important was announced. They kinda have to do it, I guess, because engagement metrics are no joke, and if you don't have them, then why are you here. But it really opened my eyes to how to social media completely failed on its premise when it decided that time spent on app would be a good metric. Sometimes people just have nothing important to say other to announce, and them it should be okay to keep silent for a while, without being downranked. And seeing how those, who always chatter even when they having nothing to say, will ultimately rise to the top on any platform that values time wasted, I left social media again. People in comments say how it's better to have a few close friends then shallow connections, but social networks did allow us to meet someone that shared our more specific interests. My best friend I have met on a forum: our interests aligned and we spend hours talking about things we couldn't discuss with real friends before meeting up. There is value in shallow connections when they are based on shared interests. This value is lost on most social networks today. IMO mastodon and blue sky are "good social networks" for people who want to connect over specific topics.
• jkc101 2y ago
  Has anyone pursued ADA accessibility claims against social media platforms? Their algorithms seem clearly predatory toward ADHD users. Basic accommodations like 'focus mode' should be required, just like other accessibility features.
• staticBr 2y ago
  The day you causally find an old work colleague at the top list of hacker news. Hi Jochen wink