Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 182 posts

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#71

Post by jpfed »

gringoDan wrote: post #15

I sympathize with this perspective. I too would be livid and mortified if my family shared embarrassing photos of me in exchange for the quick dopamine hit that validation from acquaintances provides. I'm hopeful that in the next several years there is a pushback against social media and the idea that for an experience to be valid, it must be shared. There's something to be said for having an album of photos that you…

>There's something to be said for having an album of photos that you pull out a couple of times a year to show a select group of others.

My perhaps unreasonable hope for a Facebook killer is just a paid personal archive of your own photos, writings, etc. with the assumption of privacy by default.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#72

Post by ravenstine »

beamatronic wrote: post #24
ravenstine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons I left Facebook was the amount of web presence people give their young children. It's not that I don't think children are adorable. I'm talking about parents who have a baby and then spend every day posting photos about every event in the child's life. I know 3 people in my relatively small circle who have been posting on behalf of their children for years . Maybe I'm a freak, but I think there's s…

To your point about strangers: There are two basic ways to use social media: public to the world and friends only. I feel like the first is a non starter, do you feel the same about the second use-case?

Not necessarily. It'd be one thing if these "friends" were people the child might actually know in real life, and whom have a meaningful relationship to the parents.

The problem starts for me with the fact that most of the "friends" people have on sites like Facebook are not actual friends, but acquaintances they might not have seen or talked to again for years. Most of the my "friends" on Facebook have hundreds of "friends", sometimes thousands. For all intents and purposes, most of those people are strangers.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#73

Post by micael_dias »

foxhop wrote: post #62

Do we think this is maybe more of a mom trait than a dad trait? I know I have posted maybe a couple images of my children (2, 7, and 11) over the last 11 years. My wife on the other hand posts at least twice a day with images and quotes. I wonder if woman sort of use Facebook as a sort of "shared" baby book for their little cubs?

Twice a day? Don't want to be offensive but that seems very excessive. Even for people I know on Facebook that post regularly their kids' photos I think the maximum I see is once a week. I'm not from the US and don't follow that many people so that might be why.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#74

Post by meruru »

interfixus wrote: post #47
coldtea wrote: post #20

> When I saw the pictures that she had been posting on Facebook for years, I felt utterly embarrassed, and deeply betrayed. Well, that's because you're 13, the age when kids turn blase and embarrassed about being kids, and of the childish things they used to like. It's not like her mother did anything specially wrong, e.g. posting the letter to the tooth fairy, and so on. It's only embarrassing to her because she's 1…

I don't know this girl or these people, I'm quite a few generations older than 13, and it's embarrassing to me even reading about it. I hope - and believe - my own offspring would seriously cut me off if ever I did such a thing. At least that's the way I raised them.

If my parents did that I would definitely hate them forever.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#75

Post by gadders »

coldtea wrote: post #20

> When I saw the pictures that she had been posting on Facebook for years, I felt utterly embarrassed, and deeply betrayed. Well, that's because you're 13, the age when kids turn blase and embarrassed about being kids, and of the childish things they used to like. It's not like her mother did anything specially wrong, e.g. posting the letter to the tooth fairy, and so on. It's only embarrassing to her because she's 1…

I agree. This sounds more like an adolescent cringe than a position that will stand the test of time.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#76

Post by peterwwillis »

This is a pervasive problem, where 3rd parties unintentionally emotionally effect other people with their social media posts. I was going to relate a story about how this effects people in polyamorous relationships, but then I realized this effects literally everyone who cares about anything strongly. And the long memory of digital artifacts creates additional opportunities to mess with people down the road.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#77

Post by ianlevesque »

LeonM wrote: post #61
MattBearman wrote: post #6

My wife and I recently had our first child, and we decided we didn't want her to have any kind of social media presence until she was old enough to make that decision for herself. It's been a challenge ensuring friends and family don't post stuff about our daughter, but reading this reinforces that we're making the right choice.

I applaud you. My sister had a baby last year, and she's been posting and sharing photos and videos non-stop. Recently she asked me if I knew if hackers could break into baby monitor because she was worried some hacker may spy on her sleeping baby... I had a good laugh first, then I felt sad for her.

> I had a good laugh first, then I felt sad for her

It's an issue of consent. She's voluntarily sharing specific selected photos & videos with her social peers, a hacked baby monitor would be a violation. The glib dismissal here helps nobody.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#78

Post by cristiancavalli »

gabbygab wrote: post #42

She quits social media and writes a public article in traditional media so that people can talk even more about her? Is this her idea or the idea of her mother who probably is friends with someone working at fastcompany? I'd be interested to find out how a "random" 8th grader got to write an article for fastcompany and if she or her family has any ties with anyone at fastcompany or even Mehta, the editor. Also, could…

hn downvote dogma. Don’t disturb the precious group-think!

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#79

Post by fosco »

reminds me of the onion video [0] on this from a 6 year old.

this is really challenging, I do not not have social media [1] and have not since 2007/8 ish and yet I know that people still post things about me and sometimes forward me an email of a picture posted at an event, dinner, gathering. I really do not know the answer here, I look like the bad guy if I inform others I do not want myself on there so I lose and know no way around it. More and more I feel the only privacy that exists is between my ears.

[0] https://www.theonion.com/6-year-old-explains-how-messed-up-i...

[1] other than HN I suppose

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#80

Post by OatsAndHoney »

jpfed wrote: post #71
gringoDan wrote: post #15

I sympathize with this perspective. I too would be livid and mortified if my family shared embarrassing photos of me in exchange for the quick dopamine hit that validation from acquaintances provides. I'm hopeful that in the next several years there is a pushback against social media and the idea that for an experience to be valid, it must be shared. There's something to be said for having an album of photos that you…

>There's something to be said for having an album of photos that you pull out a couple of times a year to show a select group of others. My perhaps unreasonable hope for a Facebook killer is just a paid personal archive of your own photos, writings, etc. with the assumption of privacy by default.

Have you tried iCloud / iPhone? That's what I switched over to once I quit Facebook and Android. The iPhone is great, it's private by default, I can share photos / albums only with the people that I want, and I create different groups based off of different interests, trips, etc. All together with iMessage and Notes I get pretty much everything I had with a newsfeed / blog, all without the implications of Facebook and giving up all of my privacy.
Post reply on HN