Live data from Hacker News

Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

nytimes.com

111–120 of 228 posts

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#111
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a social advantage to being able to speak about current events. There is also a part of the news that a well-informed citizen should know about. There are things everyone can do about injustice that require us to know injustice took place. Sadly, the above part of the news isn't the focus off modern news media. The sensationalist spin doesn't help much either. What I'm trying to say is that news, in and of i…

Most news doesn't actually inform us in any meaningful way though. Here in the U.K. the last three weeks have been endless repetition of media managed slogans and photo opportunities. There are very real injustices happening in the world - in Syria and in Chechnya for instance - but they're routinely ignored unless you really go looking for them.

> There are very real injustices happening in the world - in Syria and in Chechnya for instance - but they're routinely ignored unless you really go looking for them.

How can you say they're ignored while admitting that you can find reporting on them if you look?

I find it ironic that people complain about the quality of mass media while simultaneously swallowing mass media's definition of what is and isn't important.

If you hate mass media, then you are a person who doesn't need to be spoon-fed news, right?

Of course this notion flies in the face of our dear leader, who hates CNN but watches it religiously. He seems to have convinced every far right person to do the same.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#112
I don't use Facebook. I still feel miserable for the same reason I feel miserable when I see war. FB is designed to encourage the absolute worst of all our human nature, dressed up as a "tool to reconnect with people". To make the war analogy even more true, now people are actually 'dying on Facebook'.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#113
I don't get it, where is the misery? Are people really so fragile that they get upset seeing some old classmate in a luxury car?

I put off creating a Facebook account for a long time but eventually gave in. And I was pleasantly surprised to find how well it works for sharing photo albums with my friends and family.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#114

It's interesting how the vast majority of responses to this post are from people who have either left facebook entirely, or severely crippled it. Are the majority of HN folks off facebook, or is it just the vocal ones?

I haven't actually deleted my Facebook account, but haven't used it in years.

I never made a conscious decision to stop using it. I got really annoyed by Facebook emails and phone notifications, so I created a filter for Facebook email, and turned off notifications. Once it stopped constantly bugging me to look at it, I kind of just lost interest. At some point, I just realized I hadn't logged in in a long time, and noticed that I didn't miss it at all.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#115
post #45
post #32

Perhaps we should take NYTimes advice a step further and stop letting them make us miserable either. There is nothing actionable in the news; next to no utility. News is simply a time sink that depress your spirit. Whenever I think of reading "legitimate" news like the NYTimes, I am reminded of this quote from a Soviet novel by Bulgakov. In it a doctor gives advice: If you care about your digestion, my advice is [sic…

I like reading the newspaper -- print, rather than online -- specifically because it comes out only once a day. It's not an endless stream of pretend-immediate attention-grabbers, but a curated collection of the important stuff that happened yesterday. If the print newspaper were invented today, it would grab hundreds of millions of VC money in Silicon Valley as the cure for news overload. (I guess the pitch would ha…

I read an app that updates once a day with 6 short news items. Takes less than 5 minutes to read when I'm on the pot and I'm done with news for the rest of the day. Works pretty well, I don't think I'm less informed than other people I interact with.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#116
post #113

I don't get it, where is the misery? Are people really so fragile that they get upset seeing some old classmate in a luxury car? I put off creating a Facebook account for a long time but eventually gave in. And I was pleasantly surprised to find how well it works for sharing photo albums with my friends and family.

I don't get it, where is the misery? Are people really so fragile that they get upset seeing some old classmate in a luxury car?

I don't think it's any particular, discrete thing like that in itself, but rather the accumulated impact of the social media heuristic described over a period of years.

For a more extreme example, look at LinkedIn. Judging by the posts, one can easily be led to believe that all of one's connections are super-successful but utterly brainwashed corporate droids. It's a warped and misleading portrayal of human reality (for most of them, anyway—there are always those few that really do drink the Kool Aid that much). But it's naturally going to lead a lot of people to the anxiety: should I be as invested in my work as these amped-up salespeople? Am I working hard enough to promote my professional brand?

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#117
post #5

Facebook doesn't make me miserable because I feel like I'm having less fun and being less glamorous than the friends on my news feed—it makes me miserable because it's an addicting timewaster with minimal utility and I'd much rather be [reading a book, playing music, writing software, hanging out with friends IRL, working on a project, sleeping, watching TV…]

Facebooks your current fixation for your procrastination, but if it wasn't facebook, I'd venture to guess it would most likely be something else that is an addicting timewaster with minimal utility because that's the exactly the kind of thing we seek out when we want to get away from things we think are more important.

For you, facebook. For me -- videogames, particularly online competitive style. For someone else? Bingewatching brainless television on Netflix.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#118
post #5

Facebook doesn't make me miserable because I feel like I'm having less fun and being less glamorous than the friends on my news feed—it makes me miserable because it's an addicting timewaster with minimal utility and I'd much rather be [reading a book, playing music, writing software, hanging out with friends IRL, working on a project, sleeping, watching TV…]

But how much of this is really Facebook's fault? How wouldn't you before be, say, watching TV or listening to radio soaps in the pre-internet era instead of doing the "higher mind" things you list you'd rather be doing?

Next time you use Facebook, pay attention to how much time you spend scrolling past videos or images (including images for link previews). That time is partially Facebook's fault because (instead of just showing every post to every friend) they preferentially show images and videos. They also render short text posts with a larger font, optionally with a big gradient background. The actual information density of a Facebook feed is surprisingly low.

Re: Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable

#120
post #32

Perhaps we should take NYTimes advice a step further and stop letting them make us miserable either. There is nothing actionable in the news; next to no utility. News is simply a time sink that depress your spirit. Whenever I think of reading "legitimate" news like the NYTimes, I am reminded of this quote from a Soviet novel by Bulgakov. In it a doctor gives advice: If you care about your digestion, my advice is [sic…

I'm the same. I've cut the news out of my life and I feel much better. Ignorance is bliss.

Humans aren't designed to cope with the whole world's problems.

Post reply on HN